What I don't think anyone can be at all certain about is as to what could be the metaphysical implications of such experiences. — Janus
Note the qualifier, 'objective knowledge'. — Wayfarer
But to understand why idealism is important, we need to be clear about what prompted its emergence in the early modern period, and what about it remains relevant. That is what I hope this brief essay has introduced. — Wayfarer
Yes, my comments about certainty were meant to cover both the occurrence of the experience and the interpretation of it. So I'd call it highly likely, but by no means certain, that such experiences are "genuine" in that they do give access to a divine reality. Even using such a phrase, of course, takes us outside of philosophy entirely, in my opinion, though I know Wayfarer thinks we can expand our understanding of what philosophy is and does so as to include it. — J
Would you say that it is likely, if someone believes that certain kinds of altered states of consciousness give us access to a divine reality, that they were already inclined, most likely by cultural influences during their upbringing, to believe in a divine reality, and that others who do not have such an enculturated belief might interpret the experience as being a function of brain chemistry? — Janus
Wherefore the intuition of another world? — Janus
We know that such an intuition has been with humanity since there were civilizations, and no doubt before. Whether it's true or not, isn't really about one's predisposition to believe or disbelieve, wouldn't you agree? — J
I could say that a mystical experience is about something objective -- God or Divine Reality or whatever phrasing you like -- but only occurs subjectively. But the problem is how a subjective experience could provide evidence for sorting out the difference between some genuine objective reality and a mere psychological event, however powerful. In other words, my asserting the objective existence of what I'm experiencing doesn't make it so. How many such assertions would make it so? That's a complicated question, focusing on the blurred line between objectivity and intersubjectivity — J
what prompted its emergence is found in Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, the Greeks, Hegel, etc., and what THIS is all about is, even prior to Husserl, the reduction-to-metaphysics discovered in an authentic analytic of what stands right before one's waking eyes. — Constance
You say this repeatedly, as if it were revealed truth, when in fact it’s simply the dogma of positivism: that only what can be scientifically validated can be stated definitively.The problem is that the truth (or falsity) of such intuitions is not in any way definitively decidable. — Janus
Religious truth is, therefore, a species of practical knowledge. Like swimming, we cannot learn it in the abstract; we have to plunge into the pool and acquire the knack by dedicated practice. Religious doctrines are a product of ritual and ethical observance, and make no sense unless they are accompanied by such spiritual exercises as yoga, prayer, liturgy and a consistently compassionate lifestyle. Skilled practice in these disciplines can lead to intimations of the transcendence we call God, Nirvana, Brahman or Dao. Without such dedicated practice, these concepts remain incoherent, incredible and even absurd.
You say this repeatedly, as if it were revealed truth, when in fact it’s simply the dogma of positivism: that only what can be scientifically validated can be stated definitively. — Wayfarer
Instead I said that only in the case of statements whose assertions are either self-evident or demonstrable by observation can the truth or falsity be determined. — Janus
There is no religious truth in any propositional sense. — Janus
Which is verificationism in a nutshell . — Wayfarer
Yes I was already familiar with those conceivable modes of knowing, I formulated them myself before I ever came across them in Vervaeke's lectures.The four ways of knowing: — Wayfarer
verificationism is a theory in the philosophy of science — Janus
I said that only in the case of statements whose assertions are either self-evident or demonstrable by observation can the truth or falsity be determined. — Janus
even though the truth of metaphysical theses cannot be determined by either verification or falsification, they can provide a stimulus that may lead to important scientific results. — Janus
I keep asking you to explain how the truth of any metaphysical thesis could be determined, and you never even attempt to answer the question, which is telling; it seems to show that you are in a kind of denial — Janus
How would you determine the truth of "consciousness is fundamental to reality"? I am not even sure what it means — Janus
We can explain the universality of such intuitions in the moral context, as I said, as stemming from a demand that there should be perfection and justice. We can explain it in the epistemological context as being due to not having scientific explanations for phenomena. And we can explain it in the existential context as being on account of a universal fear of death. — Janus
You may recall that this is the subject of my essay Scientific Objectivity and Philosophical Detachment. — Wayfarer
the pre-moderns had a very different sense of what is real. — Wayfarer
The world was experienced as a living presence rather than a domain of impersonal objects and forces. In that context, the standard of truth was veritas - rather than objective validation. — Wayfarer
they are not decidable by the methods of science. Their test is existential: whether practice transforms the one who undertakes it. — Wayfarer
Indeed. So we have the question, Is there anything to guide us in choosing between these different senses? The question lends itself to special pleading, as I'm sure you're aware: It's tempting, and convenient, to say, "Oh, when it comes to what is scientifically real, the pre-moderns were hopelessly wrong, but with spiritual reality the reverse is true; it's we who don't understand." — J
Plato was clearly concerned not only with the state of his soul, but also with his relation to the universe at the deepest level. Plato’s metaphysics was not intended to produce merely a detached understanding of reality. His motivation in philosophy was in part to achieve a kind of understanding that would connect him (and therefore every human being) to the whole of reality – intelligibly and if possible satisfyingly. — Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament
It is not! Verificationism is not specific to philosophy of science. — Wayfarer
Then you're still saying the only criterion of factuality is science, again. — Wayfarer
How to test a 'metaphysical theory'? Just now Kastrup was interviewed by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, he suggests internal consistency, explanatory power, and parsimony would be good starting points. I would concur with that. — Wayfarer
All true, if you mean "offer as possible explanations." But another way we can explain it is in the accuracy or correspondence-to-the-facts context -- that is, these intuitions are correct as to their source.
