This idea accords with Neoplatonism and Schopenhauer's philosophy as well. — Thorongil

We all do live in the same world, so it's not surprising that different times and cultures have similar insights.

Specifically, I had read the following about Neoplatonism not long before I saw your comment:

The general idea is that Soul, qua outer activity of Consciousness, looks back at its cause in order to understand itself so as to truly be what it is. Gazing thus at the forms and ideas eternally present in Consciousness, it becomes “informed” by them and carries forward, by some manner of benevolent necessity, images of the eternal forms into the lower realm of Being. Giving birth to the entire universe and the biosphere on earth in this way, one could say that the sum total of the corporeal, sensible world rests in Soul, not the other way round, that soul resides in the bodies it animates.

According to Neoplatonic theory, then, the world as we know and experience it in its formal and structural characteristics is the outer effect of the activity and life of Consciousness, an activity that was thought to be mediated “from above” by another, intermediate metaphysical entity, Soul. The precise ontological status of Soul as another hypostasis in its own right remains somewhat underdetermined, for in a manner of speaking Soul is the very process of expressing the intelligible world in the derivative form of sensible natural living beings and the lives they live.

From here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoplatonism/#SouNat . This section also directly bears on another discussion I recently had with @schopenhauer1 on evolution and the Platonic Ideas.

(Replying to the message quoted below.)

I don't think life is that bad. It definitely can have its bad moments, but there are good things.

Given that we're in life, because of an initial inherent inclination for it, we don't have a choice other than to complete it, in however many lifetimes that takes...(or to just make the best of this one lifetime, if you don't agree that there's reincarnation).

A life can have adversity, can have something happen to a person, can even start out adverse. But, as mentioned above, there's a requirement or need to have these lives until we no longer need them. (or to just complete this one as well as possible if you don't agree that there's reincarnation.)

If there's reincarnation, then the good things and the adversity average out over many lives (good along with bad experiences), and the inclinations or un-discharged consequences will eventually be satisfied, and the lives will be done. In the meantime, maybe we can usually realize the temporariness of the bad parts.

If there isn't reincarnation, then at least one can have quiet peaceful rest at the end of this life.

That moving goalpost situation you describe is a problem of some people, but not all people. ...if someone's attitude is to live that way. Maybe most people do. A person needn't.

That instrumental view sounds too Materialist. Of course it's true from the "physical story" objective 3rd-person scientific evolutionary point of view. In terms of natural selection, we fulfill our life-purposes so that we'll beget, support, protect and rear a next generation who will, in turn, beget a next generation...and so on.

From our own point of view, it isn't like that. It's more like what i said at the beginning of this post.

Michael Ossipoff

(Below is your message)

It is hope that is the opiate of the masses. Existence is an instrumental thing. We survive, to survive, to survive. We entertain, to entertain, to kill time, and not be bored. We are deprived and need to have our desires fulfilled to have yet other desires. What keeps this whole instrumental affair going? Hope is that carrot. The transcendental (i.e. big picture) view of the absurdity of the instrumental affair of existence is lost as we focus on a particular goal/set of goals that we think is the goal.. We think this future state of goal-attainment will lead to something greater than the present. Hope lets us get caught up in the narrow focus of the pursuit of the goal. But then, if we get the goal, another takes its place. The instrumental nature of things comes back into view as we contend with restlessness. Then, we narrow our focus (yet again) to pursue (yet again) what is hoped to be a greater state than the present. The cycle continues. — schopenhauer1

If there's reincarnation, then the good things and the adversity average out over many lives (good along with bad experiences), and the inclinations or un-discharged consequences will eventually be satisfied, and the lives will be done. In the meantime, maybe we can usually realize the temporariness of the bad parts. — Michael Ossipoff

More than one lifetime- one of many lives seems pretty horrifying. Maybe good timing for Halloween?

There is a definite dichotomy here. It usually falls somewhere like this:

Instrumentality vs. Net Positive Experiences or Subjective/objective Goods
Instrumentality vs. Some sort of Eastern Zen-like Way of Being
Instrumentality vs. Progress — schopenhauer1

Instrumentality vs. Suicide

Suicide is not an option because most people have a strong impulse to live despite pain or negative view of life. It is instinctual to not want to harm your body and to be afraid of the unknown (death), even if intellectually as an exercise we can view death from "afar" as simply like what it was like before we were born (or non-existence, or dreamless sleep, etc. etc.). — schopenhauer1

I mean, suicide is always an option right. Over a million people do it every year. That's between 2500 and 3000 people just today.

If life is bad, and we're nothing more than rats on the wheel staring at hope in the distance, why not just end it? What's keeping you here? Like you say, even (philosophical) pessimists are trapped in the hope cycle. But those rats who lose the ability to imagine the hope in the distance hang themselves from the wheel.

Is hope really an 'opiate of the masses', when it's what keeps us in this world of suffering? Death is the ultimate pain relief, maybe lack of hope is the true opiate.

More than one lifetime- one of many lives seems pretty horrifying. Maybe good timing for Halloween? — schopenhauer1

Sure, when you look at what happens to lot of people in this world.

In fact, of course we're all born to die. For every one of us, something eventually is going to happen to us that will end our life. And, not always, but often, it can be something unpleasant, to a greater or lesser degree.

That major final damage, sometimes with considerable suffering, is arguably the worst part of a life, but we all have it.

(Some people seem to look forward to that end, and long for,it, and even want to bring it about prematurely, in the mistaken belief that they'll achieve "oblivion". But it's obvious that there' s no such thing as oblivion. You never experience the time after bodily-dissolution. Only your survivors experience that time.)

I guess that's why Nisargadatta said that birth is a clamity.

So sure, the possibility of many lives could be a bit scary. But, as i said, maybe not as bad if, in the adversity, we realize that it's only temporary.

One single life seems more difficult to justify than a sequence of lives, when you look around at the lives that some people are having in this world. Which is worse, a sequence of lives in which the good and bad parts average out, or one horrific tragic short life in a country that's getting ravaged by external attack?

I'm not saying that proves reincarnation.

I suggest that reincarnation has metaphysical support. Actually it seems pretty amazing that there's something instead of Nothing, even when there's a good metaphysical explanation. And likewise it's amazing and feels inexplicable that this life started. Whatever the reason why this life started, then if, at the end of this life, that reason remains, then what does that suggest?

Michael Ossipoff

I mean, suicide is always an option right...

If life is bad, and we're nothing more than rats on the wheel staring at hope in the distance, why not just end it? — antinatalautist

Of course that's just another (particularly extreme) instance of pursuing a false hope. ...choosing to immediately achieve the ordeal at the end of a life, in hopes of gaining......what? Nothing? For one thing, we never reach Nothing.

Michael Ossipoff

Of course that's just another (particularly extreme) instance of pursuing a false hope. ...choosing to immediately achieve the ordeal at the end of a life, in hopes of gaining......what? Nothing? For one thing, we never reach Nothing. — Michael Ossipoff

“It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.”


