You could explain what it would mean for something to be non-analysable, and how that would be distinct from it being poorly analysed or nonsensical. — Reformed Nihilist

I'll try that. Typically, some philosophers say that truth is un-analysable. The way I understand this is that of any theory of truth that one might come up with, it can be questioned whether or not it is true. And for it to be true according to itself as a criterion of truth is circular and so inadequate. And this is the case for any conceivable theory of truth, so there is no question of replacing a poor analysis with a better one in this regard, and we hope at least, that there is no question that truth is nonsensical.

So whether you agree with this or not, it indicates a general form of radical necessary circularity that frustrates the attempt at analysis. This is what my needlessly complex framing was intended to demonstrate about your

Wouldn't you want to change it to whatever you preferred, and then leave it that way

where the circularity is hidden by referring to 'you' and 'it' as though they are different, while at the same time demanding that they not be different.

My position is that this radical circularity applies to any analysis of the analyser, that is to say to all psychology, and to all analysis of interiority and consciousness. This is not an appeal to irrationality, to nonsense, or to despair. It is simply to say that the understanding of the psyche must proceed otherwise than the understanding of the world at large.

It seems to me that you have concluded that because people can tie themselves up into knots of logic, that they necessarily must tie themselves up into knots of logic.

The truth isn't un-analysable. If we say that the truth is the condition of a statement, then there's nothing wrong with that statement also being true. any more than it would be wrong for a tshirt with writing on it to say "this tshirt has writing on it". There's nothing wrong with circularity in logic, because that's all logic does. All logic is circular. It tests the coherence of statements against other statements. It doesn't add anything.

So whether you agree with this or not, it indicates a general form of radical necessary circularity that frustrates the attempt at analysis. This is what my needlessly complex framing was intended to demonstrate about your
Wouldn't you want to change it to whatever you preferred, and then leave it that way
where the circularity is hidden by referring to 'you' and 'it' as though they are different, while at the same time demanding that they not be different. — unenlightened

No, that's not the case. You've demonstrated that logic is circular, not anything about what the motive would be for someone to constantly want to make dramatic life altering changes, or really more to the point, how the practices you talked about aren't actually supposed to be practices that lead to singular life altering experiences, but actually generally are expected to offer more gentle, gradual, iterative change. Moreover, you've failed to show how that is necessary the case with spirituality, instead of say, subjectivity.

My position is that this radical circularity applies to any analysis of the analyser, that is to say to all psychology, and to all analysis of interiority and consciousness. This is not an appeal to irrationality, to nonsense, or to despair. It is simply to say that the understanding of the psyche must proceed otherwise than the understanding of the world at large. — unenlightened

You made a big leap there. Even if I accepted that theories of truth are un-analyzable, (which I don't, because, among other things, you clearly are offering an analysis of theories of truth in your first paragraph), then how do you then get from there to "the understanding of the psyche must proceed otherwise than the understanding of the world at large". It is also demonstrably false that psychology isn't analyzable, as evidenced by the fact that there are libraries full of books analyzing it, as well as a field of endeavor called psychoanalysis, which putatively analyzes personal experience.

To summarize:

Both you and I have made an analysis of the circularity of logic, as it applies too truth. That demonstrates that circularity doesn't preclude analysis.

You claim some similar circularity when speaking about people, or their personal experiences. I don't see that circularity, so I can't intelligently respond beyond saying... It doesn't matter. Circularity doesn't preclude analysis. I would ask you to think about what you think analysis is. It's just looking at something closely and carefully, with an eye to gaining a better understanding. Like I say, the only thing that I can imagine would be immune to that would be nonsense, as nonsense, having no sensible content, is immune to a better understanding, no matter how hard you look at it.

If I'm wrong, point out what I missed, and we can clarify or dig deeper.

However, I want to consider consider a few things about our discussion, if you don't mind. Anyone who's had a discussion like this before has to come to one of a few ways to see this sort of conversation.

1) Rarely a person has their mind changed on the spot. Usually, it was about a belief they held "lightly". It is almost unheard of for someone to change their view on anything that is important to them, and to which they associate with their sense of identity, over the course of a discussion.

2) The other guy is outright wrong. They keep strawmanning your position, being willfully ignorant, changing the subject, making fallacious points.

3) Agree to disagree. This is mainly a way to let pressure off of the tension caused by the social urge to agree pitted against the urge to protect your views (especially concerning your identity) and to stand up for what seems to be true. It has the benefit of maintaining a nice social and emotional keel, but it leaves a question, and one that might be important, open. If your way of seeing it is really better, or is more true, then you are doing a disfavor to your interlocutor by not allowing them to see things in the right light.

I really feel that these describe pretty much all of the outcomes of these types of discussions. Is that your experience too?

