I think that the basic flaw in this argument is assuming that a god would even perceive the world in a way we could put into words. A god is all powerful, and it can never be known how it thinks. No explanation can be correct because we simply exist on a lower level to them, similar to how we are on a higher level to our pets or insects. The only thing that will make us understand a god is evolution of our own mind. How I see it, there are two types of gods, the type that exists outside of the universe, made up of things we can't even imagine, and the type that exists inside of the universe, made of something we can identify, and not bound to the rules of the universe because it has the power to change them at a whim. The inside universe god is the only one we could truly understand eventually.

I'm not sure if that disagrees with you or not. — T Clark

My point was that any perception of things inevitably requires the context of systematising thought. So to pose God as an ideal observer who would "see each thing clearly as precisely that which it is and nothing else, and he would not need to use a concept to catch it and reduce it to something else he already knows," is just a bit of silly propaganda.

An observer is already the taking of some viewpoint. It is an inherently conceptual act in that you choose some place that sets you apart from whatever it is. Perception is thus active and not passive. The self, as a carefully positioned observer, is being constructed in a fashion to produce a distinction which is then the observed observable. A distinction is being produced by an act of framing. To see anything as individual requires this act of contextualised individuation - a positioning of the observer (physically, mentally, conceptually) in a fashion that makes it so.

This is the point of semiosis. The mind produces the sign of the thing-in-itself to construct a "world" - an umwelt. So any reality - if the word has a useful meaning - is embodied in this triadic relation. It is observerhood - the forming of individuated points of view - that constructs a world of observables.

This semiotic view of course seems to raise difficulties. A human conception of the world is linguistically structured. Through physics and metaphysics, we create umwelts that are even mathematically systematic. We impose an intelligible logical structure on a world of observables. We see a nature ruled by laws or principles - and it works.

By moving up a level - away from the world as seen from the point of view of scattered individuals at a certain highly atypical moment in the Universe's history, what we would call "life on Earth" - we can construct the kind of "all seeing/objective" scientific observer that takes a universalised view of the observable. We become minds reading off the facts of reality spelt out in numbers and measurements.

So we already know how how a more God-like perspective works. If we want to construct the objective view from nowhere - the observer that stands outside the observable which is the entirety of creation revealed - then it is going to wind up the utterly systematised view. Everything is going to be reduced to a pattern of marks, a set of symbols standing for acts of measurement, a collection of numbers read of dials.

To speak of God seeing things as they really are is codswallop. Does He see the green of the grass like us? Or does He see the electromagnetic radiation with a certain countable frequency? What does He actually see - be specific.

Either his perception is pseudo-human, but imagined happening everywhere at once in omniscient fashion. He can see inside our bodies to witness the redness of our pulsating heart - even though no light penetrates to illuminate the hue. Or He is a super-scientist who has the measure of every distinction.

Somehow we imagine Him as being present everywhere to notice every distinctive event - every thermalising exchange of energy or information. And He really sees it as He - from his chosen vantage point that places him as the observer, the steady context - can record it as the mark of a difference ... that makes a difference ... to Him .... as He is the one holding steady ... and it moved, or changed, or reacted, within the systematised reference frame that He embodies.

It doesn't work. You can't have a God with a direct and unmediated perception of His own reality. The de-systematised view. Naked distinctions can't exist. The very thing of "a view" requires the conceptual frame that is reading the world as a system of meaningful signs. An observer is an act of constructing a locus of stability - a point of view - that can then reveal surround instabilities as differences that make a difference ... to that supposedly stable point of view.

Again, the hypothesis was: He would "see each thing clearly as precisely that which it is and nothing else, and he would not need to use a concept to catch it and reduce it to something else he already knows."

That is a screamingly stupid sentence. It goes against everything we understand about the psychology of perception and consciousness. Why would anyone want to romanticise it as the proper way to do philosophy?

Philosophy wants literally to lose itself in everything that is heterogeneous to it, without bringing it back to ready-made categories. It would like to nestle in close to what it isn’t ... Its aim is undiminished kenosis, self-emptying. — Adorno

So Adorno sees that observables exist for observers. We have to construct ourselves systematically as "a point of view" to register a world as some ordered pattern of measurements, some memorable arrangement of meaningful and localised responses.