But . . . how do we determine which context, which putative explanation, is the right one? This is what you and Wayfarer are thrashing out. — J
Yet there is a different sense of philosophy as a developing discipline -- or if that's too biased, at least an evolving, changing one. I do think we've made progress, in the last 100 years or so, in understanding what can be meaningfully discussed within philosophy. It's a good thing that we've been able to set limits on our attempts to wrestle experience into the rational language of analytic philosophy — J
Can you explain what you mean by "these intuitions are correct as to their source"? — Janus
. . . the presumption that those beliefs are demonstrably true. — Janus
For instance, I only discovered John Vervaeke's lectures in 2022, but his original 'Awakening from the Meaning Crisis' series comprises 52 hours of material! And that there really is such a crisis, I have no doubt, although it's never hard for the naysayers to say 'prove it' and then shoot at anything that's offered by way of argument. — Wayfarer
The “paradox of choice” is the theory that humans, when offered too many options, become overwhelmed and unhappy. If liberal consumer capitalism is underpinned by the belief that individual autonomy and choice should be society’s highest values, then perhaps the trad movement is one response to the decision paralysis of modern liberal life.
Faced with a dizzying barrage of technological, social and consumer choices, some people prefer fewer options: duties rather than rights, constraints rather than freedoms, defined roles rather than elastic identities.
That narrowing is part of a larger reaction against modernity, a frustrated feeling that our secular technological age promised progress and instead brought loneliness, worsening material prospects and a numbing onslaught of social media, spam, porn, gambling, gaming and AI slop, with the cold hand of capitalism – or Satan, or both – extending further into our lives with every chime, buzz and click.
It is rather consumerist neoliberalism that educates us in vice, and so deprives us of liberty. That is, you don't automatically become self-determining and self-governing by turning 18 and avoiding severe misfortune. It is rather, considerable work, and involves a sort of habit formation and training — Count Timothy von Icarus
We are in the midst of a mental health crisis. There are increases in anxiety disorders, depression, despair, suicide rates are going up in North America, parts of Europe, other parts of the world. And that mental health crisis is itself due to and engaged with crises in the environment and the political system. And those in turn are immeshed within a deeper cultural historical crisis. I called the meaning crisis. So the meaning crisis expresses itself and many people are giving voice to this in many different ways, is this increasing sense of bullshit. Bullshit is on the increase. It's more and more pervasive throughout our lives and there's this sense of drowning in this old ocean of bullshit. And we have to understand why is this the case and what can we do about it? So today there is an increase of people feeling very disconnected from themselves, from each other, from the world, from a viable and foreseeable future.
Let's discuss this. Let's work on it together. Let's rationally reflect on it. What can we do about the meaning crisis? These problems are deep problems that we're facing. Many people are talking about the meaning crisis, but what I want to argue is that these problems are deeper than just social media problems, political problems, even economic problems. They're deeply historical, cultural, cognitive problems, and we need to, we need to penetrate into them carefully and rigorously. Getting out of this problem is going to be tremendously difficult. It's going to require significant transformations in our cognition, our culture, our communities, and in order to move forward in such a difficult manner, we have to reach more deeply into our past to salvage the resources we can for such an amazing challenge.
I'll be talking about a lot of people who have spoken in in ways that will provide us the resources we need. We'll talk about ancient figures like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, Jesus of Nazareth, Siddhartha, Gautama, the Buddha, but we'll also talk about modern pivotal figures. We'll talk about people like Carl Jung. We'll talk about Nietzsche. We'll talk about Heidegger. We'll talk about current work being done by psychologists, cognitive scientists, neuroscientists. We're going to cover a broad range of topics. We're going to talk about shamanism and altered States of consciousness related a modern things like psychedelic experience, mystical experience. But we'll also talk about existentialism, nihilism. We'll talk about AI, artificial intelligence. What's that telling us? But also what can our evolutionary past tell us about how we wrestle with the meaning crisis. So this is a complex and difficult problem. There are no easy answers. We need to go through this very carefully and rigorously. We got to get clear about what the problem is and clear about what our answer could be. So I want to bring all of this together in a coherent and clear fashion so that we together can discover how to awaken from the meaning crisis. — Awakening from the Meaning Crisis (YouTube)
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