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.
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
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
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
More than one lifetime- one of many lives seems pretty horrifying. Maybe good timing for Halloween? — schopenhauer1
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
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
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
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
So this image of the ideal human is just given? Or how is it established? — Agustino
Paradoxically, it was Jesus and Socrates who believed in absolute truth, and those who killed them who didn't. — Agustino
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
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
Cioran: "Suicide is a sudden accomplishment, a lightning-like deliverance: it is nirvana by violence." — antinatalautist
.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?
.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.
I wouldn’t expect humanlike-ness or intelligibility. — 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?Entirely beyond our understanding. — 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
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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?
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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
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
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
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
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
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
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’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
If you can summarize this, I'd enjoy a sketch of your basic view.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
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
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
.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.
— Michael OssipoffMy 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.
.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."
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
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
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
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
."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.
.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.
.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.
.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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
. — Michael OssipoffOf 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.
.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.
.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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