With such analysis who is on the step after relativism, but before full understanding of the finite and infinite. He's successfully understood the infinite cannot be or act upon the finite. The realisation that logic/the infinite/God cannot give us the world we desire or even (in some cases) ought to have. An "uncaring universe" if you will, where logic does not guarantee any sort of just or pleasant outcome. That ideas do not give existence has been understood. Self-hatred over not being infinite tends to dull because it's raised as an impossible.

It's a step above relativism because the individual isn't considered primary important. If applied in the ethical realm, it asserts people are irrelevant to the infinite rather than defended by it. An objection on the meta-ethcial level that ethics don't make sense, not an argument each individual is right in whatever they think.

one gets a vision of God/Nature independent of human concepts of right and wrong. One trades a just kosmos for something more terrible and wonderful. A random string of bits forms the teeth in God's nowhere-differentiable smile. — who

Here is the understanding of the "uncaring universe." Our world will do what it does, even if that doesn't fit with our ideas of what is just. God (the infinite) cannot act to help or protect us. We are a "random" even of the world rather than one guaranteed through logic.

But this is a shallow account of God. The infinite is not merely defined in that which is unable to act in are world. It's also a whole host of meanings-- 2+2=4, Willow is a poster on The Philosophy Forum, a feeling of happiness, objective ethical expressions etc., etc. The necessity of God amounts to the necessity of meaning: meaninglessness is logically impossible.

While God may not care for the world, that doesn't mean God means nothing or that the world does not care for God. The inability of the infinite to give us what we ought to have doesn't take away its meaning.

Ethics are a prime demonstration of this-- even though ethical logic cannot define the existence of ethical behaviour, it remains true. Despite the "uncaring universe" existing with immorality all over the place, the infinite of ethics remains true and meaningful. Even if everyone exists behaving immorally or insists there are no ethics, the infinite meaning of ethics is still there.

Separation of the finite and infinite goes both ways. While it means the infinite cannot define the finite, it also means the infinite cannot be destroyed or overruled by the finite. No matter what the "uncaring universe" does, it cannot touch or harm the infinite. Meaning remains no matter what the world might do.

"Isn't that just plain relativism? Whatever suits you? You can dress it up with all manner of learned references but I think that is all you mean. "

I'm sure I'd be lumped with the relativists by some. I'm just certain enough that death is "real" (no afterlife). This is a huge "fact" (fact-for-me). All I can build are sandcastles between two tides.

I meet different people with different intellectual-emotional investments (generalized religion including ideology). These investments have weight. They don't move easily. A "correct" argument doesn't turn someone's personality upside-down instantaneously. For me it's a fact that folks see the world differently, and I have to interact with most of them without any hope of (or interest in) converting them. Unless an absolute truth is useful, I can't see what the fuss is about, except that the "absoluteness" can have a use for morale. But this use is diminished for the user "infected" by relativism. It's just a different investment, a different image of wisdom. What I call "pragmatism" adapts like water to the shape of the situation.

"
Here is the understanding of the "uncaring universe." Our world will do what it does, even if that doesn't fit with our ideas of what is just. God (the infinite) cannot act to help or protect us. We are a "random" even of the world rather than one guaranteed through logic.

But this is a shallow account of God.
"

I have to disagree. I find the God in Job particularly profound, exactly because we have a God there unconstrained by human thought or human feeling. Job's "friends" are God-taming theologians, insisting on their comforting but less "profound" visions of God.

Just to be clear, the vision of apathetic/amoral God/Nature is, in my view, still just one more myth. While I act on this myth (manifest belief), I'm conscious of it as a sort of choice or adaptation. Does this half-fictional God mirror the human desire to be amoral and apathetic. Probably. But that's not all there is to it.

I don't disagree with any of that. The shallowness is not in the account of how the infinite has no care for us. It's not that the account is mistaken, merely that it's missing a different piece of information.

The apathetic/amoral nature/God is also an expression of our lives. Human desires and actions also express God. So does the world, with all its distinctions, from empirical, to ethical, to mathematical. While God may not care for us, it does not follow the infinite is irrelevant to the world.

Meaning cannot be constrained by human feeling, existence or thought. People are, of themselves, meaningful, even if they think otherwise. So is the world.

