Anytime that you talk about the way things are, which includes peoples' emotional state, you are speaking objectively. — Harry Hindu

Re this, so you are speaking what when you talk about the way things aren't? Not objectively, but _____?

Fiction.

Due mainly to Protestantism, which 'internalised' the entire vast salvific machinery of medieval religion. — Wayfarer

Even in Protestantism the 'salvific machinery" still consists in a communal context: the church. Protestantism does also allow, though, for the individual's relationship with God; it brings the experiential dimension of religion into play.

It is worth asking just who was saved by the "entire vast salvific machinery of medieval religion" and just how those who were saved were saved, and what they were saved from. They were mostly not the common people I'd wager!

So I think it's quite reasonable to portray science as 'the quest for the absolute'. And I think that scientific realism still generally maintains that aspiration. — Wayfarer

And really part of that is the aspiration to arrive at an understanding of the absolute, an answer to the question of 'what is behind it all?' — Wayfarer

To me the equation of science with realism is a strawman, since realism is by no means necessary to do science. Many scientists are devoutly religious (although of course mainstream Christianity is a form of realism; it is realist about the world that has been created by God and about the human soul, and about the afterlife (even to the point of positing actual physical resurrection) and there is no idea of a 'veil of illusion' equivalent to what might be found in some eastern religions).

I don't think science can rightly be thought as search for the absolute. Perhaps physics and cosmology are searches for the fundamental and for the origin respectively. But science mostly consists not in worrying about 'what is behind it all" but in trying to discover how it all works and how the parts of it relate to the whole of it. The idea of something "behind", which means something hidden, transcendental is really alien to science, I would say, because it is outside the range of its data sources.

The absolute is the idea of how things are absolutely independently of us, and I think any intelligent scientist would realize that science, as a human practice, deals with the world as it is experienced by humans. On the other hand science has no reason not to think, has every reason to think, that our experience is a real process, as real as any other, and so our experiences of things reveal a part, at least, of the reality of those things. Not many scientists would imagine that we can exhaustively know the nature of things, since there must be properties of things which are inaccessible to us due to the configuration and limitations of our senses.

If we can use feelings as explanations for peoples' behaviors, then aren't feelings objective? Anytime that you talk about the way things are, which includes peoples' emotional state, you are speaking objectively.

The subjective is a subset of the objective. Your feelings are part of reality as much as the waves of the ocean are. They are effects and causes. — Harry Hindu

The fact that people have actual feelings is objective; the subjective part is that only the person having the feeling (if anyone) can confirm that they in fact had a particular feeling at a certain time. In other words the feelings themselves, or even the fact of their having been had, are not objective in the sense of being available for public scrutiny.

It may be objectively true that I felt sad at 9 AM this morning, but only I can really confirm that. And the feeling of sadness I had this morning at 9 AM is subjective also in that its unique feeling tone makes it so; no one else but this subject, I, can experience it.

In a kind of 'absolute' sense I can see where you are coming from, though: the feeling I had this morning actually happened, it was real, it really felt like whatever it felt like, and in that sense you might say it was objective. But 'on the ground', so to speak, what is objective is what is available for inter-subjective scrutiny and confirmation.

And what is the religious theory of time? — Terrapin Station

There is no succinct "religious theory of time" just like there is no succinct "scientific theory of time". But the religious perspectives are far more insightful for giving us guidance toward understanding the nature of time..

"Sound is defined as "(a) Oscillation in pressure, stress, particle displacement, particle velocity, etc., propagated in a medium with internal forces (e.g., elastic or viscous), or the superposition of such propagated oscillation" for example — Terrapin Station

That's not a definition, it's a bunch of incoherent nonsense. Look, you class "oscillation in pressure" and "particle velocity" together within the same definition. This is clear evidence that your so-called example of a definition of sound is nothing but incoherent nonsense. Clearly you just copied that off of some random website, Wikipedia actually, which will allow anyone to add their two cents worth into a definition, resulting in a bunch of incoherent nonsense.