― Emil M. Cioran, The Trouble with Being Born

But perhaps Noble Dust's point is another quote from Cioran:

“I live only because it is in my power to die whenever I want; without the idea of suicide I would have killed myself a long time ago.”

I don't really agree with anyone on this thread. Except for myself of course, but my comments are out of the main channel. Even so, it's a really interesting discussion.

Cioran: "Suicide is a sudden accomplishment, a lightning-like deliverance: it is nirvana by violence."

Yes, in the sense that the nature of Justice does not depend on what X or Y think about it (only sophists would say otherwise). That's exactly what Plato, Jesus, Socrates, etc. argued for and proved. — Agustino

That's just a bare assurance. As far as the famous names are concerned, clearly your own interpretation is involved. Indeed, if such a thing has been proved, then why do we still not have consensus? And was Jesus one to argue like a philosopher, even as possibly only a character in the gospels?

What I do find plausible is a more or less "hardwired" fuzzy foundation of what is expressed in fact in a multitude of ways. There is rough agreement about the basics, but massive disagreement on the level of detail.

So if man does the measuring, how does it follow that man would be the measure of all things? It's entirely unrelated. I can do the measurement with reference to an external standard - in that case, I wouldn't be the measure of all things, even though I am the measurer. — Agustino

What is the external standard of virtue? Your opinion? The opinion of thinkers that you prefer as opposed to the opinion of thinkers that you do not prefer? IMV you are ignoring the palpable fact of disagreement. You can assert and believe that your notion of virtue is "true" or "accurate" or transpersonal, but you'd just be joining a crowd of others who assert the same about their own, differing notions of virtue. I'm more interested understanding this variety itself.

Even if everyone considers X to be a vice, for example, they could be wrong. This fact alone shows us that what people think doesn't determine what is a virtue or a vice, for if it did, then it would be inconceivable that they are wrong. — Agustino

Could be wrong from whose perspective? This just seems to reframe the disagreement about what virtue is as some kind of "proof" of "objective" virtue. "Because we disagree and consider others wrong, someone must be right." I'd suggest that only our faith in a particular image allows us to understand others as wrong.

So this image of the ideal human is just given? Or how is it established? — Agustino

I suggest that the basic structure is given. We are born with a "virtue-shaped hole" that is "filled" or given content (at first) by our parents and community. If this notion of virtue includes critical thinking and individualism, however, it is self-subverting. A philosopher or artist can re-conceive virtue. He or she may "seduce" or persuade others to adopt this modified image of virtue. Is it not a fact that we've all experienced that our notion of virtue evolves as we live our lives? On a larger scale entire cultures can modify a dominant image of virtue or understanding of being. Humanism can replace the sense of a duty to some alien God. More specifically the scientist can replace the theologian as the one who really knows what's going on.

For me this "image of virtue" is both persons and cultures is the fundamental issue. I posit that it functions not only conceptually but also in terms of images and feeling-tones. Not everyone is eloquent enough to be explicit about their understanding of virtue. Examine their heroes. Are they thinkers, athletes, musicians, actors, activists, saints, prophets, mothers, soldiers, ordinary hard-working guys, the proletariat, etc.? These embodied images guide individuals and cultures, as I see it. Who do I aspire to be? In creative types the anxiety of influence clearly plays a role, because creative heroes only exist as distinct personalities. (Note that the greatest scientists are creative. They bring new paradigms. )

Paradoxically, it was Jesus and Socrates who believed in absolute truth, and those who killed them who didn't. — Agustino

Really? I thought that Socrates knew that he didn't know? He didn't even write down the absolute truth. What a bum! We could have used that. As far as Jesus goes, I find Nietzsche's interpretation of "I am the truth" more convincing and profound than most.

This faith does not formulate itself—it simply lives, and so guards itself against formulae. To be sure, the accident of environment, of educational background gives prominence to concepts of a certain sort: in primitive Christianity one finds only concepts of a Judaeo-Semitic character (—that of eating and drinking at the last supper belongs to this category—an idea which, like everything else Jewish, has been badly mauled by the church). But let us be careful not to see in all this anything more than symbolical language, semantics[6] an opportunity to speak in parables. It is only on the theory that no work is to be taken literally that this anti-realist is able to speak at all. Set down among Hindus he would have made use of the concepts of Sankhya,[7] and among Chinese he would have employed those of Lao-tse[8]—and in neither case would it have made any difference to him.—With a little freedom in the use of words, one might actually call Jesus a “free spirit”[9]—he cares nothing for what is established: the word killeth,[10] whatever is established killeth. The idea of “life” as an experience, as he alone conceives it, stands opposed to his mind to every sort of word, formula, law, belief and dogma. He speaks only of inner things: “life” or “truth” or “light” is his word for the innermost—in his sight everything else, the whole of reality, all nature, even language, has significance only as sign, as allegory. — N

I don't think you see where I'm coming from. I'm trying to point out an "invisible" assumption on your part (and on the part of many others) that religion is a form of knowledge. I'm suggesting that looking at religion as a set of propositions (or even as a set of practices) is not the only way to look at religion and perhaps not even the best way.

In terms of the "image of virtue" this gives priority to man-the-knower. The "virtuous" man is from this investment's perspective) an earnest and accurate "meta-physicist." So religion is reduced to a matter of being correct, or asserting propositions that correspond to some non-propositional reality. But that makes religion into a "science" of the divine. It thereby reduces the divine to an object for a subject. "Righteousness" is conflated with rightness. It's religion from the perspective of a "know-it-all" personality. This is "theology as theorem." This is not the incarnate, living God but only the book as God.

I'm not at all suggesting that "spirituality" should be non-conceptual. Nor am I really trying to impose some universal should. Just as I question theology-as-theorem, I also question the one-size-fits-all paradigm. To suggest that religion need not be universal truth is to suggest both that it need not be truth (knowledge) and that it need not be universal (a transpersonal and finally political imposition of disavowed individual will ).

There's a big gap from God being limited to the human form, and God making no sense to us. It's not a black and white issue. — Agustino

What does it mean for God to make sense to us, though? He has to be (in that sense) "within" our human reason exactly to the degree that we understand him. What do humans value? Human virtue. What can we mean by saying that God is good if not that God has a virtuous essentially human character? He is disembodied virtue. He has more love, power, and knowledge than other humans, but this love, this power, this knowledge....are they not basic human desires? We want to love and be loved. We want to understand. And we want the power to shape reality into paradise and to protect ourselves from others.

I think people overestimate the degree to which they can understand God.

Say you rescue an animal, maybe an insect. If it knows anything about you, it only knows that you rescued it.

What can you know about God? Benevolence. Complete Benevolence.

Michael Ossipoff

But for me the problem is that this itself is an assertion about God. What do you understand about God that suggests that people in general overestimate their understanding? I like your insect analogy, but I've used something similar to support my own point. If we are insects in relation to some God, then what can that God ever be for us that won't fit into an insects mind? God-for-us (the only God we could by definition ever hope to talk about sensibly) "must" be human-like to the degree that God is intelligible at all. This is the theological version of the problem with the thing-in-itself, except that some would have us worship the symbol we use to represent our inability to know. (I don't really mind, to be clear, how others worship God or give content to the word if they respect my freedom to do the same.)