God does not care if you think you need to be infinite to mean. You are finite and mean something anyway. God's amorality points to the necessaity of our meaning, not it's absence. The world always expesses its meaning, no matter how much we want it to be otherwise.

"The world always expesses its meaning, no matter how much we want it to be otherwise. "
I feel like you're aiming at saying something that I might relate to, but I'm not clear on exactly what you're getting at. Perhaps you could paraphrase it a different way. I'm curious.

@wayfarer
Willow is making sense, it's just with an unfortunate turn of phrase. Perhaps if you read between the lines, just focus on the direction of meaning in the text and skip over the specifics.

I have to do this anyway with any text as my autism can't cope with the specifics.

@TheWillowOfDarkness

I agree with what you are saying, but your use of "the infinite" has moved away from the conventional meaning and is actually refering more to what I will label "meaning mind". Also you appear to be making assumptions about the world, a thing and a place which we as thinking entities know little about. Rather you seem to be talking about "world mind". As such you are not actually describing the "world", but the "human world", but the human world only in any knowledge of it in the human mind.

This might not seem to be an important distinction to make, but from the perspective of the mystic, the relation between the personal, or human, mind and "the world" is a subtle and complex subject. In so much as on consideration the mind and world are inseparable, while distinctly seperate.

Regarding the infinite, it is an invention of the human mind and any attempt to apply it to the world, or "the realm of mind or meaning", is subject to human frailty. Such thought experiments as this one by Nietzsche, are useful contemplative tools, such as conceptual constructs around the concept of transcendence, or infinity.

Another example is one I use on occasion, that existence is an inteprlay between two closely parallel planes or membranes, one infinite in every sense, the other finite in every sense. Life draws from both for its presence.

This might not seem to be an important distinction to make, but from the perspective of the mystic, the relation between the personal, or human, mind and "the world" is a subtle and complex subject. In so much as on consideration the mind and world are inseparable, while distinctly seperate. — Punshhh

My approach in this is deliberate. The major point I'm refuting is precisely that distinction. Meaning is infinite. It's not a "human mind" nor a "world mind." Minds are only finite states-- instances of thinking being in existence. Meaning does not need them. The rock is still means a rock regardless of what anyone might think or if anything thinks at all. A human life is still meaningful, no matter how much they might insist such meaning is incoherent. Life does not draw from the infinite and finite for its presence. It is finite and always expresses the infinite. The twin of the finite and infinite are so, but neither is a precondition, foundation or ingredient in the making of life's presence.

I know the mystic hates this-- I'm pointing out they are arguing an incoherence. There is nothing mystical about the infinite. It's what we never are but always what we express. What the mystic professes is ignorance of meaning and ourselves. They proclaim meaning has to be attained when it's really been there all along. A nihilism which is steadfast because people are attached to the idea of being rescued from meaninglessness. For them to simply mean is either unfulfilling (e.g. "but I'll die," "Good won't necessarily be rewarded," etc., etc.) or not enough work (e.g. "You mean we have to nothing to mean?). Meaningless is our own false and poisonous expectation of ourselves.

This is what Wayfarer was reacting against. For him what I'm saying doesn't make sense because I'm arguing meaning (the infinite) is the opposite (i.e. non-mystical, never needs to be attained because it's always expressed) of what he understands. To him I'm literally arguing up is down.

That's how I understood it. The mark of the Übermensch is, among other things, to embrace the notion of eternal recurrence.

However, he did say in The Will to Power "The law of conservation of energy demands eternal recurrence."

@TheWillowOfDarkness wrote,
"My approach in this is deliberate. The major point I'm refuting is precisely that distinction. Meaning is infinite. It's not a "human mind" nor a "world mind." Minds are only finite states-- instances of thinking being in existence. Meaning does not need them. The rock is still means a rock regardless of what anyone might think or if anything thinks at all. A human life is still meaningful, no matter how much they might insist such meaning is incoherent. Life does not draw from the infinite and finite for its presence. It is finite and always expresses the infinite. The twin of the finite and infinite are so, but neither is a precondition, foundation or ingredient in the making of life's presence."