Your evaluation of it is independent of the fact that I explained it. — Terrapin Station

Right, just like your so-called example of a definition, above. would be supposed to demonstrate that you've defined what sound is. Random, incoherent, confused, nonsense, does not qualify as "an explanation".

Even in Protestantism the 'salvific machinery" still consists in a communal context: the church. Protestantism does also allow, though, for the individual's relationship with God; it brings the experiential dimension of religion into play. — Janus

My post was in response to the remark 'The space for the unknowable and the mysterious is the privatized conscience' which I said is very characteristic of Lutheranism.

The absolute is the idea of how things are absolutely independently of us, and I think any intelligent scientist would realize that science, as a human practice, deals with the world as it is experienced by humans. — Janus

I very much doubt that. The whole question of the 'mind-independent' nature of reality and whether it was discoverable, was central to the debate between Bohr and Einstein. Einstein remained a staunch defender of scientific realism all his life.

Not many scientists would imagine that we can exhaustively know the nature of things — Janus

Back in my undergrad days, I wrote an essay for the Philosophy of Matter course on the prose poem of Lucretius. It was called 'De Rerum Natura', which literally means 'on the nature of things'. It was an early classic in philosophical atomism, and is still taught. Science, and philosophy, is often concerned with that question.

My post was in response to the remark 'The space for the unknowable and the mysterious is the privatized conscience' which I said is very characteristic of Lutheranism. — Wayfarer

I would have thought that you were in favour of privileging personal experience over dogma. And I think it is simply true that the "unknowable and the mysterious" are the province of personal contemplation; since they obviously cannot exist in the public space.

I very much doubt that. — Wayfarer

If so, then I think you should get out more. :wink:

You haven't responded to any of the more challenging points in my post. In my view someone who genuinely wishes to learn the truth will be eager to question every tenet of their beliefs.

I try and explain and it is very rarely understood.

I would have thought that you were in favour of privileging personal experience over dogma. And I think it is simply true that the "unknowable and the mysterious" are the province of personal contemplation; since they obviously cannot exist in the public space. — Janus

It's an historical thing. Most atheism in my experience is Protestant in origin. The import of it is very much that 'the individual' is the central focus, but the individual in turn relies entirely on the grace of God. Whereas, in the iconography and sacraments, and so on, there is, arguably, a symbolic representation of the spiritual landscape. That is what it is supposed to communicate.

Also your remark about how 'scientists recognise that science is a human practice' - I'm sure that's not true. Einstein, as I said, was a staunch realist. Almost everyone in this thread, with the exception of Sign, likewise is so bound to a basically realist (scientific or naive) viewpoint, that they can't even comprehend criticism of it - when they respond to criticisms of it, it's obvious that they haven't the first idea of what was intended. Hence, I give up. I'm trying to learn programming. :-)

It seems to me the problem is that you count all realism as "naive realism' and I don't think that is a suitable nuanced view. Scientific realism would be just the claim that the world of phenomena that appears to us is the result of real, dynamic processes including the real, dynamic processes that are us.

There would be no world as it appears to us, if there were no us, obviously, just as there would be no world as it appears to ants, bees, aardvarks, bears, antelopes and buffalo if there were no ants, bees, aardvarks, bears, antelopes and buffalo. I doubt any intelligent scientist, if asked, would disagree with that.

A true scientist does not want the world to be any way (in the ontological, as opposed to the moral sense of course), or if that is impossible to achieve at least aspires to attain a state of not wanting the world to be any way, she wants to find out the truth about the way the world is. Can you honestly say that you don't want the world to be any particular way, that you wouldn't mind if the world turned out not be spiritual but merely material, in other words that you are not emotionally biased and have no desire to get beyond those emotional biases? If you cannot say that then you are not operating in accordance with the scientific spirit; the desire to know the truth, whatever it turns out to be.