Cioran: "Suicide is a sudden accomplishment, a lightning-like deliverance: it is nirvana by violence." — antinatalautist

This is a dark and profound quote. Suicide is arguably important as an option. It allows us the sense of having chosen to persevere. I sometimes think of Hunter S. Thompson. A sick old man has (as I see it) every right to choose his moment. Rights are a funny concept here. But I think suicide can be beautiful and noble in some contexts. Inoperable brain cancer that threatens to destroy the personality is just about the perfect reason. But any unfixable condition that humiliates human dignity is defensible, as I see it. Cioran himself, however, is over the top. Though I have enjoyed the terrible freedom in a few of his books. That's the hard stuff, the questionable stuff. It's a product on the market. What does that say about us? I'm not against it. It just speaks to how atomized we really are. The individual has lots of rope to hang himself with.

But for me the problem is that this itself is an assertion about God. What do you understand about God that suggests that people in general overestimate their understanding?

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I don’t say that based on a better understanding. What do I understand about God?
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There’s a feeling that, behind the goodness of what is, there’s good intention.
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Benevolence.
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That’s it. I don’t know anything else about God.
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That’s well-expressed by a line in the song “5D”, by the Byrds.
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It isn’t something that can be logically-proved.
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Metaphysics is the discussion of what is. Metaphysics can be described and known. God isn’t an element of metaphysics.
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Even to speak of Creation is anthropomorphic.
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The whole matter is quite beyond our understanding, other than the benevolence.
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If we are insects in relation to some God, then what can that God ever be for us that won't fit into an insects mind?

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Entirely beyond our understanding.

God-for-us (the only God we could by definition ever hope to talk about sensibly) "must" be human-like to the degree that God is intelligible at all.

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I wouldn’t expect humanlike-ness or intelligibility.
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Mice could debate whether humans gnaw hardwood or softwood.
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Michael Ossipoff

I wouldn’t expect humanlike-ness or intelligibility. — Michael Ossipoff

What would your expectation mean here? Why would you bother to expect something other than what you could comprehend? That expectation looks to me like an empty negation.

Entirely beyond our understanding. — Michael Ossipoff

What is the content of this phrase? It's just negation. I'm not saying it's wrong or right, just trying to point out what's beyond our understanding doesn't exist for us. We are slapping a word with a certain emotional charge (gathered from a history of actual human-like "fatherly" content) on what is more or less the metaphysical concept of nothingness/negation. What is at all still godlike about this conceptual shell?

I’d said:
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I wouldn’t expect humanlike-ness or intelligibility. — Michael Ossipoff

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You said:
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What would your expectation mean here?

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I don’t understand the question. What should an expectation mean?
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(rhetorical question—Don’t bother answering)
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You said:
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Why would you bother to expect something other than what you could comprehend?

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I don’t want to criticize anyone’s religion, or say that anyone’s religious beliefs aren’t valid.
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So, if you believe that you comprehend God, or all of Reality, I won’t say that you don’t.
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But yes, I wouldn’t make such a claim about myself.
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We can just agree that you’re more ambitious than I am. …and maybe a bit more doctrinaire.
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You said:
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That expectation looks to me like an empty negation.

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It was an expression of skepticism regarding human ability to comprehend all of Reality, including God. I admit that I’m surprised to hear that you believe that you comprehend God, but I re-emphasize that it isn’t for me to tell you that you don’t or couldn’t.
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But, as for whether that “negation” is empty or full, I’ll defer to you on that issue :D
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You said:
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“Entirely beyond our understanding.” — Michael Ossipoff
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What is the content of this phrase? It's just negation.

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You’re repeating yourself. See above.
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You said:
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I'm not saying it's wrong or right, just trying to point out what's beyond our understanding doesn't exist for us.

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If you believe that you understand all that exists for you, then I won’t say that you don’t or couldn’t.
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I don’t know what “exists for you”. Whatever that is, it isn’t for me to say whether or not you understand it or could understand it. Those are your beliefs, and your beliefs are none of my business.
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One thing that brings your meaning into question is that “Exist” isn’t philosophically defined. Anyone can and does use that word with whatever meaning they choose.
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So I never argue about what “exists”.
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You said:
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We are slapping a word with a certain emotional charge (gathered from a history of actual human-like "fatherly" content) on what is more or less the metaphysical concept of nothingness/negation.

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Well, speak for yourself.
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So, for you, God is a metaphysical concept. I don’t agree with you, but, as I said, it isn’t for me to criticize your beliefs or say that they aren’t valid.
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I’ll now also admit that I have no idea what you mean when you speak of God. But yes, as you suggested above, you’re evidently referring to a conceptual belief.
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You said:
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What is at all still godlike about this conceptual shell?

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Speaking for myself, I don’t agree with your notion of God as a concept, or an element of metaphysics. So I’ll leave it to you to decide what’s godlike about your concept.
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…especially since it’s you who imply that you believe that you understand God, and therefore presumably are qualified to judge regarding what is godlike.
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But you talk about God a lot more than I do, with much discussion of attributes. I agree that that’s consistent with your belief in God as a concept.
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There’s really no basis for a conversation with you. I can’t relate to your conceptual notion of God, or your belief that you understand God, or your belief that you understand everything that exists for you.
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In general, I avoid conversations with people who hold doctrinaire conceptual religious beliefs.

I don't debate religion.
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Michael Ossipoff

As an aside, you may want to highlight what you respond to and click the quote button that appears. That'll put the quote in a box and let the quoted person know that you've replied.

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I don’t understand the question. What should an expectation mean?
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(rhetorical question—Don’t bother answering) — Michael Ossipoff

Why would ask a merely rhetorical question about a question you didn't answer? IMV, this misunderstanding or failure-to-grasp is all there in the way that question slides off for you.

I don’t want to criticize anyone’s religion, or say that anyone’s religious beliefs aren’t valid.
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So, if you believe that you comprehend God, or all of Reality, I won’t say that you don’t.
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But yes, I wouldn’t make such a claim about myself.
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We can just agree that you’re more ambitious than I am. …and maybe a bit more doctrinaire. — Michael Ossipoff

No. I'm looking at what words like 'God' or 'all of reality' could feasibly mean in the first place. We can go back to Parmenides: nonbeing is not. Some words have no real conceptual content. They are just negations in a dry conceptual sense. But they can have great emotional content. The philosopher's God gets its emotional content from the non-philosopher's anthropomorphic God. But the philosopher cleans this up by emptying the concept of everything determinant. The word still drags along a certain emotional content, however devoid of conceptual content.

It was an expression of skepticism regarding human ability to comprehend all of Reality, including God. I admit that I’m surprised to hear that you believe that you comprehend God, but I re-emphasize that it isn’t for me to tell you that you don’t or couldn’t.
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But, as for whether that “negation” is empty or full, I’ll defer to you on that issue :D — Michael Ossipoff

Nothing is easier to comprehend that God as the negative object. Hegel made this point long ago. If the absolute is "drained" to an image of pure transcendence (=ignorance), then it just meres the idea of the transcendental subject, the bare unity of apperception. The negation is a negation of determinate content. I'm not against agnosticism. I'm just suggesting that one way of understanding it is as the worship of a question mark. Ultimately it's a heroic abstinence. "I know that I don't know." But ultimately one takes pride in a form of knowledge. So there's something slippery and questionable involved. It's not so modest as it poses?