People, including myself, find #2 really easy to slip into, and I have done so in this thread with other posters. I commend you for discussing in a way that has helped us both (it think) avoid getting there. I don't know if one of us is going to get to #1. AFAICS, that's sort of the El Dorado of rational discourse. A legend that is always searched for but never attained. Someone changing their mind mid-conversation about something they think is central to how they see themselves. So with that in mind, I have two thoughts. First, if either of us has to pull the plug and make it a #3, that's fair game, and I think we should just say so. Second, and I hope this doesn't become the case, I'll apologize in advance if I get into #2. I'm human, and even though my intent is to stay fair minded and even tempered, I have, more or less, the same psychology as everyone else, which leads the internet to be a very angry place. Lastly, I'd like to shoot for #1. One of us changes the way the other thinks about things. You down with that?

Having said that, using terminology like "spirutuality" has connotations, and historically those connotations include a "something else" that is not just different than the body, but different from everything we know, and the reason we even seem to have this conception is that we never used to know just how much the brain/body did in terms of our perceptions and sense of self. Have a look at some of the links in my earlier discussion in this thread, if you haven't. It is very compelling stuff regarding the brain being the source of stuff that used to cause philosophers of the mind all kinds of problems. — Reformed Nihilist

Here I don't agree with your argument, 'the reason we even seem to have this conception...' You're placing yourself in the Dennett/Dawkins argument here, that you the scientific sympathiser somehow know better about the origins of spiritual feelings - or 'conceptions' - than people who believe in the spiritual; and that spiritual knowing is in some way in competition with scientific knowing, so then as scientific knowing becomes supposedly more 'successful', so spiritual knowing should accept its comparative failure.

I just don't accept this at all. I don't claim, for a start, to have an understanding about how we have the conception of the spiritual, and I don't know how you justify your claim. And I don't think spirituality is some sort of competitor with neuroscience. If you take Kant, for instance, or at least one modern strand of views about Kant and religion, we can have knowledge, opinion and faith: the first two on the kantian model are empirical; the third is not, but is the sort of thing where we can make justified assertions. You can wholeheartedly commit to science as a naturalistic method, that is, and at the same time have justified religious or spiritual beliefs. In the terms of a former poster here, Landru, these are different discourses, where different rules apply.

That's all I'm stuck with, as my outlook. Science for me has much narrower limits than it does for you; I follow it pretty closely and am much more sceptical than you about how much it understands of what we do and perceive. And for me, while I'm an atheist with a strong interest in contemporary science, I feel there are other ways of talking about ourselves and the world we're in - aesthetic, ethical and spiritual - which aren't beholden to the scientific way of talking, and carry equal weight with me.

Even if I accepted that theories of truth are un-analyzable, (which I don't, because, among other things, you clearly are offering an analysis of theories of truth in your first paragraph), then how do you then get from there to "the understanding of the psyche must proceed otherwise than the understanding of the world at large". — Reformed Nihilist

The contention is that truth is unanalysable, not that theories of truth are unanalysable, which I am glad you reject, as I have indeed just presented an analysis of theories of truth that I claim shows that they cannot be valid analyses.

The truth isn't un-analysable. If we say that the truth is the condition of a statement, then there's nothing wrong with that statement also being true. — Reformed Nihilist

That is not an analysis. Here's where I scratch my head in wonder a bit. This is not some crap I made up off the top of my head to bamboozle you. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WqROAAAAIAAJ&lpg=PA254&ots=dDDWIDeVMK&dq=truth%20unanalysable%20Davidson&pg=PA254#v=onepage&q=truth%20unanalysable%20Davidson&f=false

I really feel that these describe pretty much all of the outcomes of these types of discussions. Is that your experience too? — Reformed Nihilist

Hmm. I don't really think of outcomes as having much importance. Or if I do, I am far more self-centered about them. So my outcomes, taken to mean points of departure, end of posting, or end of responding to a particular poster, are more like this:

A. I get bored, because I'm not learning anything any more.
B. I get lost, probably because I haven't worked out my ideas well enough.
C. I've said everything I have to say, as clearly as I can.

What the other chap does with his thoughts is not a great concern, though there is I suppose an ideal scenario where there is a coming together - a meeting of minds.

But variations on a theme of your 2. feed my A. And also yes to the rarity of 1. I think I have changed my mind a couple of times, and folks have let me know they have changed theirs maybe 3 times ... in God knows, about twelve years of posting?

So my first impulse in this thread was rather close to yours, that there is not much to spirituality of the non-religious sort, other than a self-indulgent sentimentality with a bit of unacknowledged magical thinking thrown in. But then I wondered whether there was at least a possible sense in which one could be seriously spiritual without having to join a club of believers. So I've been exploring, and trying to make room for something and so arrived at 'the un-analysable'. You should have picked me up on mentioning psycho-analysis as a spiritual practice, but I guess you don't give it enough credence in the first place. So here we are, and I'm not yet bored, not completely lost, and haven't said everything I can think of. So lay on, MacDuff...