"A single brain" isn't an abstraction, because I'm not talking about the concept of a single brain, our our knowledge of it, or anything like that. — Terrapin Station

What I was stressing is that the individual brain is structured to work with other brains. To think the brain in isolation is misleading. We can stare at a single brain, and we can also stare at a single ant. But the brain makes more sense individually as a node in a network with other brains, just as the ant makes more sense as part of a colony. We start with a world of objects in a causal nexus and enrich this causal nexus by determining new relationships between the objects.. We also create new objects, both virtual (concepts) and actual both to establish these relationships and to put them to work. One could even say that thinking by its very nature 'transcends' the isolated object in order to embed it in a system (nature, etc.) The 'individual' does this largely with language, which is to say with an accumulated 'we' acting 'through' this individual. I didn't create the English language I think in. 'I' am clearly largely a product of my community, and I also don't create the food I eat. I buy it with mostly electronic 'points.' This 'I' is more like one end of a continuum than something distinct (if we really just look at it live.)

Almost everyone in this thread, with the exception of Sign, likewise is so bound to a basically realist (scientific or naive) viewpoint, that they can't even comprehend criticism of it - when they respond to criticisms of it, it's obvious that they haven't the first idea of what was intended. — Wayfarer

I'm invisible, or maybe my viewpoint is incomprehensible.

A true scientist does not want the world to be any way (in the ontological, as opposed to the moral sense of course), or if that is impossible to achieve at least aspires to attain a state of not wanting the world to be any way, she wants to find out the truth about the way the world is. Can you honestly say that you don't want the world to be any particular way, that you wouldn't mind if the world turned out not be spiritual but merely material, in other words that you are not emotionally biased and have no desire to get beyond those emotional biases? If you cannot say that then you are not operating in accordance with the scientific spirit; the desire to know the truth, whatever it turns out to be. — Janus

There's a real problem with this paragraph, and that is that once we uncover the deficiencies in human understanding we start to realize that the world is not the way that any of us think that it is. That is why realism at its core is off track. Some of us might think that the world is 'merely material", but this is not the case because the world is not the way that any of us think it is. So it's nonsensical to propose that the world might turn out to be merely material.

It's nonsensical to suppose that some viewpoints are not more in accordance with reality than others.

There's a very real problem with that assumption of "more in accordance with reality". Reality is vast and complex. Some viewpoints focus on this, others focus on that. On what basis would you claim that the ones which focus on this, are "more in accordance with reality" than the ones which focus on that.

I'm invisible, or maybe my viewpoint is incomprehensible. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm enjoying your posts. I'd like to hear more about the religious conception of time. Heidegger was influenced by this and did some great work with it. So I'd like to see what else can be done with it.

A true scientist does not want the world to be any way (in the ontological, as opposed to the moral sense of course), or if that is impossible to achieve at least aspires to attain a state of not wanting the world to be any way, she wants to find out the truth about the way the world is. — Janus

Beautifully put. But @Wayfarer himself emphasized detachment. I think we can all meet on this common ground. I suggest that the move basic to both 'true' science and religion is against the 'bad' subject, the irrational or ungodly or greedy or superstitious or alienated subject. 'I' strive to transcend what is merely 'I', perhaps by finding some 'kingdom of God' within this 'I.' The 'I' strives towards its 'substance.' What I seem to strive for is some kind of communion (with God or nature) or community of [synonym for good] people. Of course this has to be vague in order to point at a general structure, but I think the vagueness allows for a common ground.

I'm invisible, or maybe my viewpoint is incomprehensible. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sorry MU it wasn't a reference to you. I haven't had any reason to take issue with your posts here.

It seems to me the problem is that you count all realism as "naive realism' — Janus

Not all realists are naive realists, but there are some:

Remember that I'm a direct/"naive" realist. — Terrapin Station

I'm taking that as representative, (although I've also given up in this case.)

A true scientist does not want the world to be any way (in the ontological, as opposed to the moral sense of course), or if that is impossible to achieve at least aspires to attain a state of not wanting the world to be any way, she wants to find out the truth about the way the world is. — Janus

Of course, and I'm not taking issue with that. There are many places where Einstein expresses sentiments that I find admirable (like his famous quote about 'we are entering a huge library' or 'the individual is an optical illusion in consciousness'.)