One thing that brings your meaning into question is that “Exist” isn’t philosophically defined. Anyone can and does use that word with whatever meaning they choose. — Michael Ossipoff

Yes, this meaning of being is a great issue. I'm knee-deep in Heidegger at the moment, and that's his jam. What does it mean for something to be? We toss off the word 'is' all the time. We argue about beings. But we take this 'is' for granted. Yet this 'is' may be the deepest of issues.

There’s really no basis for a conversation with you. I can’t relate to your conceptual notion of God, or your belief that you understand God, or your belief that you understand everything that exists for you.
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In general, I avoid conversations with people who hold doctrinaire conceptual religious beliefs. — Michael Ossipoff

You are missing the key fact that I'm at least as "agnostic" as you. You seemingly can't help but frame being challenged in terms of this drama of the "doctrinaire" versus the noble agnostic. Suffice it to say that you have radically misunderstood me, all too confident that you know where I'm coming from. You are of course free to scurry away secure in what I'd call your own (generalized) religious belief. From my perspective, you are being insufficiently self-conscious, refusing to see your own investments/decisions as such. It's cool if you want to end the dialogue. But it's pretty lame to make some long post and then "storm out of the room" by insisting the conversation is over. If you are done talking, then just don't reply.

When you said what I quote at the bottom of this post (especially the last part) I interpreted as you going into the personal-criticizing mode, and it seemed that the discussion had turned ugly. Now I don't think that it was intended about me, so that was just my misinterpretation. If so, then, my apologies about the hostile manners--if i was the one who introduced bad manners--and now it looks as if it's likely so.

I stay in metasphysyics discussions when they get ugly, but religion discussions shouldn't get ugly. Hence my reaction.

(I think religion and metaphysics are entirely different subjects)

Tomorrow morning I'll have a better chance to reply.

In metaphysics discussions, part of my purpose is to convince others who look at the discussion (you never convince the person who's arguing with you). In religion discussion, my purpose is never to convince anyone. My purpose in a religion discussion is only to clarify my position. It's never about disagreement or who's right, or debate.

So I'd like to better clarify my position, when I reply tomorrow morning.

A few brief preliminary comments now.

Agnostic? Well I feel the matter is completely unknowable, has nothing to do with knowledge, concepts or facts. Not the sort of thing that I could prove to someone. So, maybe Agnostic in that sense. But, as a feeling, it's a positive feeling, not a doubtful feeling.

As I said, i feel there's a good intent, benevolence, behind the goodness of what is. It's a feeling, an impression. I don't feel that anything about it is knowable, or part of the world of logic and factual issues, but neither do I doubt the feeling. So Agnostsic probably isn't the right word. But I can't argue an impression. That's why I feel that it isn't a debate subject at all.

It isn't a matter of metaphysics. It's an impression of good intent behind and above metaphysics.

When people speak of God, I assume that they're talking about what I've mentioned above. That's why I said that that's all I know about God.

More tomorrow, if I've left anything out.

Sorry if I misinterpreted you as being on the attack.

Michael Ossipoff.

What is the content of this phrase? It's just negation. I'm not saying it's wrong or right, just trying to point out what's beyond our understanding doesn't exist for us. We are slapping a word with a certain emotional charge (gathered from a history of actual human-like "fatherly" content) on what is more or less the metaphysical concept of nothingness/negation. What is at all still godlike about this conceptual shell? — t0m

(I thought that I was being accused of all that.)

Yeah, I think you misunderstood my tone and intentions. That's OK. I hope I wasn't too rude in return.

As I said, i feel there's a good intent, benevolence, behind the goodness of what is. It's a feeling, an impression. I don't feel that anything about it is knowable, or part of the world of logic and factual issues, but neither do I doubt the feeling. — Michael Ossipoff

I can relate to this. I don't know if you saw Nietzsche's interpretation of Christ earlier in the thread, but it's a negative theology of feeling, one might say. It has nothing to do with "logic and factual issues." In other words, we seem to generally agree in some important way. My 'theology' is so negative that I feel absolutely no piety toward the word 'God.' All words are just concepts for the concept mill.

I don't feel evangelical about it, but I am always on the lookout for others who feel a transcendence of mere concepts as religion or mere politics as religion. For me there's something like a realization that puts one "behind" words. There are words for this realization, but these words don't tend mean anything to most philosophers. I think we really do just vary so much as individuals that there's just no reason to expect convergence or assume that there is "one right way" to be "spiritual." Some are "wired" sufficiently similarly and have had sufficiently similar experiences to bond over a paragraph. But it's rare. We mostly talk past one another. I can accept that. Still, I enjoy sharing my words and reading the words of others, even if they mostly bounce off in either case.

I’ve never read about theology, because I don’t think scientific, logical or philosophical conceptual reasoning applies everywhere, so I have no idea what sort of concepts theologians can write whole books of information about. Also, I’ve never understood what philosophers mean when they speak of God.
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It sounds like conceptual, hypothetical, logic-based philosophy. Maybe metaphysical.
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My metaphysics (Faraday, Tippler, and Tegmark, and (from what I’ve heard here) Wittgenstein too, beat me to it, in its main basis) is about hypothetical things too, based on inevitable abstract logical facts, to explain our world and life-experience.
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But I don’t feel that logic, philosophy, concept, can be taken to apply to more than the metaphysical world of “material” lives and universes.
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There are few intriguing questions, like the Hindu & Buddhist notions of incarnations in nonphysical realms. Could there logically/metaphysically be such a thing as a nonphysical possibility-world, or a nonphysical life-experience possibility-story—without physical laws? Not that I can imagine, but I don’t know.

I feel that individual experience is fundamental and primary to lives and worlds (from our relevance-point-of view), but I don't know how a nonphysical life-experience possibility-story could play out.
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But any philosophy about God in terms of knowledge, facts, logic, metaphysics, and philosophy, or philosophical elaboration of detail, or philosophical explanation—is incomprehensible to me.
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Michael Ossipoff

I’ve never read about theology, because I don’t think scientific, logical or philosophical conceptual reasoning applies everywhere, so I have no idea what sort of concepts theologians can write whole books of information about. Also, I’ve never understood what philosophers mean when they speak of God. — Michael Ossipoff

I don't know much about theology in general, though traditional theology does use logic to "prove" the existence of God. I did study some "negative" or apophatic theology, which is closely related to extreme forms of atheism. I don't have a sense that there is some God outside of us. I agree with Feuerbach. Religious thought is anthropomorphic, but that's a good thing! At least for Feuerbach. Man is the god of man. In the myth of the incarnation this becomes explicit. I read these myths as coded truths about human nature.