I'm suggesting that the way that the word is commonly used today, in the "I'm spiritual, but not religious" sort of way, ends up not being as distinct and separate from religion as the utterer is intending. I'm saying that it's analogous to saying "he's not fat, he's full bodied". When you dig into the claim, you find that it's essentially the same thing, just without a connotation that the speaker doesn't like. So although I have them, my point here isn't to make judgments about the value of engaging in spirituality or religion, but just to clarify what, or even if, there is a meaningful distinction between the traditional, religious use of "spiritual" and the more modern, ostensibly secular meaning. — Reformed Nihilist

The essential distinction is between following and finding your own way, I believe.

This is a meaningful distinction because a major issue with religion is in its power to influence, and unfortunately power seems to corrupt pretty reliably.

A critique of finding your own way might be that doesn't have the power to unite people in common values and purpose.

I'm suggesting that the way that the word is commonly used today, in the "I'm spiritual, but not religious" sort of way, ends up not being as distinct and separate from religion as the utterer is intending. I'm saying that it's analogous to saying "he's not fat, he's full bodied". When you dig into the claim, you find that it's essentially the same thing, just without a connotation that the speaker doesn't like. So although I have them, my point here isn't to make judgments about the value of engaging in spirituality or religion, but just to clarify what, or even if, there is a meaningful distinction between the traditional, religious use of "spiritual" and the more modern, ostensibly secular meaning. I hope that clarifies, because the quoted post seems to characterize me as grinding an axe or intentionally blindfolding myself to an area of inquiry. — Reformed Nihilist

Well, I think you are, although I wouldn't phrase it in such obviously pejorative terms.

What is the motivation behind those who are 'spiritual but not religious'? As one who could fairly be characterised in those terms, I think I can answer that: to seek spiritual truth is an individual quest, it is an attempt to discover for oneself a truth or a principle that you can live by, that aligns you with a greater truth. It overlaps with 'being religious' but the latter is more often concerned with the regulative functions of community, liturgy and the instilling the normative attitudes and behaviours that are associated with a religious orthodoxy or correct belief. It's sometimes not a very clear-cut distinction (insofar as an individual might have characteristics of both) but I think it's a valid one.

But what I think your posts convey is that you're cautiously open-minded towards the possibility of there being 'spiritual truths' but that in effect they are so hard to distinguish from religious dogmas that you can't accept them on those grounds.

(Y)

Here I don't agree with your argument, 'the reason we even seem to have this conception...' You're placing yourself in the Dennett/Dawkins argument here, that you the scientific sympathiser somehow know better about the origins of spiritual feelings - or 'conceptions' - than people who believe in the spiritual; and that spiritual knowing is in some way in competition with scientific knowing, so then as scientific knowing becomes supposedly more 'successful', so spiritual knowing should accept its comparative failure. — mcdoodle

You've misunderstood me here. I'm telling you how I see the history of the idea, and within that history, what makes sense to me about how the term is now used. I'm not saying I know better, I'm just saying what makes sense to me, and trying to explain why. That's what we're doing here, right?

As for the rest, I don't know how to respond. I'm not really talking about the primacy of science, I'm just saying that there is way more evidence regarding how things like identity, personality and perception work than there was in the past, and some of it accounts for things that were previously accounted for by what was called a soul or spirit. So I don't know if you're saying the evidence is wrong, or that there's something else that takes precedence over the evidence or that there is a different way of looking at the evidence.

Although I have problems with Davidson's conception of truth as it is described in that book, I'll capitulate that there are proposed models that have the truth as something unanalyzable. I suppose it would also be similar to Kant's Noumena. Either way, the logical qualities of the category exclude analysis. I'm not deeply versed in Davidson, but I assume that there are putatively good reasons proposed for conceiving of the truth in such a way that it is unanalysable. Are there similarly good reasons for conceiving of spirituality this way? If so, please elaborate.

The next hurdle is that to conceive of spirituality as unanalysable, we seem to have slipped back into a more general conception, where it roughly means "subjective", right? The fact that it's life altering doesn't make it unanalysable? Just that it's subjective or self-reflective, or something along those lines? I still don't follow how we get from "something can be unanalysable" to "spirituality is unanalysable".

Regarding psychoanalysis, I actually typed something out to that effect, and deleted it before I posted. I thought it was just a little on the rhetorical nose. X-)

The essential distinction is between following and finding your own way, I believe.

This is a meaningful distinction because a major issue with religion is in its power to influence, and unfortunately power seems to corrupt pretty reliably.

