I was wrong that he was critizing the way i said it and not what i said? — Wosret
Kudos to you for that; it's rare to find atheists around here with that mindset. — Noble Dust
Ok; kudos to you too then. — Noble Dust
It's a nice quote, but overquoted. It's actually a tautology. But I don't know, maybe that was his point. But I'm not saying that there's something to described that can't be described; there's something to be described that illudes proper description in the way that rational or analytic philosophy demands. If these rational demands are the demands you place on experience, then the concept of spirituality will illude you, let alone the experience of it. — Noble Dust
We do have that; I was affirming Barri's descriptions as something I share (that may not have been obvious). That doesn't mean we can define those shared experiences in the same way we define our experience of "when I hit my knee on the table, it hurts". — Noble Dust
That's my point about "living" words and "dead" dictionaries. I think it applies when we're trying to pin down an illusive concept like "spirituality". As Worset mentioned, the root of the word is "breathe"; another metaphor, or an original likeness? — Noble Dust
Fine, have you had a look at mine? — Noble Dust
Second, do you mean elude, as in evade, or illude, as in trick? Seeing as though you can't trick proper description, I'll assume you mean elude. It might not even be an important distinction. — Reformed Nihilist
So why are it that there are all sorts of other concepts, like the concepts of "properties" or "consciousness", slippery concepts, that people can have disagreements about the finer points of, but that can be succinctly defined in one or two sentences satisfactorily? Why would you propose that spirituality would be different? How is that not just special pleading? — Reformed Nihilist
How do you know that you share the experience? What specifically did he write that made you say "yup, that's the same thing for me"? — Reformed Nihilist
It's the feeling of being almost-at-home, but not quite, as if you're approaching some big discovery and part of the deal is that it's mysterious, and that once you finally arrive it'll all make sense, including why it had to be mysterious in the first place. — darthbarracuda
I understand how metaphors work, thanks. — Reformed Nihilist
I'm asking what's so dead about asking for someone to be succinct, and what's so alive about being vague and self-contradictory? — Reformed Nihilist
Spirituality: the inner life of the outer world of experience.
From that first post, I've argued that the definition is elusive, but I then (in that same post) proceeded to offer that definition regardless. You seem to be reading past all of this, or else I wasn't clear enough. — Noble Dust
The feeling of "almost-at-home" is an experience that I find myself having a lot, especially when writing music. I experienced it when I used to be a Christian (I have a lot of positive memories of that time as well as the negative). I've experienced it when reading other religious texts and philosophical texts, including atheist ones. I've experienced it in meditation (something I'm horrible at, but even still). I've experienced it in dreams, and, most poignantly of all, in the moments after waking up after a dreamless sleep. Laugh all you like, or analyze all you like. There's your answer. — Noble Dust
If you mean "what's so dead about asking for someone to be succinct, and what's so alive about words having elusive meanings", then I'll answer, but otherwise you're setting up an annoying strawman there. — Noble Dust
In what way do you mean "inner" and "outer"? Do you mean to make the distinction between subjective and objective, public and private, or material and immaterial? — Reformed Nihilist
What does being at home feel like in this metaphor? — Reformed Nihilist
I might, inversely describe them as feeling like being away from home, as they might take me out of a conscious awareness of myself and my thoughts and feelings (away from home because they are different from my baseline condition, "where I live"). — Reformed Nihilist
Perhaps you could try to describe why that metaphor was meaningful to you? Why you think that darthbarracuda was actually talking about the feeling you get when you do those things, and not an entirely different feeling that he/she gets. — Reformed Nihilist
I'm rejecting that characterization. Succinctness is good, and vagueness is bad when discussing concepts. — Reformed Nihilist
Perhaps it isn't the concept that is vague, but your use of it. — Reformed Nihilist
Can you actually make the distinction between an elusive concept and a poorly considered one (honest question)? I'm not sure I can tell the difference between my poorly considered concepts and objectively elusive concepts. — Reformed Nihilist
I submit that it could be that the term is a functional placeholder for it's religious precursor (of or pertaining to the spirit/soul or spirit world), and allows the user to hold onto elements of a religious worldview (mind/body dualism most obviously, but not exclusively) without making an intellectual commitment to them. — Reformed Nihilist
That's the long form version that you probably found frustrating...sorry. The best succinct version for now would be: Inner/outer, subject/object, public/private, are all dualistic expressions of a single reality that exists underneath everyday perception. I still struggle with even that concept though, because I still wrestle with whether I'm a dualist of any sort. — Noble Dust
Closer to that one reality I mentioned; closer to the truth. Closer to my own inner being, the "inner" seed that exists inside the husk of the disingenuous "outer" me. Closer to everything. All of this is apprehended through intuition, which is a spiritual faculty. — Noble Dust