My metaphysics (Faraday, Tippler, and Tegmark, and (from what I’ve heard here) Wittgenstein too, beat me to it, in its main basis) is about hypothetical things too, based on inevitable abstract logical facts, to explain our world and life-experience. — Michael Ossipoff

If you can summarize this, I'd enjoy a sketch of your basic view.

I feel that individual experience is fundamental and primary to lives and worlds (from our relevance-point-of view), but I don't know how a nonphysical life-experience possibility-story could play out. — Michael Ossipoff

I deeply agree with you here. What I'm really interested is the structure of life as we intimately know it. Heidegger's phenomenological "analytic of Dasein" is something I'm really getting into lately. I highly recommend The Concept of Time, if you ever decide to look into ol' Heidegger. It's only 100 pages and it's the first draft of his famous Being and Time. Best book I've picked up in a long time. Of course B&T itself is great, too, but I like the density and focus of the first draft.

But any philosophy about God in terms of knowledge, facts, logic, metaphysics, and philosophy, or philosophical elaboration of detail, or philosophical explanation—is incomprehensible to me. — Michael Ossipoff

It's kinda funny that we misunderstood one another at first, because this is more or less what I was trying to say in my talk of "empty negation." To convert God into propositions is to kill off the "force" of the word, what the word has hinted at. For me the "divine" only makes sense as feeling, as a mode of being alive. I do think this mode is supported by the "right" kind of thinking, but "feeling is first."

I’d said:
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Also, I’ve never understood what philosophers mean when they speak of God. — Michael Ossipoff

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You said:
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I don't know much about theology in general, though traditional theology does use logic to "prove" the existence of God. I did study some "negative" or apophatic theology, which is closely related to extreme forms of atheism. I don't have a sense that there is some God outside of us. I agree with Feuerbach. Religious thought is anthropomorphic, but that's a good thing! At least for Feuerbach. Man is the god of man. In the myth of the incarnation this becomes explicit. I read these myths as coded truths about human nature.

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Ok, thanks for clarifying that. Of course that’s Atheism. I don't criticize someone else's position--to each their own. …and you aren’t one of those preachy or evangelistic Atheists, who comprise most Atheists.
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Anyway, that answers my question, quoted above. I’ve suspected that most people talking philosophically about God are Atheists.
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I’m not evangelizing, proselytizing, preaching, promoting, or trying to convince anyone, but, just for position-clarification, I emphasize that I’m not an Atheist.
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It seems to me that the position that I described in an earlier reply qualifies me as a religious person and a Theist.
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I was raised Atheist, but later, as an adult, I began questioning and doubting Atheism, and eventually left that faith.
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I’d said:
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My metaphysics (Faraday, Tippler, and Tegmark, and (from what I’ve heard here) Wittgenstein too, beat me to it, in its main basis) is about hypothetical things too, based on inevitable abstract logical facts, to explain our world and life-experience.

— Michael Ossipoff
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You asked for a sketch of my metaphysics. I’ll be glad to post a sketch, in this post, but, just to let you know in advance, my sketches can be a bit long.
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I wanted to say things that no one would disagree with. …uncontroversial statements. That was what I was trying for, when proposing this metaphysics. …a completely uncontroversial metaphysics.
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Any fact about our physical world can be said as an if-then fact. If I tell you that there’s a traffic roundabout at the intersection of 34th & Vine, that could also be said by saying that if you go to 34th & Vine, you’ll encounter a traffic roundabout.
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We’re used to declarative grammar, because it’s convenient. But I suggest that conditional grammar is at least as accurate a description of our physical world. A world of “if”, rather than “is”.
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If someone examines the physical world in close detail, they’ll encounter physical laws, about physical quantity-values.
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Physicists encounter that via their experiments. We can encounter it via our experiences—including direct perception, and the experience of hearing the physicists’ reports.
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Abstract logical facts don’t need an explanation. They’re inevitably there. Likewise, complex systems of them.
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This word is a complex system of inevitable abstract logical if-then facts about hypotheticals.
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For example:
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A set of hypothetical physical quantity-values, and a hypothetical physical law that consists of a relation among them, are parts of the “if “ premise of an if-then fact.
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…except that one of those physical quantity-values can be taken as the “then” conclusion of that if-then fact.
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A mathematical theorem is an if-then fact whose “if “ premise includes, but isn’t limited to, a set of mathematical axioms (geometric or algebraic).
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Just as abstract logical facts are inevitable, so are complex systems of them. And, among those infinitely-many complex systems of inter-referring inevitable abstract logical if-then facts about hypotheticals, there inevitably must be one whose events and relations match those of our “physical” universe.
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There’s no particular reason to believe that our universe is other than that. There’s no physical experiment result that suggests otherwise.
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Michael Faraday pointed that out in 1844.
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If this physical universe has some sort of “objective” existence, other than as a complex logical system, then that’s a superfluous, unverifiable fact, an unfalsifiable proposition.
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If, in our universe, there’s the objectively, concretely, fundamentally existing “Stuff”, that Materialism believes in, then it’s superfluous, unverifiable, and the subject of an unfalsifiable proposition.
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I don’t claim that what I hypothesize in the two above paragraphs aren’t superfluously, unverifiably, unfalsifiably true. (…though I feel that there’s no particular reason to believe that they are.)
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And no one would disagree that there are abstract facts, and the infinitely-many complex systems of them that I spoke of above.
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So then, I’d say that there’s no disagreement about the metaphysics that I’ve just described.
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There’s no reason to believe that our universe isn’t one of infinitely-many such complex systems of inter-referring inevitable abstract logical if-then facts about hypotheticals.. One of infinitely many such complex logical systems.
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Instead of one world of “is” -- infinitely many worlds of “if “.
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If someone questions the “reality” or “existence” of those complex systems of abstract logical facts, then I reply that each one such system needn’t have any reality, existence, relevance or validity outside of its own local inter-referring context.
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Each one is an isolated local system, and needn’t be real or existent in any context other than its own. …needn’t be real or existent in any larger or global context. …needn’t have some global medium in which to be real or existent.
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Are the other infinitely-many possibility-world universes real to us? Of course not. Likewise ours isn’t real to their inhabitants either.
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This is basically what Michael Faraday was quoted as saying in 1844.
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Here are some ways in which my metaphysics, my version of this Eliminative Ontic Structuralism, differs from those of Frank Tippler and Max Tegmark (his Mathematical Universe Hypothesis (MUH):
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1. Contrary to what I might have implied above, I define this logical system primarily from the individual-experience point of view, where Tippler and Tegmark define it from the objective, whole-universe, 3rd-person point of view. Tegmark is quite explicit about that, espousing a first principle called The External Reality Hypothesis (ERH) (or something like that).
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Because “Real”, “Existent” , and “Is” aren’t philosophically-defined, I suggest that there isn’t really a meaningful issue between Realism and Anti-Realism. Neither is absolutely right or wrong.
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So I refer to a complex system of inter-referring inevitable abstract logical if-then facts about hypotheticals that is an individual “life-experience possibility-story”. …of which there are infinitely-many.
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I say that, for us, it’s most meaningful to speak of us and our experience as being metaphysically-primary.
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You’re in a life because there’s a life-experience possibility-story that’s about you. ,,,about someone just like you, with your basic subconscious attributes, inclinations, feelings etc. …about you. You’re the protagonist in that story.
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It certainly empirically makes sense for us to define the metaphysical world based on our experience, because, for one thing, everything that we know about this physical world comes to us from our experience. That’s what there directly observably metaphysically is, for us. It’s reasonable, natural and right for us to speak from our own empirical point of view.
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Nisargadatta said that we didn’t make our world, but we make it relevant.
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That implies, and I agree, that Anti-Realism is valid and right for us, but doesn’t really rule-out a kind of reality for all abstract facts, including systems of them that are uninhabited universes.
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It’s a matter of relevance to us.
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One could say that we’re the reason why our world is relevant (…meaning relevant to us). That has a circular sound to it, and it sounds like living-being chauvinism--which it would be, if we took Anti-Realism as absolute fact.
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The abstract facts that make up our life-experience possibility-stories aren’t really different from the ones that make up uninhabited universes, or aren’t part of a life-experience possibility-story or a possibility-world.
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I sometimes, as a chauvinism analogy reminiscent of absolute Anti-Realism, I quote a story that says:
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“Alright”, said the Giraffe, “then let’s just say the one with the longest neck gets all the jellybeans.”
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(Kenneth Patchen, Because It Is….San Fransisco beat-poet)
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In the infinity of possibility-world universes, it’s inevitable and natural that there must be experiencing-beings, and, from their (our) point of view, we experiencers and our experience are primary, and that’s a valid empirical description. I speak of an Anti-Realism because I’m describing it from the point of view of experiencing-beings.
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MUH has been called Eliminative Ontic Structural Realism. I claim that it makes more empirical sense to speak of Eliminative Ontic Structural Anti-Realism (EOSAR).
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2. Tegmark calls MUH a “hypothesis”. I call EOSAR an inevitability, an uncontroversial metaphysics.
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3. Tegmark referred to MUH as an explanation of Reality. I don’t believe that any metaphysics, describes, is, or explains Reality.
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4. Tegmark and Tippler have said that our physical universe might be a universe created by a computer-simulation. I say that a computer simulation can’t create something that already timelessly is—a possibility-world or a life-experience possibility-story.
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A computer simulation could duplicate, portray, a possibility-world, for its viewing-audience, but it certainly can’t create what already timelessly is.
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I’ll check out The Concept of Time eventually, especially if I run into it. Sometimes the famous philosophers say things that confirm or agree with what I’m saying, as when Wittgenstein was quoted as saying that there are no things, only facts.
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And, if they say something that I disagree with (as Tippler and Tegmark have), then I want to comment on that difference too.
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For me the "divine" only makes sense as feeling, as a mode of being alive. I do think this mode is supported by the "right" kind of thinking, but "feeling is first."