A critique of finding your own way might be that doesn't have the power to unite people in common values and purpose. — praxis

Ok, so I would formulate the traditional use of the term as meaning "of or relating to the spirit". How would you translate your proposed new meaning? Are you sure you aren't just making a commentary on people who claim to be spiritual but not religious (Because I agree that would be an accurate description of them).

Are you sure you aren't just making a commentary on people who claim to be spiritual but not religious (Because I agree that would be an accurate description of them). — Reformed Nihilist

I'm sure that I'm just commenting on that, yes.

I'm not questioning the motivations of those who think about themselves in those terms. I was one once, as were most of my friends and a great number of people I knew casually. I'm questioning the distinction, not between someone who calls themselves spiritual and someone who calls themselves religious, but rather if there is a difference between the religious conception of spirituality and the secular one.

But what I think your posts convey is that you're cautiously open-minded towards the possibility of there being 'spiritual truths' but that in effect they are so hard to distinguish from religious dogmas that you can't accept them on those grounds. — Wayfarer

Well, to be transparent, everything I believe is provisional, but I currently have a high degree of confidence in my judgement concerning the value of spiritualism (at least as I conceive it) as something I am personally interested in engaging in, nor do I suspect I will find value in considering something as a "spiritual truth". I find truth without any categoricals works for me. That shouldn't matter though, as I'm not so much trying to determine the value of spiritualism as a practice, but more probing the coherence of the idea when separated from religious presuppositions.

I'm sure that I'm just commenting on that, yes. — praxis

Then we agree.

I find truth without any categoricals works for me. That shouldn't matter though, as I'm not so much trying to determine the value of spiritualism as a practice, but more probing the coherence of the idea when separated from religious presuppositions. — Reformed Nihilist

The word 'spiritualism' always reminds me of Victorian psychic research - seances and spirit mediums. In any case, the kinds of ideas that are encountered in typical 'spiritual but not religious' literature, are not usually explained in terms of 'spiritualism'. Actually, a wikipedia entry that is nearer the mark is that on higher consciousness. What's good about it is that it makes reference to such ideas in German idealism and other philosophical sources. And I think the terminology sorrounding 'higher consciousness' is more contemporary than the vocabulary of 'spiritualism'.

A second point is that to differentiate the spiritual from the religious is a question of metaphysics. I think it is quite possible to articulate a non-religious account of metaphysics - arguably Schopenhauer comes to mind. Another less mainstream example would be Swedenborg. But in another sense, there is a considerable history of 'non-religious metaphysics', in some sense, in Western philosophy, generally, if you were to include Platonism and neo-platonism. Can the ideas found in those traditions be 'separated from religious pre-suppositions'? Surely the answer will be - depends on what you mean by religious. At which point, I think we have gone around in a circle.

Actually, a wikipedia entry that is nearer the mark is that on higher consciousness. — Wayfarer

I'm more talking about Contemporary spirituality and Modern spirituality. Under either or both of which Higher consciousness may or may not fall.

I find it interesting that both parts of the entry refer to "spiritual but not religious", and that under the heading of contemporary spirituality reads the following:

It embraces the idea of an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality — Wikipedia

(and that's a line with a citation).

So I'll just restate in that context that there seems to be an attempt to talk about something that is separate and distinct from religion, while still including all the foundational suppositions of religion.

Are there similarly good reasons for conceiving of spirituality this way? If so, please elaborate. — Reformed Nihilist

I need to take a couple of steps back. Excuse the laziness of quoting myself at length.

So, a bit of meta- psychological pontification.
Folks have always had, and continue to have, a folk psychology, otherwise known as a 'theory of mind'. Such theories are culturally informed by religion, philosophy romantic tradition, notions of gender identity and so on. My psychological theory affects how I experience others and how I behave with them. I treat you all so badly because my theory of mind tells me you are are all as horrible and pathetic as I am, however well you hide it.

Now even without the benefit of a university course, everyone here has a notion of what Freudian is what behaviourism is and so on. It may be vague, but it enters the psyche along with all that advertising and propaganda some to be dismissed, and some absorbed. So it is not to be wondered at that the techniques of the shrinks not only enter into the schemes of advertisers and politicians but also into the interactions of philosophers in discussion forums. I started with an advert, because it is paradigmatic, but it is only a simplistic and transparent example of what has become a way of life, a pervasive form of our culture.

There is a knot here; put very simply the theory of psyche is part of the psyche. It is as if the fundamental particles of physics changed their properties according to which laws of physics they decided to adopt. Psychologists have changed the way we think, the way we see, our whole culture, and in doing so, they give rise to a new psyche which needs a new theory. Fashion in psychology mirrors the fashion of youth that always has to be different to that of the previous generation. Today one talks of neural plasticity, and it is neural plasticity that makes this talk possible. — unenlightened

There's a bit more elaboration further on in the thread, too, but the gist of it is here; that the scientific, analytical, cumulative theorising that works so spectacularly well when it comes to understanding and manipulating the physical world is useless and destructive when applied to the inner world.