But now this carefully constructed self wants to lose itself back in the world of things as they "just are". It wants the unreduced experience of the unsystematic observer.

As if there are still observables without that construction of a context.

We are back to hippies popping tabs of acid to open the doors of perception. It is that trite.

We are back to hippies popping tabs of acid to open the doors of perception. It is that trite. — apokrisis

Ever tried it?

Ever tried it? — Janus

Nope. I've avoided all mind-altering substances on the grounds my neurochemistry seems nicely functional, thank you. ;)

I did get drunk once 40 years ago. No point doing it a second time. I drink coffee a lot. But it has zero detectable effect mostly.

I don't say everyone has to take such a rigorous view of drug use on some kind of moral high ground. But it was a decision I had to make for myself early on - back when hippies were handing around joints and bogans were keen on getting hammered. I see it as a personal health choice. And having studied neurochemistry - of altered states indeed - LSD doesn't have any of the allure of the unknown or forbidden.

So go ahead. Tell me what I'm missing. But I've already read all the phenomenological reports. They will do me.

It's one thing to read about psychotropics, and another thing altogether to undergo the experience. Just saying...not recommending...

You replied exactly as predicted. So you can have your sacred knowledge of the experience and I'll stick to my sacred knowledge of the cognitive neurochemistry. At the end of my life, I know which will have had more value for me personally.

If drugs could give you greater functional clarity of mind, I might take them. But the boring conclusion is that paying attention to health and training is how you maintain any mental edge in the long term.

You say I replied 'exactly as predicted". That is not surprising since my response is absolutely correct. Attempting to explain psychedelic experience to one who has not experienced it is like trying to describe colour to the congenitally blind. I have no doubt that undergoing such an experience could well alter, broaden or at least modify, your perspective. It can be surprising what lies unheeded in the minds of many individuals, no matter how apparently smart they might be.

In any case, I would never recommend taking psychotropics regularly, so your objection is not really relevant. Although some people do claim that micro-dosing can give a mental and creative edge; but that is a different matter; I have no experience to speak of with that.

In any case, I would never recommend taking psychotropics regularly, so your objection is not really relevant. Although some people do claim that micro-dosing can give a mental and creative edge; but that is a different matter; I have no experience to speak of with that. — Janus

I used to be heavily into the area of nootropics (I used to be quite active over at Longecity and the Reddit nootropic stub), and I used to micro-dose also. LSD is amazingly potent and I've researched a lot about how it affects the Default Mode Network, unlike stimulants that enhance it through altering the signal to noise ratio through phasic and tonic brain activity, think Ritalin (methylphenidate) or amphetamines. I've always preferred stimulants to microdosing LSD, due to the ego-hardening effects it has.

It's really popular in Silicon Valley. Anyway, what I learned is that drugs don't really make you smarter or more intelligent, along with the false premise that altering one's perception itself is a benefit. It can be a benefit; but, you have to be guided and losing control over one's self for a couple of hours isn't everyone's cup of tea.

EDIT: I also don't think that 'deconditioning' yourself is really the answer to any question, it just means a shift in perceived goals and values.

Attempting to explain psychedelic experience to one who has not experienced it is like trying to describe colour to the congenitally blind. — Janus

But it works both ways. What is it like to have a mind that has never been blown? :grin:

Or if we are talking about the advantages of things being revealed, what is it like to have a mind that understands the neurochemistry? Will you ever know what you are missing?

We can all play these games. I say judge them on the pragmatic fruits. Which kinds of revealed truth are going to be of the most value to you over the course of a lifetime.

And of course, I am alert to the fact that our choices of which avenues of experience to pursue are the ones that end up defining us, so shaping our feeling about the answer as to what mattered. Your drug experiences may indeed be fundamental to your resulting sense of self. They did become the invaluable part of "you being you".

So you can't be persuaded they might be trite experiences when they are experiences integral to your ego. I respect that. It is why I say I am not making any high ground moral judgement.

But before you came flashing out of the woodwork to defend something you hold personal and dear, I was making an argument against the romanticised story being told via conceptualisers like Adorno, who talk of shedding their systematising tendencies and romping naked and exposed in the delights of pure unanalysed nature like ... so many acid-tripping hippies.