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Certainly, though my impression of good intent behind what is, benevolence above metaphysics, is an impression, with nothing to do with logic or argument. But it’s an impression that I don’t doubt.
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Michael Ossipoff

First of all, great post. I really enjoyed it.

Ok, thanks for clarifying that. Of course that’s Atheism. I don't criticize someone else's position--to each their own. …and you aren’t one of those preachy or evangelistic Atheists, who comprise most Atheists. — Michael Ossipoff

I'll grant that it is what most would call atheism. But I have an understanding of language that "problematizes" the atheist-theist distinction. The "divine" is "real" as a certain kind of feeling that is related to a certain kind of thinking. A "negative theology" is beyond an obsession with concepts and objectivity. I'm glad that you see that I'm not preachy. In a way, I'm trying to be the opposite of preachy. Yes, I'm sharing my ideas. But one of the ideas I'm sharing is the (possibiliy for others and reality for me ) of the transcendence of understanding religion "scientistically."

But I suggest that conditional grammar is at least as accurate a description of our physical world. A world of “if”, rather than “is”. — Michael Ossipoff

Right. I can relate. "Nature" is an abstract system of necessity. If this now, then that later. If this here, then that there. It's a conditional causal nexus.

Because “Real”, “Existent” , and “Is” aren’t philosophically-defined, I suggest that there isn’t really a meaningful issue between Realism and Anti-Realism. Neither is absolutely right or wrong.
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So I refer to a complex system of inter-referring inevitable abstract logical if-then facts about hypotheticals that is an individual “life-experience possibility-story”. …of which there are infinitely-many.
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I say that, for us, it’s most meaningful to speak of us and our experience as being metaphysically-primary.
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You’re in a life because there’s a life-experience possibility-story that’s about you. ,,,about someone just like you, with your basic subconscious attributes, inclinations, feelings etc. …about you. You’re the protagonist in that story.
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It certainly empirically makes sense for us to define the metaphysical world based on our experience, because, for one thing, everything that we know about this physical world comes to us from our experience. That’s what there directly observably metaphysically is, for us. It’s reasonable, natural and right for us to speak from our own empirical point of view.
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Nisargadatta said that we didn’t make our world, but we make it relevant.
. — Michael Ossipoff

I can especially relate to the above. To make experience primary is to be phenomenological. I want to describe what I see "accurately," and this involves looking "around" the pre-interpretations that hide what's really just there. We inherit all kinds of metaphysical views that we swim in without noticing. Intent on proving an objective truth that justifies enforcing our will, we usually distort the object. Even the usual subject-object paradigm is arguably a distortion/abstraction. For the most part we are what we are doing. I am the typing of this sentence as I type it.

Nisargadatta reminds me of Heidegger. We don't experience beings or entities in some neutral way. They are lit up in terms of their significance for us. To exist is to care.

I agree that we also exist largely as possibility. As we actually experience it, the world is "haunted" by possibility. We don't gaze on objects. We see objects in the first place terms of what they make possible. It's only a particular scientific mode that strips these objects of the "film" of this possibility. I'm not against this mode. I just think this mode is bad metaphysics. It throws too much away, unconcerned with describing what is just there.

Sometimes the famous philosophers say things that confirm or agree with what I’m saying, as when Wittgenstein was quoted as saying that there are no things, only facts.
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And, if they say something that I disagree with (as Tippler and Tegmark have), then I want to comment on that difference too.
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For me the "divine" only makes sense as feeling, as a mode of being alive. I do think this mode is supported by the "right" kind of thinking, but "feeling is first."
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Certainly, though my impression of good intent behind what is, benevolence above metaphysics, is an impression, with nothing to do with logic or argument. But it’s an impression that I don’t doubt.
. — Michael Ossipoff

Yes, you remind me of the TLP Wittgenstein. I also agree that the "divine" is not about logic and argument. But I'd make the Hegelian point that we have to get to that understanding through logic and argument. It takes logic and argument to clear away the association of the divine with logic and argument. A metaphysical understanding of the divine is a pre-interpretaion that we inherit.

I also don't doubt it. It is "there." But what this is is is slippery. I'm OK with that. "Ironism" is "behind" words, although it can only emerge dialecticallly from within words.

You said:
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"Nature" is an abstract system of necessity. If this now, then that later. If this here, then that there. It's a conditional causal nexus.