I also develop the theme in a follow-up thread about education if you're interested.

All of which is by way of clearing a space for another way of understanding what you seem to want me to call 'subjectivity'. Now it occurs to me that subjectivity, consciousness, personal identity, psyche, all these terms seem to point to something that is not material, and whether or not one wants to claim that it must reduce to, arise from, or supervene over, the material, there is nothing linguistically objectionable about calling it 'spiritual' by way of distinguishing it from 'material'.

So to put it in one rather opaque sentence. Spirituality is un-analysable because the analysis is part of the analyser and the analyser is what is to be analysed; the whole thing is an attempt to lift oneself up by the bootstraps.

I feel like you're trying to go for a "the eye cannot see itself" idea here, but if the thing (or one of the things) that the psyche does is makes conceptual models, then why can't it make one of itself? I'm still missing a step or two here.

And also still fuzzy on how the psyche relates to the previously described spirituality. Does the other thread give insight into that? I haven't had time to dig into that yet.

Edit: I feel like you've just taken a paradigm and applied it to another subject, without any reason to do so. Why would it be different than saying "the painter can't paint themselves"? Even the notion that the eye can't see itself seems to willfully ignore the existence of mirrors.

I'll just restate in that context that there seems to be an attempt to talk about something that is separate and distinct from religion, while still including all the foundational suppositions of religion. — Reformed Nihilist

Which simply reaffirms the point that I was making - that your reason for rejecting 'spirituality' is that it is too near religion.

Regarding the quotation 'alleged immaterial reality' - this could be understood as 'the attempt to depict something which is exceedingly hard to perceive, by those who don't perceive it, and therefore doubt it's reality.'

Even the notion that the eye can't see itself seems to willfully ignore the existence of mirrors. — Reformed Nihilist

The hand cannot grasp itself, but it can grasp another hand. The eye cannot see itself, but it can see another eye. It implies that 'the act of grasping' and 'the act of seeing' relies on a relationship of 'otherness' - the eye can see, and the hand grasp, something other to itself, whether that is a hand or an eye. But it can't see itself or grasp itself. This is an analogy for what is required in understanding the nature of being, as being (and incidentally, we are called 'beings') is never an object of perception. This is from the Upanisads, the canonical reference is here.

actually, casting about for ideas as to who might best represent the idea of 'spiritual but not religious', the figure that springs to mind is that of Krishnamurti. He wrote about and described his [apparent] experiences of a higher intelligence all of his life but steadfastly refused to be categorised with any religion and was consistently critical of religion, rituals and gurus.

Another figure that comes to mind is Einstein. He was scathingly critical of religion, which he referred to as childish, but nevertheless has a kind of mystical streak which came through in a lot of his autobiographical and reflective writings later in life.

Another would be Jung, who was never a member of any religious congregation but whose writings have many spiritual connotations.

I feel like you're trying to go for a "the eye cannot see itself" idea here, but if the thing (or one of the things) that the psyche does is makes conceptual models, then why can't it make one of itself? I'm still missing a step or two here.

And also still fuzzy on how the psyche relates to the previously described spirituality. Does the other thread give insight into that? I haven't had time to dig into that yet. — Reformed Nihilist

Yes indeed, inevitably one models others and one models oneself, and understands relations in terms of those models. That is not in question, but the status of these models. So you and I have a concept of a person as a mental model-maker and self and other conceptualiser.

Just as Davidson says that truth is un-analysable, but still seems to have a theory of truth, and Moore says that good is un-analysable but still has a lot to say about ethics. These are concepts that we cannot manage without, and that are meaningful, but that cannot be decomposed into more simple concepts. As if they are the fundamental particles of thought, that the harder one tries to tie them down with neat definitions, the more fuzzy they become.

Perhaps that is where I'm finding the discussion particularly difficult, that you want me to dispel the fuzziness, and I cannot. The eye can see an image of the eye, we know we have eyes and see things, but the more one analyses vision, into wavelengths of reflected light, light-sensitive cells, electrical impulses, and computation, the more one loses any understanding that we see the world at all; either there must be a homunculus watching a screen in our heads, or there is just a buzzing of brain cells with nobody there at all. In this case it is clear that vision emerges from all this brain-science and optics, but isn't there at all in the constituents, so the analysis inevitably misses its target, which does not mean that it isn't valuable to understand the components, but does mean that one cannot resolve vision into direct, or indirect realism or idealism, or irrealism, at least, not by analysis.

