How do you propose that identity is established if not via awareness which, as awareness, identifies itself as same/identical to itself and different/non-identical to other? Now, if there’s agreement that this identity is established via awareness, then how is the primacy of awareness (an identity known experientially) abandoned for the sake of primacy of matter (an identity known theoretically)? I anticipate that this will reduce to what is the true metaphysical nature of identity. — javra
I’ve instead reduced metaphysics to a) a multiplicity of awareness-endowed agents (i.e., first person points of view), b — javra
If the environment doesn't change, then neither will the species. — apokrisis
The repetition of the same point in time, over and over again, as temporal order, is the existence of the self. This is the temporal continuity of existence. — Metaphysician Undercover
The question at hand is how it comes to be that there are multiple points existing at the same time. The different points cannot be of a different universe because they exist at the same time. How does it come to be that the points may have spatial separation in the first place, that there may be numerous selves? — Metaphysician Undercover
Adaptation into niches without a primary environmental driver to do so seems like a superfluous action. Do you agree with the idea that a creative evolution model and not survival of the fittest model fits best here? — MikeL
Just to change topic a bit: Rich, did you read my post in this thread on seeing sound? How does that fit in with your holographic model of the real world? Is the mind reconstructing the world as it is, or only those aspects it chooses to see? (much like the theme of this OP). — MikeL
The behavior of the jewel beetle that Hoffman mentions in the TED Talk doesn't make sense in biological terms either. The "evolutionary hack," as Hoffman calls it, is so maladaptive that it could potentially lead to the extinction of the species, but we can easily see that the hack, though efficient, fails in the new circumstances because of its rigidity or narrowness of scope. We can see that the environment changed too abruptly for the beetle to adapt. The hack made perfect sense as long as the beetles environment remained relatively constant. It stoped making sense after the circumstances changed.So renunciation is completely off the radar for that kind of attitude, it makes no sense whatever in biological terms. To try and rationalise it in those terms would be to misunderstand its purpose. — Wayfarer
under a Survival of the Fittest model I would be looking for where is the selection pressure to do so was when delicious leaves and grass were already in abundance. The ancestor possums weren't attacking each other so there was no need to seek out new niches to live in. — MikeL
Assuming that the purpose of the renunciate is to understand an existentially meaningful truth, or to realize such a truth, what motivates them to do so? and might not that motivation be understood in biological terms? and if it can be reductively understood in biological terms, does that present a problem for the renunciate, or rather, have the effect of rendering their purpose less meaningful? — praxis
I still wonder what you believe the motivation for seeking an existentially meaningful truth is. — praxis
I still wonder what you believe the motivation for seeking an existentially meaningful truth is.
If anyone else finds the question interesting I'd like to know what you think. — praxis
Indeed I could argue that part of the intuition of philosophy itself, is to transcend the purely biological, the instinctive side of the organism that is only concerned with survival and propagation. After all, it was ancient philosophy, first and foremost, which first preached renunciation and celibacy, and that certainly flies in the face of the presumed supremacy of the 'selfish gene'. — Wayfarer
Don't we need to understand the motivations behind renunciation before concluding that it's inconsistent with biology? — praxis
'We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism - something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.
Given the premise that only conscious agents are metaphysically real—or, rather, that the whole of the phenomenal universe is derived in one way or another from conscious agents—I don’t find a means to substantiate block time. Again, I do find a requirement that before and after occur within the first-person point of view regarding apprehensions and creations relative to other and—in a more complex fashion—relative to any cohort of individual agents that can causally affect each other. But this would lead to a variant of presentism. — javra
Conscious agency (i.e., creative power)? — Galuchat
Dawkins is not alone. Pretty much all the more cultured and intelligent atheists adopt a similar point of view. This is a very good book I read awhile ago about decision making and business. It's philosophical in its themes, so it's different than your run of the mill business book.So Dawkins, here, actually grasps the futility and uselessness of his 'selfish gene' metaphor as a guiding philosophy, and seems to pine for something else - namely, 'pure and disinterested altruism'. — Wayfarer
Indeed, the journey of the subject is fueled by this inner void that compels the subject to bring itself into being as it were. To make itself real. To transform itself - the void - into something substantial. Desire is pointed inward - desire itself is circular. Pure non-being becomes the active force. The end of desire or the will isn't the object anymore - but rather desire itself - its own self-affirmation. Obtaining the object desired is not the essential aspect anymore - rather it is the affirmation of the desire itself - which is exactly why desire is always frustrated in obtaining its object because self-affirmation knows no end. — Agustino
It's not my conclusion, I was drawing and spelling out a difference that is present in the thinking of modernity as opposed to more Ancient thinking.There appears to be something incorrect in this description. If there is an inner void, then it is impossible that desire is pointed inward, because there is nothing there to be desired. Desire is always point toward what is desired. So you have put together two opposing, or contradictory premises, to create a desire which is circular.
Either the subject has an inner void and desire is necessarily directed outward from this void, perhaps in an attempt to fill the void, or, if desire is directed inward then there must be a perceived object there which is desired. We could say that one or the other is an illusion, either that the void is an illusion, or that the inner thing desired is an illusion, but we cannot suppose the reality of both. Therefore you cannot propose such a circular desire without involving contradiction in your proposition. So your conclusion of frustration and "no end", is just a product of contradictory premises. — Metaphysician Undercover
Now to address your remarks on your own terms. Here's how the argument would go.If there is an inner void, then it is impossible that desire is pointed inward, because there is nothing there to be desired. Desire is always point toward what is desired. So you have put together two opposing, or contradictory premises, to create a desire which is circular. — Metaphysician Undercover
Here you illustrate that you're using a different conception of desire.Either the subject has an inner void and desire is necessarily directed outward from this void, perhaps in an attempt to fill the void, or, if desire is directed inward then there must be a perceived object there which is desired. We could say that one or the other is an illusion, either that the void is an illusion, or that the inner thing desired is an illusion, but we cannot suppose the reality of both. Therefore you cannot propose such a circular desire without involving contradiction in your proposition. So your conclusion of frustration and "no end", is just a product of contradictory premises. — Metaphysician Undercover
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