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Yes, that’s what Michael Faraday was referring to, long before Tegmark or Tippler. Some claim that a fact has to be about something, but of course these facts are about something—They’are about hypotheticals. Where does it say that a fact has to be about something objectively, independently physically existent.
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There’s resistance to the claim that this physical world consists of just abstract logical facts, but the un-defined-ness of “real” “existent”, and even “is”, should help to undermine that need for belief in the material world’s objective solidity, for a world of “is” instead of a world of “if “ …when there’s even something iffy about “is”.
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When I point out that no physical experiment shows that this physical world is other than a complex logical system, they’ll always answer that that means I’m proposing an unfalsifiable proposition. But the abstract logical facts, and complex systems of them, are inevitable, and could be “falsified” if someone could falsify their logical support.
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The genuine unfalsifiable proposition is the superflulous supposed fundamental objective existence of the physical world.
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One result of emphasis on the individual-experience point-of-view is that the mathematical physics doesn’t get all the emphasis (in contrast to MUH), because of course that isn’t all of our experience. …It’s our experience only when we closely examine the physical world.
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Yes, the notion of us as separate from what we do is like the false distinction in philosophy-of-mind, between body and some separate thing called “Mind”. I’ve been railing against that, and calling it Spiritualism. The animal (including humans) is unitary, and the separation into body and “Mind” is only in the mind of philosophers of mind. …as is the resulting “Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness”.
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Of course animals (including humans) are purposefully-responsive devices. …more complex than a mousetrap, thermostat or refrigetrator-lightswitch, and also differing from them by having been designed by natural-selection. …but still, in principle, purposefully-responsive devices like a mousetrap.
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In one thread here, they were discussing Schopenhauer, and how he, as early as 1818, was saying that Will is what’s fundamental (…if I correctly understood the discussion). That Will can be regarded as the translation, to the animal’s 1st-person point-of-view, of the 3rd-person notion of the “purpose” designed into a purposefully-responsive device.
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To exist is to care.

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I once heard some things about Heidegger’s ideas that sounded interesting, but I couldn’t find anything by him at the public library. But I found, there, a book about his ideas (maybe by someone named Steiner). I seem to remember reading something about “concern” being central to a living-being. That sounds like “Will”, and the built-in purpose of a purposefully-responsive device. But it was long time ago.
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…and something about a being-in-a-world. I’ve been saying that, even though we and our experience (or will) are primary, I don’t think that there’s something called Consciousness that can be there before and without embodiment in a world. We the experiencer, an animal, are part of (even if the primary part of) the possibility-world that is the setting for our life-experience possibility-story.
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And, though I’m a Vedantist, I’ve been expressing disagreement with Advaita metaphysics, by saying that we’re the body, and there’s no reason to believe otherwise. But maybe writers’ expression about Advaita mixes its metaphysics with hints about nonconceptual Reality, and so maybe Advaita metaphysics, taken by itself, doesn’t really contradict me.
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Of course, at the end of lives, we forget that there ever was or could be such a thing as a life, a body, time, or events. …and therefore have reached Timelessness shortly before the body’s complete shutdown.
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I agree that we also exist largely as possibility. As we actually experience it, the world is "haunted" by possibility. We don't gaze on objects. We see objects in the first place terms of what they make possible.

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Yep, in terms of our purposes, and all as that if-then network. Scientificism has it all wrong metaphysically, putting all the emphasis and priority on fictitious objectively-existent things.
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I’d said:
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my impression of good intent behind what is, benevolence above metaphysics, is an impression, with nothing to do with logic or argument. But it’s an impression that I don’t doubt.

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You replied:
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we have to get to that understanding through logic and argument. It takes logic and argument to clear away the association of the divine with logic and argument. A metaphysical understanding of the divine is a pre-interpretaion that we inherit.

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Ok, that’s true, and, in general, it’s necessary to find out that our inner conceptual narrative about description, naming and evaluation gets in the way of actual experience.
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Also, I should add that one thing that contributes to gratitude for benevolence is when someone finds out about the goodness of what metaphysics says.
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I find that the metaphysics that I’ve been talking about implies an openness, looseness and lightness. That’s at least partly what I mean by the goodness of what is.
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Michael Ossipoff

There’s resistance to the claim that this physical world consists of just abstract logical facts, but the un-defined-ness of “real” “existent”, and even “is”, should help to undermine that need for belief in the material world’s objective solidity, for a world of “is” instead of a world of “if “ …when there’s even something iffy about “is”. — Michael Ossipoff

Hell yeah. I'm delighted that we our views are closer than I thought at first. The 'iffiness' of 'is' is Heidegger's big theme. What do we mean by this 'is'? In some ways that's the fundamental question. But it gets obscured in our obsession with correctness. We forget to clarify what it is that makes correctness possible in the first place.

When I point out that no physical experiment shows that this physical world is other than a complex logical system, they’ll always answer that that means I’m proposing an unfalsifiable proposition. But the abstract logical facts, and complex systems of them, are inevitable, and could be “falsified” if someone could falsify their logical support. — Michael Ossipoff

I'd add to this the the falsifiability paradigm is itself unfalsifiable. The criterion for 'real' knowledge cannot justify itself. In general dominant frameworks of interpretation are invisible in their dominance. The more intensely the use them, the less we can see the 'decision' to use them. We are fish blind to the water in which we swim, 'inheriting' this 'water' as common sense.

The animal (including humans) is unitary, and the separation into body and “Mind” is only in the mind of philosophers of mind. …as is the resulting “Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness”.
. — Michael Ossipoff

I like this, too. I'd go the extra step and de-presume the 'animal' metaphor. Of course biology has the 'right' to view man as a animal, but any particular metaphor 'locks down' the essence of being-there in a way that pre-decides. That man has tended lately to view himself as an animal among other animals is a contingent fact. Note that I'm not trying to say that man is instead a 'metaphysical' or 'theological' entity. That would be more pre-deciding.

Of course animals (including humans) are purposefully-responsive devices. …more complex than a mousetrap, thermostat or refrigetrator-lightswitch, and also differing from them by having been designed by natural-selection. …but still, in principle, purposefully-responsive devices like a mousetrap.
. — Michael Ossipoff

For me this is a partial truth, a pragmatic truth. The 'mechanical' paradigm is persuasive and valuable, but maybe it misses how 'being-there' opens up being in the first place or is this opening. Something more 'primordial' is being left out. I don't reject the theory of evolution or anything like that. My objections are phenomenological. I find the 'device' metaphor description of what-it-is-to-be-here incomplete.