Which simply reaffirms the point that I was making - that your reason for rejecting 'spirituality' is that it is too near religion. — Wayfarer

I have different reasons for rejecting spirituality, but they are not relevant to this discussion. I think you're jumping to conclusions regarding my motives with very little evidence. Do you mind if we park the question of my motivations for another time?

Regarding the quotation 'alleged immaterial reality' - this could be understood as 'the attempt to depict something which is exceedingly hard to perceive, by those who don't perceive it, and therefore doubt it's reality.' — Wayfarer

I have no idea how you go from here to there. The first is a metaphysical model, the second is a commentary about perception and belief. I don't see how one could be understood as the other. It may be true that because if a difficulty on accurate perception, people believe a specific, and mistaken, metaphysical model, but that doesn't make one thing the other.

Perhaps that is where I'm finding the discussion particularly difficult, that you want me to dispel the fuzziness, and I cannot. The eye can see an image of the eye, we know we have eyes and see things, but the more one analyses vision, into wavelengths of reflected light, light-sensitive cells, electrical impulses, and computation, the more one loses any understanding that we see the world at all; either there must be a homunculus watching a screen in our heads, or there is just a buzzing of brain cells with nobody there at all. In this case it is clear that vision emerges from all this brain-science and optics, but isn't there at all in the constituents, so the analysis inevitably misses its target, which does not mean that it isn't valuable to understand the components, but does mean that one cannot resolve vision into direct, or indirect realism or idealism, or irrealism, at least, not by analysis. — unenlightened

We do have a choice how we frame this, and what conceptual models we accept or reject, right? Wouldn't we want to reject the ones that are fuzzy and accept the ones more clear? Unless the fuzzy one offers something we can't get from the clearer one. Do you think it does? I don't see it.

There is no objectively right way to frame something, but there are ways that can pretty universally be considered better or worse, right? You don't use QM to build a bridge, and you don't make a Higgs boson with classical physics. You frame the conception to fit the job. I just don't see what job is best suited to the framing you're proposing.

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You frame the conception to fit the job. I just don't see what job is best suited to the framing you're proposing. — Reformed Nihilist

Education, social cohesion, politics, personal relations. We turn the analytical gaze onto the material, and we come up with all this amazing stuff, transport, communication devices, new etc etc. We turn it on ourselves and we come up with what? Increasing mental illness increasing stress and unhappiness, poorer education, less stable societies, more isolation. And these latter are all fuzzy things to the extent that they can be denied, so I won't be trying to convince you if you see things differently. But I see it so - I see a crisis of developing material control, and loss of personal control, and the proliferation of self-help coaching counselling therapeutic nonsense is symptomatic of the same depersonalising scientistic view with added advertising woo. If the job is machines, precision and no fluff; if the job is people, something very different is required.

Education, social cohesion, politics, personal relations. We turn the analytical gaze onto the material, and we come up with all this amazing stuff, transport, communication devices, new etc etc. We turn it on ourselves and we come up with what? Increasing mental illness increasing stress and unhappiness, poorer education, less stable societies, more isolation. And these latter are all fuzzy things to the extent that they can be denied, so I won't be trying to convince you if you see things differently. — unenlightened

Well, a person could make a standard by which to judge these things, and then measure reality against that standard. Then things wouldn't be so fuzzy. What does a good education constitute of? Make a list, match that against both current education and past education, and you have a very unfuzzy answer to whether education is poorer or not.

But I see it so - I see a crisis of developing material control, and loss of personal control, and the proliferation of self-help coaching counselling therapeutic nonsense is symptomatic of the same depersonalising scientistic view with added advertising woo. If the job is machines, precision and no fluff; if the job is people, something very different is required. — unenlightened

I never understood this implied dichotomy. We don't write novels or woo mates with scientific method, but we still write novels and woo mates. I honestly think this is just a romanticizing of days gone by, when we didn't have cold science and cold machines sucking our souls. The fact is that people have felt despair since we have records of people talking about such things. What makes you think that this is specifically is the result of a materialist worldview?

...there is way more evidence regarding how things like identity, personality and perception work than there was in the past, and some of it accounts for things that were previously accounted for by what was called a soul or spirit. So I don't know if you're saying the evidence is wrong, or that there's something else that takes precedence over the evidence or that there is a different way of looking at the evidence. — Reformed Nihilist

I can't say I share this view. In my 68 years of life there've been tremendous strides in some areas, including biochemistry for instance that's keeping me alive, with stents and angioplasty and beta-blockers; brilliant electronic toys and the Internet without which we wouldn't be having this debate; and so on.