I still say that romanticism is as trite as can be - in the context of psychological science and pragmatic philosophy. LSD-taking is just another of those romanticised social tropes - a way to define the cool gang willing to cross the line, transcend the world as experienced by the mere normie.

So romanticism is the general target here. Acid tripping would be a particular example of a form of perception being assimilated to the OP's romanticised conceptualisation of experiencing the world in a ... God-like! ... transcendent fashion.

I find it rather peculiar that many college students need or want amphetamines and methylphenidate, or safer drugs like modafinil to be able to function in college settings. Do you think they actually derive benefits from those drugs given the highly competitive nature that college imposes on students or is it illusory? Sorry if this isn't the point of the thread, just was wondering.

There's a sense in which God here would see less than a human would, and not more. — StreetlightX

But God would see every single thing large or small, meaning all parts, and how each part is a part of something larger, which itself would be a specific thing, and how the larger things relate to each other as even larger things. So God would actually see a whole lot more than any human, or even all humans together.

Specialization does not extrapolate reliably to the large picture. You need to be more of a generalists who is able to zoom out and take it a wider range of clarity, at the same time. From the big picture, the specialty details, can take on new meaning. — wellwisher

Specialization does extrapolate to the large picture if you do it properly. Each specific thing is a part of something bigger, which is itself a specific thing. Conceptualization makes the specific thing into a member of a genus, a general type. The genus is not allowed to be a specific thing because it is thought to be a more vague idea, so this presents a problem to the extrapolation process.

In philosophy, see as a sense has always been given a priority. We never ask "hear" how that looks? Yet it is not unusual to hear someone ask "see how that sounds?" or "see how that feels?." It is even built in to our philosophical language. For example, "see how that sounds, see how that is scented" [M.Heidegger (1962). Being and Time, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK. (Tanslated by J.Macquarrie and E.Robinson). 590 p., at p. 215]. Heidegger then goes on to claim that the use of seeing as a substitute for other senses and ideas (see what I am saying?) can be traced back to the Greeks. Ibid at 215-216.

It is off topic. So I'll just say how I would respond personally. No to the stimulants as the mechanism is too crude. And no to the educational setting if it seemed a wrong fit.

So I would contrast my organic approach with the mechanical one you are describing. I would be critical of the drugs to the degree they are just a convincing mechanical metaphor. Are these nutrients to help your brain grow and flourish or some kind of turbocharger device you strap on, some kind of strong battery you plug in?

If you can't give an organic reason for why the drugs would be a true benefit, then you don't understand what you are doing. You are just learning to believe that you are essentially a machine - as this is what a machine would do.

Same with the college. If you can't give an organic reason of why what it does is going to help you grow and flourish, then you would be best to not believe in its value. If it is taking a mechanistic approach, again you will only learn to be a machine by going along with it.

I went through my own education with exactly these attitudes. I was sometimes a disgrace, sometimes top in the country. I once went a whole winter in shirtsleeves just because I didn't like the scratchy wool of the school jumper. On one hand, very silly. On the other hand, a formative experience.

But I think this is the secret here. If we view ourselves with a mechanistic logic, then all sorts of familiar discontents follow. Life looks quite different - or in fact, more how most folk would understand it - if seen through an organic lens focused on growth and flourishing.

Philosophy of course has plenty of good things to say about growth and flourishing. Aristotle was an organic thinker, even if he helped lay the foundations of a mechanical view too.

But, as I say in every post, organicism languishes as a well understood world view - as a metaphysics with a mathematical rigour.

Mechanicalism is held in high esteem because the mathematics of that (the very dumb and simple maths) has become something drummed in from birth. What could be more tragic than those parents of newborns who rush to decorate the baby room with the alphabet and numbers?

And this OP was tragic in celebrating a general rejection of totalising systems, just because the mechanical model is so patently dumb (if matchingly useful if you want a thoroughly mechanised life).

So what we ought to be focused on is the organic metaphysics that has the kind of rigour that lets us make better judgements because we know what actually makes life and mind tick.

Straight away we ought to be able to look at pills and schools seeing why they wouldn't lead to the best outcomes because they embody a mechanical crudeness. The reason why they would disappoint would leap out at us as obvious once we had the conceptual frame which allows us to perceive that.

[OK, the short off-topic reply just got turned into the on-topic again long-winded reply. Organically!]