Ok, but what I'm saying is succinctness often pinpoints concepts into a changeless state within which they don't actually exist. I like succinctness too, but in my view it only has temporal value; you can't pursue succinctness to the point of total, complete accuracy, because once you pinpoint the idea like an insect unto a board, the concept, like the insect, is dead. Now you can examine it and analyze it, but that work will only tell you about how the insect/concept functioned, past tense. — Noble Dust
Are you saying my ideas are vague? (honest question). Because I keep using the word "elusive", and you keep using the word "vague". — Noble Dust
I would suggest that the concept of spirituality isn't vague, but that most if not all attempts to describe it end in vagueness, and I don't have a problem with this. — Noble Dust
It also doesn't stop me from trying to be less vague when I talk about it. But I place my intuitive experience of this concept above my rational analysis of it, as I do elsewhere. — Noble Dust
Sure, it's hard to say. I try to think about all of these things as clearly as I'm able, but how do I know there's not an entirely other level of clearer thinking that I haven't yet or will never attain? I don't want to let this stop me from trying to think as clearly as I can about these concepts within my abilities. There's no use letting that possibility lead to inaction here. — Noble Dust
That sounds like mind/body dualism.The idea that your body isn't you (it's a husk), and that the "real" you is some sort of ephemeral being that is pulling all the levers of your meat machine body. — Reformed Nihilist
(and if they interact, why do we need the duality, why can't it all be just body?). — Reformed Nihilist
How about we use present tense and talk about what you mean right now when you're using it? — Reformed Nihilist
If you really want to change your definition in mid discussion (which would be a weird thing to do), just point it out an give me a new succinct definition. I don't know why there is such a fuss over this. — Reformed Nihilist
I'm not even sure what the property of "elusiveness" would mean in regards to a concept, excepting that eludes you, which also means you don't have a firm grasp on it. — Reformed Nihilist
So why are it that there are all sorts of other concepts, like the concepts of "properties" or "consciousness", slippery concepts, that people can have disagreements about the finer points of, — Reformed Nihilist
If not, by what mechanism is the concept of spirituality immune from clarity, yet everyone believes that they are talking about the exact same thing? — Reformed Nihilist
see in it whatever you need to, in order to maintain some aspect of your worldview or sense of self-identity? — Reformed Nihilist
What is the difference between intuitive experience and just regular experience, and why does it offer more insight than rational analysis? Is there any way to tell the difference between intuition and self-delusion? — Reformed Nihilist
If I am correct, you seem to be saying that the elusiveness is an actual property of the thing that is spirituality. I think I have that right, but correct me if I'm wrong. — Reformed Nihilist
Mine is that where people find concepts difficult to describe clearly or define, in every other case I can think of, the cause for this inability was 1) the speaker in question didn't have a clear grasp on the concept, and in sometimes this is because 2) the concept is intentionally ill defined. — Reformed Nihilist
So given those two possible explanations for the events of this discussion, I'm asking you to rationally appraise the merits of each hypothesis. Surely in most cases my first hypothesis is correct, right? Why is this situation different? — Reformed Nihilist
Because "just body" doesn't account for the existential reality of our experience; It doesn't account for ethics, morality, and the whole project of conscious human life in general. "Just body" shows how without showing why. — Noble Dust
And a counter question, if the two interact, why would it have to be just body in that case? — Noble Dust
Intuition is what injects anything with meaning, including the idea that "self-delusion" would be a bad thing (which you rightly insinuate here). — Noble Dust
But no, of course a self-deluded person would not know they were self-deluded. You're setting up a tautology that seems to insinuate that I'm self-deluded for having spiritual beliefs. If I were self-deluded about spirituality, I wouldn't know it, just as if you were self-deluded about your lack of belief in spirituality, you wouldn't know it. — Noble Dust
It's not immune to clarity; I said "most if not all descriptions" as a qualifier; I'm not ruling out the possibility of a clearer description, but I'm acknowledging that there's less clarity about the topic. Clarity about spirituality comes not from discursive definitions, or pinpointing things in a seemingly scientific manner; I think it can come from studying religions, practicing spiritual practices, looking for similarities between them (and differences). It's experiential, and not empirical, which I've been arguing all along. — Noble Dust
Again, you find no other concepts are difficult to describe clearly other than spirituality? Really? — Noble Dust
Elusiveness may be a property of our experience of spirituality; it seems so in general, but I'm not definitively labeling it a property. But it seems to be predictably so. — Noble Dust
But the sages and teachers of religions claim to have had clear pictures, and their claims gel with the mere glimpses that I've had. It's like watching a great pianist and realizing that that same greatness could be latent in my fingers too; my experience of playing the piano somewhat badly still gives me the glimpse of what it could be like to be the virtuoso. And I fervently believe that if I practiced piano as much as the virtuoso does, I would arrive at that same level. — Noble Dust