What I have in mind is more the kind of uncritical acceptance of science as the 'arbiter of reality'. This is the view of many of the popular intellectuals and science writers who comment on philosophical questions. It is also pretty close to the attitude of many academic philosophers. Of course there are also scientists that doesn't apply to. But you can't say it isn't a very widespread element of modern culture. Why, I have even seen you criticize it from time to time (except for when I criticize it, in which case then apparently I'm attacking straw men.)

I do think the relationship between ontology and epistemology is deep indeed. — sign

Isn't the point about all forms of idealism, that they're actually pointing to the fact that knowledge of the world is something that implies and requires an observing mind?

I think we can all meet on this common ground. I suggest that the move basic to both 'true' science and religion is against the 'bad' subject, the irrational or ungodly or greedy or superstitious or alienated subject. 'I' strive to transcend what is merely 'I', perhaps by finding some 'kingdom of God' within this 'I.' The 'I' strives towards its 'substance.' What I seem to strive for is some kind of communion (with God or nature) or community of [synonym for good] people. Of course this has to be vague in order to point at a general structure, but I think the vagueness allows for a common ground. — sign

One of the key points about Galileo's interpretation of Plato was that it was deeply influenced by the Italian Renaissance, in which there was a big revival of Plato. Galileo accepted that Plato's 'dianoia', which is mathematical knowledge, is of a higher order than empirical knowledge, in the sense that the mathematically-quantifiable attributes of the primary qualities of bodies can be known with great certainty. You can also see how that dovetails with Descartes understanding of the apodictic nature of rational certainty and mathematical proofs. This is the origin of modern mathematical physics

So this mathematical method provided a way to transcend or 'bracket out' the merely subjective and idiosyncratic. It was a radical break with medieval science, because it also eliminated telos and intentionality, and much else besides. Nagel puts it succinctly:

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. (Mind and Cosmos pp. 35-36)

So the kind of 'self-negation' that modern science engenders, is nothing like the 'self-abnegation' of the contemplative traditions which is based on the transcendence of ego. It is more rooted in the tradition of liberal individualism, the pursuit of progress and the common good. And again, it's a very 'this-wordly' enterprise. And hey, there's a lot to commend that. I really don't like the Green/Left disparagement of science and democratic values. I owe a hell of a lot to it myself. But there's a spiritual vacuum at its core still.

I'd like to hear more about the religious conception of time. — sign

It's a difficult and long process which requires ardently, and arduously, analyzing all the different aspects of time. We can begin with the most simple, what is the most evident to us, and that is that there is a fundamental difference between future and past. We find a recognition of this difference in the oldest religious material in the distinction between what has happened in the past, and what we are looking forward to in the future. Tales, myths, were handed down from the past, with the view that they would be useful for the future. At some time in the past, human beings then recognized the importance of the present, as the boundary between past and future. In the Old Testament, I believe at one point God answers the question of who are you, with I am that I am, or something like that. This signifies that at this time, these human beings recognized the importance of the present.

Following this, the understanding of time becomes even more complex. The ancient Greeks introduced the notions of change and becoming, and these concepts are based in the fact that time is continually passing. This adds a second dimension to the nature of time. Not only is time fundamentally the substantial division between past and future, which is the present, but it is also active. Add to this, the idea that the past consists of actualities while the future consists of possibilities. So the realm of physical existence, whatever it is that has real (actual) physical existence, is the past, what has come to be, and this physical existence (the past) is continually coming into existence at the present from the possibilities which the future hands us. Some might describe it as the physical world being created anew at each moment as time passes. So Neo-Platonist philosophers and Christian theologians studied this problem of how it is that the physical world comes into being from the realm of possibilities, at the present, as time continually passes. This fundamental problem remains unresolved but modern science appears to be distracted from it.