But, as I say in every post, organicism languishes as a well understood world view - as a metaphysics with a mathematical rigour. — apokrisis

What do you mean by this?

Mechanicalism is held in high esteem because the mathematics of that (the very dumb and simple maths) has become something drummed in from birth. What could be more tragic than those parents of newborns who rush to decorate the baby room with the alphabet and numbers? — apokrisis

Well, we do idolize the mechanization of anything because as a matter of utility, it is better to understand. I don't see how you can argue with this if you move any idealized sentiments, in regards to holism, which is forever lacking.

And this OP was tragic in celebrating a general rejection of totalising systems, just because the mechanical model is so patently dumb (if matchingly useful if you want a thoroughly mechanised life). — apokrisis

I don't quite see your point of view, I need some more information to go about on here. Thanks. :-)

So what we ought to be focused on is the organic metaphysics that has the kind of rigour that lets us make better judgements because we know what actually makes life and mind tick. — apokrisis

Yeah, I'm lost.

Straight away we ought to be able to look at pills and schools seeing why they wouldn't lead to the best outcomes because they embody a mechanical crudeness. The reason why they would disappoint would leap out at us as obvious once we had the conceptual frame which allows us to perceive that. — apokrisis

What conceptual frame is that. Emergence?

But it works both ways. What is it like to have a mind that has never been blown? :grin:

Or if we are talking about the advantages of things being revealed, what is it like to have a mind that understands the neurochemistry? Will you ever know what you are missing?

We can all play these games. I say judge them on the pragmatic fruits. Which kinds of revealed truth are going to be of the most value to you over the course of a lifetime.

And of course, I am alert to the fact that our choices of which avenues of experience to pursue are the ones that end up defining us, so shaping our feeling about the answer as to what mattered. Your drug experiences may indeed be fundamental to your resulting sense of self. They did become the invaluable part of "you being you".

So you can't be persuaded they might be trite experiences when they are experiences integral to your ego. I respect that. It is why I say I am not making any high ground moral judgement. — apokrisis

What makes something 'trite'? Something overdone, done-do-death, done so thoroughly there's nothing to gain from watching it be done again. Like a fruit squeezed of all its -

Hippies are squeezed to you in this way. You've squeezed from hippies what you can, so all that's left is an abstract, schematic [hippie]. You've drained hippies of what they claim to be saying, and what's left?

-

But:

'We can all play these games. I say judge them on the pragmatic fruits. Which kinds of revealed truth are going to be of the most value to you over the course of a lifetime.'


We *can* all play these games. How are your pragmatic fruits growing? How well do they evade triteness?

What have you done with your pragmatic fruits recently? Maintained the garden? What were you thinking about as you maintained the garden?

Nuff of that hippie talk! what about sitting in silence and thinking about peirce and being vaguely mad about it and so getting online and posting?? Thats the real pragmatic ----

what?

You've squeezed from hippies what you can, so all that's left is an abstract, schematic [hippie]. — csalisbury

It was acid-tripping hippies. I was more specific.

So it is now you seeking to assimilate what I said as something carefully particular into a more generic conceptual frame - the one that allows you to exclaim, with smug triumph, there is surely more to hippies than just LSD or Carlos Castaneda.

As if I would have said otherwise.

Nuff of that hippie talk! what about sitting in silence and thinking about peirce and being vaguely mad about it and so getting online and posting?? Thats the real pragmatic ---- — csalisbury

My day is large enough to do lots of things. Isn't yours?

there's my apo!

So what I'm saying is that your bildungsroman post is unmoving in that:

things only plinko into the Final System if you always had the Final System in the back of your mind. Your reponse w/r/t hippie-ism is shot-through with: where is this heading? What's the goal?

doesn't that miss the point? (it does)

but


"If you can't give an organic reason for why the drugs would be a true benefit, then you don't understand what you are doing."

The shirt is chafing on the bare skin here. Is this worthwhile in itself, or will it help abate the chafe?



reworded:

[How does being a hippie on acid help you realize biosemiotics and talk about it often, and in the same words, to people who don't care about biosemiotics]

there's my apo! — csalisbury

Look at c trying hard to be all nasty and offensive. Just so cute.