I already said I don't use rationality to appraise experience, at least not primarily. I don't play by the same rules that you do here. Can you make a case for why I have to play by your rules? — Noble Dust
1) assumes that all concepts can be firmly grasped. I disagree. The development of human thought constantly reevaluates concepts and assumptions; everything from science, to theoretical physics, to diet, to theological problems, to philosophical problems, to art theory. Everything is constantly in a state of change and development. Once a concept is grasped, it seems to change (i.e. my analogy of the insect). So the assumption you make in 1) is wrong; you would need to address that assumption. — Noble Dust
2) intentionally ill-defined as in to purposefully obfuscate meaning? Who does that in philosophical discussions? I suppose some people probably do. Are you saying religious people do that in order to hold on to their beliefs? — Noble Dust
To some extent it does. No theory perfectly accounts for all phenomena, but an "all body" approach is 100% consistent with all of these phenomena. — Reformed Nihilist
I'm asking you if you can clearly define the word "spirit" — Reformed Nihilist
You have to start inventing a mechanism by which the body and mind interact, — Reformed Nihilist
I just have to point out that there is a difference between a good explanation and a bad one, and it isn't just based on which one resonates with you. — Reformed Nihilist
Which hypothesis makes more sense? Or what is your hypothesis that accounts for all the evidence but includes mind/body dualism? — Reformed Nihilist
Ok, can we try a simple definition again, or is this another word that magically can't be defined? — Reformed Nihilist
I'm not setting up a tautology, I'm asking you if you have any means to discriminate intuitions from self-delusions. I don't. That's why I don't trust intuitions. — Reformed Nihilist
Do you think it is wise to hold a belief "fervently" that is both contrary to the evidence, and seems to only be based on your feeling that it is the case? Mightn't it make more sense to follow the conclusions that the evidence present us with? — Reformed Nihilist
So that I can make a distinction between self-delusion/illusion/personal bias, and good answers. — Reformed Nihilist
It doesn't assume that all concepts are fixed or simple, which is what you're actually arguing against by bringing up the fact that concepts change. That's a red herring. — Reformed Nihilist
It just assumes that it is possible to make a simple and succinct working definition for the purposes of a discussion, which it clearly is in many, if not all cases. This is just getting pedantic now. — Reformed Nihilist
Closer to the latter, — Reformed Nihilist
How do you know which answers are good? — Noble Dust
I know through intuition. — Noble Dust
If you rely on intuition above rationality, as you claim, then you are, by definition, being irrational. You are free to be irrational, but I cannot have a rational discussion with someone who is proudly irrational. I came here for a rational discussion. — Reformed Nihilist
The material world is calcified spirit. — Noble Dust
The one intelligible theory of the universe is that of objective idealism, that matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws. — C S Peirce
The one intelligible theory of the universe is that of objective idealism, that matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws. — C S Peirce
So whenever someone demands 'a reasoned argument' about any metaphysical question - what is the nature of mind/life/reality - ask, what do you mean by 'reason'? Scientific reason doesn't go 'all the way down'. — Wayfarer
I wonder how an analysis of how those problems have developed up until the present would fair, vs. this analysis from 1947. Has anything changed or developed, positively or negatively, since then? — Noble Dust
In popular Darwinism, reason is purely an organ; spirit or mind, a thing of nature. According to a current interpretation of Darwin, the struggle for life must necessarily, step by step, through natural selection, produce the reasonable out of the unreasonable. In other words, reason, while serving the function of dominating nature, is whittled down to being a part of nature; it is not an independent faculty but something organic, like tentacles or hands, developed through adaptation to natural conditions and surviving because it proves to be an adequate means of mastering them, especially in relation to acquiring food and averting danger. As a part of nature, reason is at the same time set against nature–the competitor and enemy of all life that is not its own.
The idea inherent in all idealistic metaphysics–that the world is in some sense a product of the mind–is thus turned into its opposite: the mind is a product of the world, of the processes of nature. Hence, according to popular Darwinism, nature does not need philosophy to speak for her: nature, a powerful and venerable deity, is ruler rather than ruled. Darwinism ultimately comes to the aid of rebellious nature in undermining any doctrine, theological or philosophical, that regards nature itself as expressing a truth that reason must try to recognize. The equating of reason with nature, by which reason is debased and raw nature exalted, is a typical fallacy of the era of rationalization. Instrumentalized subjective reason either eulogizes nature as pure vitality or disparages it as brute force, instead of treating it as a text to be interpreted by philosophy that, if rightly read, will unfold a tale of infinite suffering. Without committing the fallacy of equating nature and reason, mankind must try to reconcile the two.