I don't see modern advances in work on 'identity' and 'personality', though. What sort of thing do you mean? Could you be specific? I would tend to cite the arts - painting, sculpture, drama, novels and poetry - as influencing how I feel about identity and personality, which is not exactly 'evidence' in the way you're speaking of it. That's why I lean towards spirituality as having something to say to me, because the aesthetic has something to say to me, and for me to express through it, and the realms of understanding seem to be akin. Daniel Kahneman, for instance, has keen insights into how we think, but there aren't many of him per generation, compared to the insightful creative writers, and he does come to a sort of limit in his puzzlement over why we are the way we are. (But I've been a fiction writer, perhaps that's just my bias, I don't know)

What makes you think that this is specifically is the result of a materialist worldview? — Reformed Nihilist

Like I said, I'm not going to lay out a load of evidence. It's a point of view, and I'm not the only one that has it. But we do more and more woo mates with the scientific method, perhaps you've been out of the market for a while.

I don't see modern advances in work on 'identity' and 'personality', though. What sort of thing do you mean? Could you be specific? — mcdoodle

Here are four things, commonly associated with the spirit or soul, that I listed earlier in this thread:

Our sense of locality inside or outside of our body

The mediator between our perceptions and our beliefs

The mediator between the world and our memories.

and the host of our better angels

The case for personality is easy to make. People have traumatic brain injuries and their personalities change. Which part of the brain is predictive of what sort of personality change will occur. That's something that happens, and makes a pretty strong case for the brain being the sole seat of personality.

The other three links are elements of our sense of identity. The fact that "we" create memories, feel as though "we" are "within" (or outside of) our bodies, and that "we" have perceptions. The reason I use quotations around "we" is to highlight that each of these things feel like they are separate from the the physical processes, so we intuit or postulate that there is an essential element of ourselves that these things are happening to. When we look at the process, we can now understand the processes without having to postulate a separate "we".

I would tend to cite the arts - painting, sculpture, drama, novels and poetry - as influencing how I feel about identity and personality, which is not exactly 'evidence' in the way you're speaking of it. That's why I lean towards spirituality as having something to say to me, because the aesthetic has something to say to me, and for me to express through it, and the realms of understanding seem to be akin. Daniel Kahneman, for instance, has keen insights into how we think, but there aren't many of him per generation, compared to the insightful creative writers, and he does come to a sort of limit in his puzzlement over why we are the way we are. (But I've been a fiction writer, perhaps that's just my bias, I don't know) — mcdoodle

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Here's what I'm getting out of this: You enjoy art. You enjoy spirituality (whatever that means to you), and you anjoy the work of Daniel Kahneman. You see value in all of these things. If that's what you're saying, then good on you. I just don't see how that's relevant to what I'm saying.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Here's what I'm getting out of this: You enjoy art. You enjoy spirituality (whatever that means to you), and you anjoy the work of Daniel Kahneman. You see value in all of these things. If that's what you're saying, then good on you. I just don't see how that's relevant to what I'm saying. — Reformed Nihilist

All I'm telling you is how I weigh different considerations, in what I see as a contrast to how you weigh different things. You're not seeing it as relevant because you weigh things in a different way, which you regard as self-evident (just as I do mine!) and you're puzzled that I wouldn't accord the same weight as you do to different considerations. That's my take on that, anyway. I think you are having the same difficulty with un, because you have a sort of instinctively-scientific manner of speaking. I don't mean I and un have the same views, we are quite different, but in this respect the issues are the same.

The case for personality is easy to make. People have traumatic brain injuries and their personalities change. Which part of the brain is predictive of what sort of personality change will occur. That's something that happens, and makes a pretty strong case for the brain being the sole seat of personality. — Reformed Nihilist

I don't really follow. People have believed this sort of thing for thousands of years: trepanning dates back 8000 years for instance, i.e. surgery on the skull will effect changes in personality desired by the society concerned. Modern blindsight and Anton-Baninski syndrome are (a) still mysteries - why does a person invent such a story? and (b) not clear guides, at least not to me, about anything but the specific problems themselves.

But I see when you move on to identity more clearly what you mean. Here though your argument seems more to be against subjectivity than against spirituality. The transcendental 'I' isn't a spiritual/religious concoction but a philosophical one, surely? Early Wittgenstein frets over it a good deal, for instance, the latest in a long line of German philosophers fretting over it. That's why Metzinger calls his book on out-of-body experience 'the ego tunnel' because his rather odd theoretical solution seeks to solve the ego-problem as he sees it.

Perhaps it would be plainer if I just quoted Wordsworth, as a for-instance, of the sort of spirituality I'm groping to say I embrace::

I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.. — Tintern Abbey

All I'm telling you is how I weigh different considerations, in what I see as a contrast to how you weigh different things. You're not seeing it as relevant because you weigh things in a different way, which you regard as self-evident (just as I do mine!) and you're puzzled that I wouldn't accord the same weight as you do to different considerations. That's my take on that, anyway. I think you are having the same difficulty with un, because you have a sort of instinctively-scientific manner of speaking. I don't mean I and un have the same views, we are quite different, but in this respect the issues are the same. — mcdoodle

It's not differing priorities. I love art too. I studied theater in college, not philosophy or science. I only know Daniel Kahneman from one interview I saw him do, but I admit I was fascinated by him too. So we actually share an outlook on two of these three things.