[How does being a hippie on acid help you realize biosemiotics and talk about it often ] — csalisbury

Keep up. My attack was on the usual Romantic guff that motivates these kind of PoMo threads. Ooh, if only we would stop conceptualising and systematising everything, then we would really see things for how they are!

Hippies promoting altered states of perception was an example of how familiarly trite this advice is.

If you now feel compelled to bring biosemiosis into it, that's your look-out. It certainly betrays your fears about there being systems out there in philosophy-land well above your paygrade. Quick. Pretend to laugh it off with your trademark wit. Hit us between the eyes with a lack of capitalisation, textspeak and deconstructed paragraphing that speak to your outsider persona.

Yes, you are that easy to decode.

Pleasantries aside, you could pay more attention to what I actually posted now. :)

Isn't this just "thing-in-itself"? — schopenhauer1

There've been few philosophers who have so vehemently rejected the idea of the 'thing-in-itself' as much Nietzsche, so no, it's definitely not. Nietzsche's point is that this kind of 'seeing' can, even if only fleetingly, take place. For Geuss, Nietzsche's entire philosophy is, if nothing else, an attempt - not always realised - to attain just that point of view upon things. The context in which the quote from the OP is taken is a discussion of critiques of Nietzsche which complain that Nietzsche is not systematic enough. Here is how it begins:

"One sometimes hears plaintive (disingenuous) criticisms of Nietzsche of two related kinds. One of them runs, ‘Nietzsche was a trenchant critic of certain misconceptions and also forms of moral self-deception and spiritual narrowness, but he never actually went beyond mere criticism to present his own positive, constructive theory of how we ought to live our lives. Schade.’ The other runs, ‘Nietzsche is a purveyor of highly interesting but detached, fragmentary, and undeveloped aperçus. What a shame that he never succeeded in being more systematic; he failed completely to write a “system”.’

I think that these criticisms, in the form in which they are given here, are completely misguided. They suggest that Nietzsche was trying desperately to be Hegel but unfortunately failing, when in part the point of his work was that he was trying desperately not to be Hegel (or any similar systematic philosopher) but to engage intellectually with each situation as it came, without reducing it to a prepared category or a pregiven position in a discursive network." (Geuss, Changing the Subject). The quote in the OP follows directly after this.

Note of course, that to say this does not necessarily entail any kind of regression into a romantic 'pure experiencing' (although importantly it doesn't preclude it either). That's why I included the Adorno quote - the point is to approach concepts themselves differently from the manner in which systematic thinking does. If there's something from Kant to be drawn upon here, it'd be more analogous to the difference between (what Kant calls) 'reflective judgement' (movement from the particular to the general, as detailed in the Third Critique) and 'determinative judgement' (subsumption of particular under the general, as with legislation of the faculties in the First Critique). I say 'analogous' because the general-particular pair is, I think, something to be avoided altogether, but it's rough and ready enough to capture the spirit of what's at stake here.

I am always interested in the notion of what philosophy is and who or what is a philosopher. To some extent, I subscribe to the notion that a philosopher is one who has more things to say than time to say it. I believe I may have gotten that notion from Derrida.

[Nietzsche] thought that love of systems was a human weakness and that the stronger one’s character, the less one would need and the less attracted one would be to a system. Nietzsche holds that if God were to exist, he would not, contrary to eighteenth-century views, be a master geometer with a universal system of the world. He would see each thing clearly as precisely that which it is and nothing else, and he would not need to use a concept to catch it and reduce it to something else he already knows. — Raymond Geuss

And yet, systems (or better, mental representations) are part of the human psyche.

If Nietzsche had been a systematic theologian, he probably would have held that God is the transcendent and immanent author and sustainer (not observer) of the world (i.e., kosmos).

In other words, he would have understood that the attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, eternity, and omnipresence, render observation (the automatic and/or controlled processing of physical experience, resulting in the identification or interpretation of phenomena) unnecessary.

So, it is absurd to suggest that human beings should or could observe differently (much less, more like God).

I'll try again: isn't this just direct realism?

Not really, because it's not perception that's at stake so much as conception. As others have pointed out, 'see' is just being used as a privileged metaphor. One might also say: 'To understand everything just as it is, and as nothing else". I was just following the quote. I had hoped the context of discussion - re: philosophical systematisation - would have rendered that clear.