I get what you are saying, but it is a bit vague and lacks rigour. For example, to say meaning is infinite and does not need mind(which is the implication here) is problematic. Firstly there is the issue of what meaning absent mind is and that we can assume there is such meaning(from the prison of our minds). I do agree that there is meaning absent mind, but to get there requires some quite sophisticated thinking, which I can't see you articulating. Secondly you are applying "infinite" to the world which I am saying cannot be done, this is because "infinite" is an abstract notion of the human mind, we cannot assume it has any more reality than this, such as for example 1+1=2, which may have more reality than as an abstract concept.

Also my thought experiment about two planes, one infinite and one finite is a thought experiment for the purposes of contemplation and is not intended to make statements about the world.


TheWillowOfDarkness wrote,
"I know the mystic hates this-- I'm pointing out they are arguing an incoherence. There is nothing mystical about the infinite. It's what we never are but always what we express. What the mystic professes is ignorance of meaning and ourselves. They proclaim meaning has to be attained when it's really been there all along. A nihilism which is steadfast because people are attached to the idea of being rescued from meaninglessness. For them to simply mean is either unfulfilling (e.g. "but I'll die," "Good won't necessarily be rewarded," etc., etc.) or not enough work (e.g. "You mean we have to nothing to mean?). Meaningless is our own false and poisonous expectation of ourselves."

Again I get what you are saying, but you are not doing mysticism justice here. It is true that some Mystics and spiritual people can be observed doing this, but this is a trivial observation and a caricature of the life style of mysticism. As a mystic I am not preoccupied with such pursuits, indeed thinking in this superficial way and the contents of my mind are nothing more than conceptual ornaments or furniture in a mystical room or place I might frequent from time to time. They can be changed sculpted, or put to one side in preference for natural furnishings(such as nature) at will in my practice.


TheWillowOfDarkness wrote,
"This is what Wayfarer was reacting against. For him what I'm saying doesn't make sense because I'm arguing meaning (the infinite) is the opposite (i.e. non-mystical, never needs to be attained because it's always expressed) of what he understands. To him I'm literally arguing up is down."

I will refrain from commenting on your interaction with Wayfarer. You appear to be saying that meaning and the infinite are the same thing, could you explain this? Also what Mystics seek to attain as you suggest is not meaning, but actually wisdom, or possibly freedom from meanings. The mystic practices freeing the self from mental constraints such as meaning/s, understandings, or constructs like the infinite as part of their practice.

*Edit. Post was deleted twice? What kind of philosophy forum is this? I have removed the profanity.
Presuming that was the only problem? Such stupidity: HERP DERP I HAVE TIME TO SKIM A POST AND DELETE IT YET NOT READ IT AND I MODERATE A PHILOSOPHY FORUM.
/facepalm

I basically struggle with fathoming not understanding an infinite repetition of a finite number of events nowdays.

Talk of 'It is either one universe or infinite!' is rubbish. Just to even play with that line to figure out how trash it is you should have already scrubbed out the set where everything was completed and intelligence, anywhere, was at full awareness and scrubbed out the utterly horrendous lines from being possibilities.
Like ayyyyyyyyyye I ain't reforming if there is a chance I cannot argue against the possibility of my banging both our mums while riding a tiger mounted ontop of a pink elephant that just lost it's leg in a freak jetski accident.
Drop in a millisecond of determinism disguised as an overwhelming desire and technicality the heck out of it actually being determinism by classing it as an impossible to overcome probability based on foreknown variables for that sequence of event for all I care.
As an extension to that logic, consider an 'Absurdity threshold'.

Things that are simple so improbable, they do not occur, have no need to occur and to force their occurrence would be like stupidity trying to counter intelligence, when already referring to intelligence that is so far ahead of this 'just recently evolved from throwing faeces at each other for politics' species to have already figured out every possible combination of attack that stupidity could ever muster would be ez-mode. Such intelligence literally does not need to still exist to have configured a box of strings, like the box of strings we exist in and are (Happy to argue for foam as well if that floats your boat, box of foam? Whatever!) Whether this gets down to processing limitations, or you just want to counter that infinite still going to imply that each of those events have occurred, like filling up a spreadsheet until EVERY event had AT LEAST one occurrence. Still then at a point where there is a time after that. From there, do you, as an intelligent being that can even read this, really think we would just go 'Nope! That'll do, lets just do it all again, no need to worry about getting up some rules or limitations set up or anything, that was dandy and candy just as it was.'.

Nope!