I'm not treating anything as being self-evident either. IMO, that's an intellectually lazy stance, and I try to avoid it. I may be assuming that people share my understanding of certain facts, or some basic underlying beliefs about the world. Nothing controversial though. Just ideas like X=X, that we all, more or less, share an experience of the world, or that making a judgement of "better" or "worse" is something it is possible to agree upon with people. I'm even open to explanation or disagreement on these points in theory, although at some point a person might have to call pedantry if we can't agree on the most basic underpinnings of conversation.

The purpose of the discussion, from my point of view, is to determine if a) there are relevant facts that either person hadn't considered or known about, b) there is flawed reasoning employed that one of the people didn't realize, or c) there is a better way to frame the issue than either or both people had considered. That pretty much requires approaching the issue from different paradigms.That should be a good thing, not a bad thing.

Modern blindsight and Anton-Baninski syndrome are (a) still mysteries - why does a person invent such a story? and (b) not clear guides, at least not to me, about anything but the specific problems themselves. — mcdoodle

Everything is always a mystery if you keep asking why. That's the nature of the question "why?". That doesn't mean we don't know things, and the things we know indicate that the things we once thought were indicative of spirits (treppaning was alleged to let evil spirits escape through the skull), are actually indicative of the brain. Regarding Anton Babinski syndrom, the patient doesn't invent a story, they tell the truth as they believe it to be. They think they can see, and the reactions they have toward disconfirming evidence are the sorts of confabulations that mentally healthy people perform all the time when presented with cognitive dissonance.

What sort of guide do you mean? I personally assume that (among other things) having the most relevant facts, and the best possible information in any situation offers me the means to make the best decisions. Knowing that the things I feel and the impulses I have are the product of a brain that has flaws, some of which are predictable, allows me to employ personal, social and environmental mechanisms to offset my natural failings. For what it's worth, meditation and self-reflection (often associated with spirituality) are part of that.

But I see when you move on to identity more clearly what you mean. Here though your argument seems more to be against subjectivity than against spirituality. — mcdoodle

I don't even know what it would mean to argue against subjectivity. One way to talk about the world is "from the viewpoint of the subject". No argument that there is such a viewpoint. If I am doing something close to that, it is arguing against conflating a subjective point of view with spirituality.

Perhaps it would be plainer if I just quoted Wordsworth, as a for-instance, of the sort of spirituality I'm groping to say I embrace:: — mcdoodle

So to you, spiritual is synonymous with profound? If so, why not use that term instead of one laden with metaphysical baggage (same question I asked un)?

I feel like I'm getting jumped on for saying "whatever you call spirituality is wrong and bad, because I don't like whatever it is you like", and I'm saying no such thing. I'm saying that calling those things you like "spiritual", might be a bad way to label them. Bad, because labeling it so can lead to equivocation and sloppy reasoning by importing metaphysical baggage with the label that you don't necessarily believe in or need.

As promised, I reviewed your posts, hopefully with a different eye. Let me see if I understand what you're saying.

Would it be fair to say that in the same way that an average Joe sees the world through the lens of "naive realism", that what you're talking about as the unified outlook on the spirit/matter question pre-Descartes might be described as "naive monism"? That people in general neither saw a distinction between the two, nor did it occur to anyone to question if there should be a distinction. Is that correct? Is that what you are suggesting I need understand before I can understand what spirituality is?

So to you, spiritual is synonymous with profound? If so, why not use that term instead of one laden with metaphysical baggage (same question I asked un)?

I feel like I'm getting jumped on for saying "whatever you call spirituality is wrong and bad, because I don't like whatever it is you like", and I'm saying no such thing. — Reformed Nihilist

I for one don't think I'm jumping on anyone :)

I've looked back over the thread and I don't know that there's anything more I can say. I agreed with darth barracuda's early attempt at a summary of what 'spirituality' might mean, and I thought your answer to him, like your answer here about 'profound', sought different substitutes or meanings for the word 'spirituality' because you don't like it and its connotations. I on the other hand like it for its connotations. I use the word because it expresses something I want to express. It implies, for instance, that while an atheist I'm open to talk about religious matters in a way that, I'd suggest, you're not. For a Catholic friend of mine, for instance, attending Mass is a spiritual experience. I think the world would lose subtlety if she was forced to call it 'religious' when that isn't necessarily what she means, just as my feelings about Wordsworthian Romanticism would lose subtlety if I substituted 'profound' for 'spiritual'. If you don't want to use the word, well, fine.