In that case, isn't the concept of a (some) thing required in order to individuate it and understand it?

Yes, but then, the question is really: how best to conceive concepts? (Was it you who asked for clarification re: the appended quote from Adorno?; if so, that's it). If we want labels, perhaps something like: 'direct conception'.

You don't think that it is interesting that we use the word "see" in such a context considering that we are visual creatures that receive most of the information about the world via light and therefore tend to think that the world is the way that it appears to our eyes? — Harry Hindu

I think you're right - humans are visual. That's probably why we say "see." "See" is often used as a synonym for "understand." I don't see why you can't see that. — T Clark

See what? All you did is agree with me and expand on what I already said - that we use the term "see" as a replacement for "truth" and "understanding" because we are visual creatures. We think that the way things appear visually to us is how they really are.

Hearing, touch, smell, taste. Any way that humans get signals from the outside world. But that input, just like the world itself, would be undifferentiated. — T Clark

What about how non-humans get signals? What is differentiated is the form our sensory information takes. Feeling isn't the same as seeing yet different senses can provide the same information - just in a different form. You can feel the injury on your back but cannot see it. I can see it but can't feel it. We both have access to the same information - that you have an injury on your back. Who has access to more information about your injury?

There've been few philosophers who have so vehemently rejected the idea of the 'thing-in-itself' as much Nietzsche, so no, it's definitely not. Nietzsche's point is that this kind of 'seeing' can, even if only fleetingly, take place. For Geuss, Nietzsche's entire philosophy is, if nothing else, an attempt - not always realised - to attain just that point of view upon things. The context in which the quote from the OP is taken is a discussion of critiques of Nietzsche which complain that Nietzsche is not systematic enough. Here is how it begins: — StreetlightX

Okay, I was more commenting on your OP as a whole (with your particular comments) not just Nietzsche.

I think that these criticisms, in the form in which they are given here, are completely misguided. They suggest that Nietzsche was trying desperately to be Hegel but unfortunately failing, when in part the point of his work was that he was trying desperately not to be Hegel (or any similar systematic philosopher) but to engage intellectually with each situation as it came, without reducing it to a prepared category or a pregiven position in a discursive network." (Geuss, Changing the Subject). The quote in the OP follows directly after this. — StreetlightX

I get it, he looked at things piecemeal and without need to systemize. However, once you start saying things like "seeing things precisely as they are" and couple this "without concepts" you are getting into a metaphysics of reality "as it is" (hmm, sounds similar to "things-in-themselves" perhaps without other more specific Kantian conceptualizations though). It may be a more fragmatory version (rather than a unitary) though. I think the critiques are that Nietzsche never takes a step beyond the hinting. All hinting and no speculating perhaps. However, I am not a Nietzsche expert, so I am fine with someone proving me wrong.

If we want labels, perhaps something like: 'direct conception'. — StreetlightX

LOL. Direct systematisation! Even more honest.

this-worldly) "spirituality" — Erik

Is spirituality in its healthy form not always both "this-worldy" (immanent) and "other-worldly" (transcendent)? It seems that "this-worldly" action is always informed by "other-worldly" understanding. Even if you take Nietzsche who despised the transcendent - wasn't the value creation of the Ubermensch transcendent itself? Where did the value come from, if it wasn't in the world before the Ubermensch? It was the Ubermensch who revealed it, who made it present, and who thereby creatively changed and affirmed the fullness of the world. There is a tension here that must be maintained between the transcendent and the immanent. Plato would call it a metaxy.

So the concept of "God" is irrelevant. You can drop the word (as Nietzsche did - "God is dead") but you cannot drop the content - it just gets re-attributed to another concept. The creative action of the Ubermensch has a transcendent source, the Ubermensch reaches out beyond himself to bring what did not exist immanently into existence. So this relationship that Dasein has with Being is a relationship with something that transcends Dasein - and it is only by remembering this relationship (ie, raising up the question of Being anew) that Dasein can be authentic in his immanent actions. The immanent actions are informed by this understanding of Being.

I think psychedelics, just like any other kinds of experiences, are more or less different for every individual. You seem to be wanting to generalize as to their benefits and/ or deleterious effects, yet I can't quite make out whether you approve or disapprove. Are you ambivalent?