In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature–even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man–frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity. The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy.
[Dennett] thinks that an inquiry into belief is made superfluous by an inquiry into the belief in belief. This is a very revealing mistake. You cannot disprove a belief unless you disprove its content. If you believe that you can disprove it any other way, by describing its origins or by describing its consequences, then you do not believe in reason. In this profound sense, Dennett does not believe in reason. He will be outraged to hear this, since he regards himself as a giant of rationalism. But the reason he imputes to the human creatures depicted in his book is merely a creaturely reason. Dennett's natural history does not deny reason, it animalizes reason. It portrays reason in service to natural selection, and as a product of natural selection. But if reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else. (In this respect, rationalism is closer to mysticism than it is to materialism.) Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it.
feeling of belonging in the world or serving a higher purpose — darthbarracuda
He was very interested in religion although a non-believer. — mcdoodle
In September 1914, Wittgenstein, off duty [from service in WW1], visited the town of Tarnow, then in Austrian Galicia, now in southern Poland, where he went into a small shop that seemed to sell nothing but picture postcards. However, as Bertrand Russell later wrote in a letter, Wittgenstein “found that it contained just one book: [of] Tolstoy on the Gospels. He bought it merely because there was no other. He read it and re-read it, and thenceforth had it always with him, under fire and at all times.” No wonder, then, that Wittgenstein became known to his fellow soldiers as ‘the one with the Gospels’. Tolstoy’s book, however, is a single Gospel: hence its name: The Gospel in Brief. It is, as Tolstoy himself says in his Preface, “a fusion of the four Gospels into one.” Tolstoy had distilled the four biblical accounts of Christ’s life and teaching into a compelling story. Wittgenstein was so profoundly moved by it that he doubted whether the actual Gospels could possibly be better than Tolstoy’s synthesis. “If you are not acquainted with it,” he told his friend Ludwig von Ficker, “then you cannot imagine what effect it can have on a person.” It implanted a Christian faith in Wittgenstein. Before going on night-duty at the observation post, he wrote: “Perhaps the nearness of death will bring me the light of life. May God enlighten me. Through God I will become a man. God be with me. Amen.”
....
...when Wittgenstein risked his life in battle day after day, he found solace in Tolstoy’s version of the Gospels: hence his prayer ‘May God enlighten me’. By 1916 his experience of war had made him a different man to the one whom Russell had met in 1911.
The scope of the Tractatus, too, had broadened: it was no longer just about the possibility of language being logically and pictorially connected to the world. Wittgenstein had begun to feel that logic and what he strangely called ‘mysticism’ sprang from the same root. This explains the second big idea in the Tractatus – which the logical positivists ignored: the thought of there being an unutterable kind of truth that ‘makes itself manifest’.
Yes, I was trying to get at that in response to ↪Reformed Nihilist, but maybe I didn't frame it quite so succinctly. The history of rationality in general is something I'm interested in studying more. — Noble Dust
your intuition, your feeling that you are correct, — Reformed Nihilist
I'd invite you to imagine in you're mind's eye for a moment, what the world would look like if everyone adopted this approach to knowing things. 1+1=5 because I intuit that it does. Your money is actually my money because my intuition tells me so. — Reformed Nihilist
Basically just any sort of feeling of belonging in the world or serving a higher purpose that is not immediately concrete and accessible but rather overarching and "cosmic", something that permeates everything and anything. That there is some "other" order to the universe that makes it all "make sense", justifies injustices and to which the aesthetic provides access to.
It's the feeling of being almost-at-home, but not quite, as if you're approaching some big discovery and part of the deal is that it's mysterious, and that once you finally arrive it'll all make sense, including why it had to be mysterious in the first place. Most likely this understanding would seem to reside after death, in some other realm or mode of existence, and which the journey to is life.
I'd say it's a deep, primordial desire to belong and see what it "all" is about, how everything hangs together, to comprehend the necessity of every thing that exists and grasp some grand, metaphysical mosaic of meaning. It's natural and inevitable but I think it's also commonly formed from desperation. It's not just a desire but a need, a demand, that the universe be welcoming and recognize the person. Or at least "open up" to their questions.
So basically it's a feeling that one might be finally getting some answers to the questions that have haunted and plagued humanity since it first started philosophizing. — darthbarracuda
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