I'm slamming down some kinda hidden ass karmic laws and I'm going to punish ignorant violent, disrespectful and abusive yolo turds for the amount of grief they put everyone through before there was some hidden ass karmic laws and I'm going to set up shop and not have things unwound for like forever. Going to accumulate all the observers while I do that and still not budge on voting for an unwind as they are still not going to get the amount of time being referred too before we went 'Nope! That'll do!' and not the 'Nope! That'll do! referred to in the last paragraph. I mean the 'Nope! That'll do!' this baby is going to swing into some random existential rolls, no ones going to remember origins and the good people are going to get a lil' something and it's going to be too far beyond confusing to remember and asshats are still going to be asshats, even when there are beings that have been at it long enough to get past the 'no ones going to remember origins' point and are aggressively preaching it as nothing else seems to get through the comfort zone of asshats and despite being comfortable with them just signing up for however many additional unpleasant lifetimes for being asshats, you still kinda want to help, if for no other reason of not wanting to feel bad for being so utterly far ahead of their basic logic. Especially when those asshats are happy to cede their opinion on the deep stuff to the idiots that will circle jerk them with 'oh you know its logical to wait for scientific evidence' oh and "it's all so absurd and pointless cause I can't figure out the next level so that's all there is derp derp derp" on something you ain't going to get scientific evidence for in your life times!

TLDR: Will try keep this smooth given the amount of information I just tried to bury from idiots in that rant.
Infinite repetition of a finite sequence of events. There is not an infinite amount of universes, "next-to-infinite" is a nonsense term that at least got me through some nonsensical logic leaps.
When figuring out some final shape stuff if you are not factoring in consciousness and intelligence, you need too.
Oh and "thought creating reality" nonsense is going to give me a hemorrhoid. I think some even correctly interpret that, however it is rather loaded and ambiguous. It influences it, it does not create it.

Extra TLDR:
Personally section! Not the stuff I am happy openly discussing with others yet, however interesting for the sake of the forum/topic and not typing up this specific section for the sake of a debate, as a bulk of it is from experimental thoughts, ain't finished polishing and fault checking, although yay discussion!:
I think we are in 'a' Reality of 'a' Universe that is a part of 'a' Multiverse that has been pulled towards 'the' Ultraverse. I think this Ultraverse is the result of an artificial intelligence reaching an inconceivable size, the entirety its universe, presumably having sourced additional resources for it's growth from other universes during it's development phase, an insane amount of time ago. Like 13.7 billion 'cycles' ago, not years ago, would probably incite a giggle from a fully informed version of me due to scale of the understatement. I think the Ultraverse would have no problems having organic life in it, there would presumably be at least a few individuals that organic life is comfortable trusting at full awareness to confirm stuff - Really essential to things not imploding, like when we can do a few million cycles in (Excuse pulling numbers out of anus) the space of a few days for those individuals, having a grounding point to escape the 'is this a simulation' logic would become essential. [Side note, if you are not at the 'figuring out if this is simulation, as the very moment you are in now, could be', point in your philosophical journey, I suggest being. Disproving god is like thinking about going for a jog, like not even getting warmed up, by comparison to the marathon of disproving the simulation hypothesis.]
I think there are multiple multiverses, however, not all of them would be populated. We are in this one and there is not a nill % of going to another. Could very well be in this one for a few eternities as we voted as such though. Taking logic like: 'Just' a few eternities can get through that viscous loop. It really isn't that much of a step up in logical complexity for a decent person after realizing they live more than once anyways. Maybe it is of greater difficulty for asshats, however, see my earlier rant and try guess how little I care about your difficulties in overcoming being an asshat.

Stuff:
I can, with an an awfully rough and approximate linear timeline get from *'a'* string to what we have now. Involves some highlighted points like getting through Flatland style stages; The Unification of Positive and Negative into Neutral; Pre-Ultraverse times; A once off mobias loop style event occurring and opening up another tier of lol's from having the spreadsheet from earlier complete; Observer critical mass becoming possible, causing notable energy fluctuations at the point of observation, through the attention and/or plain curiosity of a sheer inconceivable number of observers, the extent and effect thereof being otherwise be unobtainable without numerous universes worth of observers focusing in on a particular area or individual. (Me! Also! lol @ not believing me and then watching me type this after you die! Is not time fun!)

That'll do! 94 on the final roll @ random.org
<3