I seem to remember reading something about “concern” being central to a living-being. That sounds like “Will”, and the built-in purpose of a purposefully-responsive device. But it was long time ago.
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…and something about a being-in-a-world. I’ve been saying that, even though we and our experience (or will) are primary, I don’t think that there’s something called Consciousness that can be there before and without embodiment in a world. We the experiencer, an animal, are part of (even if the primary part of) the possibility-world that is the setting for our life-experience possibility-story. — Michael Ossipoff

Yes, 'care' for Heidegger looks like 'will' for Schopenhauer. For Heidegger existence is something like caring interpretation or interpreting care. For Schop., it's will and representation. But Heidegger stresses 'disclosure' and the power of language to 'open' the field of being in a way that Schopenhauer does not. Heidegger's analysis of the 'being-there' that we are was 'on the way' to the searching out the meaning of 'is.' It is we who ask not only what is but what this 'is' is. It is we who can reveal ourselves to ourselves as 'just animals' or 'eternal souls' or 'consciousness.' Heidegger is trying to get 'behind' all these pre-decisions to look at what 'in' us makes them possible.

Yep, in terms of our purposes, and all as that if-then network. Scientificism has it all wrong metaphysically, putting all the emphasis and priority on fictitious objectively-existent things. — Michael Ossipoff

I concur.

Ok, that’s true, and, in general, it’s necessary to find out that our inner conceptual narrative about description, naming and evaluation gets in the way of actual experience.
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Also, I should add that one thing that contributes to gratitude for benevolence is when someone finds out about the goodness of what metaphysics says.
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I find that the metaphysics that I’ve been talking about implies an openness, looseness and lightness. That’s at least partly what I mean by the goodness of what is. — Michael Ossipoff

I love all of this. That 'openness, looseness, and lightness' is also at the center of my thinking.

Especially at a philosophy forum, apparent differences often likely have more to do with different definitions and wordings, rather than different substantive opinions. For example, regarding the Atheist vs Theist matter, we agree about the goodness of certain metaphysics-implications. I perceive that as that as Benevolence, and reason for gratitude, and I perceive that impression as something significant in common with religious people in general, and so I say that I’m religious, and a Theist. But, people interested in philosophy of course have many diverse ways of wording things, and it often sounds like different opinions and positions when it isn’t.
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Materialist/Scientificist Atheists are different, with their-life attitude distinctly different, colored by their grim Materialist metaphysics. For a while, I was talking to one, at a different forum. There, it seemed really a matter of his getting it straight was he meant by words like “real”. He said that “real” is synonymous with “measurable”, physical. Given the complete flexibility of “real”, he can define it that way. He said that he considered himself a Materialist because of that, but said that he didn’t fit the dictionary definition of a Materialist, because, though he referred to the physical world as “reality”, and all that’s real, he didn’t claim to know whether it comprises all of reality. I pointed out to him that he was using “reality” with two different definitions, in one sentence.
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He kept saying that he didn’t claim to know if there’s anything “beyond reality” (presumably meaning “beyond the physical world”). Well, abstract objects aren’t of the physical world, so that would seem to answer his doubt. I don’t think he’d deny that there’s the number two, for example. He can call it unreal if he wants to.
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I tried to explain that he didn’t really disagree with my metaphysics, because he must know that there are abstract logical facts, and complex inter-referring systems of them, whether he calls them real or not. And I’m not claiming any more than that.
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I don’t claim that what I propose is objectively real anyway, so I’m not claiming anything that he denies.
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Of course, as a Materialist, he believes in something that I don’t believe in, but I don’t outright deny its existence. I just say that it would be superfluous, because the logical structure , with the same events, relations, and physics experimental results, is already there with or without his objectively existent material world and things to duplicate it. …as Faraday pointed out in 1844.
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So it seems to me that Materialism is just comes down to the Materialist’s misunderstanding &/or inconsistency about what he means.
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But just try to convince him of that.
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So I claim that the metaphysics that I’ve described is completely uncontroversial, and isn’t saying anything to disagree with; but different people at a philosophy forum often discuss various different aspects of philosophy.
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Yes, the un-defined-ness, and uncertain meaning, of “real” “exist”, and even “is”, amounts to a big problem for the metaphysics of Materialism and the related religion of Scientificism, which claim definite, sure, certain, objective fundamental existence and reality for their world and its things.
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(Could that, and problems like it, be a reason why academic philosophers don’t come here to express their positions in an open forum, or otherwise communicate with the public in open forums in general—preferring to discuss only with eachother and publish among themselves, in their own isolated, insulated, sheltered bailiwick/citadel?)
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And, as I mentioned, that undefinedness of “real” seems to get rid of the issue about Realism vs Anti-Realism.
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…and contributes to that openness, looseness and lightness that seems to be what metaphysics points to.
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I’d said:
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Of course animals (including humans) are purposefully-responsive devices. …more complex than a mousetrap, thermostat or refrigetrator-lightswitch, and also differing from them by having been designed by natural-selection. …but still, in principle, purposefully-responsive devices like a mousetrap.

. — Michael Ossipoff
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You wrote:
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For me this is a partial truth, a pragmatic truth. The 'mechanical' paradigm is persuasive and valuable, but maybe it misses how 'being-there' opens up being in the first place or is this opening. Something more 'primordial' is being left out. I don't reject the theory of evolution or anything like that. My objections are phenomenological. I find the 'device' metaphor description of what-it-is-to-be-here incomplete.

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Sure, I don’t mean it like Scientificism. It’s just that, even though it makes sense to describe and define our world in terms of us and our experience, and that’s as valid as any description or point of departure, it’s also true that, in terms of the physical-story, we, as experiencing-beings, are part of the physical possibility-world that’s the setting for our life-experience possibility-stories.
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So I was just looking at the matter of “What are we, in terms of our physical world? …without meaning to imply that that’s the only way to look at it.
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Either way you look at it, isn’t the experiencer always necessarily part of his/her world, where experiencer and world are an inseparable complementary system? …at least until such time as the world, life, time, events and identity fade away at the end of lives.
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Experience, and the life-experience possibility-stories, and possibility-words are all primordial, being timelessly there. As an experiencing-being, I understandably feel as if Experience is first and central, and I think that’s valid. If there’s reincarnation, and I feel that it’s consistent with my metaphysics, then each next life is determined by who we subconsciously are, because there’s a life-experience story about that protagonist, who is what it takes for that system of abstract facts to be a life-experience story, and is its essential component.
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But, for full objectivity, I have to admit that the abstract logical facts that make up our life-experience possibility-stories aren’t really different from all the other abstract logical facts.
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That’s another reason why I was saying that I don’t feel that either Realism or Anti-Realism is wrong.
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I never understand what is meant by “representation”. I looked it up on the Internet, and they just referred to how the mind perceives the objective world. So I don’t suppose that it can be said that Schopenhauer, in 1818, beat Faraday to it, about the world being a system of logical facts? So maybe Faraday, in 1844, was the 1st Westerner to get that right. Score one for the English.

It is we who ask not only what is but what this 'is' is. It is we who can reveal ourselves to ourselves as 'just animals' or 'eternal souls' or 'consciousness.'

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Depending on from which point-of-view we look at it. But, I’d say that (during life) we’re never apart from the body and complementarity with our physical world.
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That matter of “is” reminds me of the block whose removal brings down the whole pile-structure of blocks, when it brings into question beliefs about what is…leading to those good conclusions, consequences and impressions that metaphysics points to, that we agree on—the impression of openness, looseness and lightness.
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Michael Ossipoff