Heidegger was influenced by this and did some great work with it. — sign

Yes, I've read quite a bit of Heidegger, and though his terminology is difficult, he does focus on this problem of the nature of time, and offers some good insight. There are other modern philosophers who have taken up the question as well, but it is very complex, difficult, and confusing. The confusion is the worst aspect because it causes a philosopher to write one thing, then later write something else which is inconsistent, so they tend to write precious little, having not resolved the problems. Then to the reader it might appear like the writer does not have a clue, when in reality the writer is just trying to work out some very difficult problems, and provide some sort of picture for the reader.

Sorry MU it wasn't a reference to you. — Wayfarer

I know, I just wanted to add my two cents.

We can begin with the most simple, what is the most evident to us, and that is that there is a fundamental difference between future and past. — Metaphysician Undercover

Indeed. And what do you think of the idea of the primacy of the future for human beings? We 'incarnate' the future, acting in the present in terms of a desired or fear possibility?

Not only is time fundamentally the substantial division between past and future, which is the present, but it is also active. Add to this, the idea that the past consists of actualities while the future consists of possibilities. So the realm of physical existence, whatever it is that has real (actual) physical existence, is the past, what has come to be, and this physical existence (the past) is continually coming into existence at the present from the possibilities which the future hands us. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a deep issue. Memory seems fundamental here. The past exists as memory, one might say. But surely it's not so simple. I'm interested in the accumulation of meaning. The past is learned from. Experience is synthesized. The 'living' past along with the future experienced as possibility seems to govern our interpretation of the present.

So Neo-Platonist philosophers and Christian theologians studied this problem of how it is that the physical world comes into being from the realm of possibilities, at the present, as time continually passes. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is indeed a great issue. I'm looking into Derrida lately, and he seems to be questioning the presence of the present. I'm still making sense of his difficult work. It seems like a radical thinking of becoming (which may subvert the idea of 'becoming.')

Yes, I've read quite a bit of Heidegger, and though his terminology is difficult, he does focus on this problem of the nature of time, and offers some good insight. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree that his terminology is difficult in Being and Time, but he is much clearer in his earlier lectures. And the first draft of Being and Time is mercifully short and to the point (80 pages or so). I preferred just rereading this one many times. Lately I've read his 'Emergency War Semester' lectures, which was his breakthrough perhaps. 'It worlds' ('world' as a verb).

The confusion is the worst aspect because it causes a philosopher to write one thing, then later write something else which is inconsistent, so they tend to write precious little, having not resolved the problems. Then to the reader it might appear like the writer does not have a clue, when in reality the writer is just trying to work out some very difficult problems, and provide some sort of picture for the reader. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is very good point. I've been looking into Husserl lately, and it seems he was always developing his thought. As you may know, he also tackled the problem of time. He saw that the present was 'thick' and not point-like. Anyway, the deep questions are indeed just difficult. One struggles to find the words and often has to invent some.

Isn't the point about all forms of idealism, that they're actually pointing to the fact that knowledge of the world is something that implies and requires an observing mind? — Wayfarer

I'm tempted to say yes, but I think 'absolute idealism' is no longer this kind of idealism or attempts to transcend and include it. Still what idealism actually addresses is the problem of meaning. It's possible (although highly 'speculative' or unworldly) to see reality as (networked) meaning 'in' non-meaning.
Then 'mind' and 'matter' would just be two more signs. The 'I' is just one more sign along with the 'you.' In ordinary life the sign 'mind' plays such a huge role that it's almost impossible not to think in terms of mind and its other and of meaning in minds. I think we can imagine something like the field of meaningful 'nonmeaning' as a unity. This 'nonmeaning' would be (to impose signs on the flesh of meaning) sensation and emotion, the stuff organized by signs like 'object' and 'person.' To be sure, this is too far out to live by. But I think it's possible to dissolve the 'mind' in meaning. 'I' am a 'fiction' or an abstraction from the unity.

Galileo accepted that Plato's 'dianoia', which is mathematical knowledge, is of a higher order than empirical knowledge, in the sense that the mathematically-quantifiable attributes of the primary qualities of bodies can be known with great certainty. You can also see how that dovetails with Descartes understanding of the apodictic nature of rational certainty and mathematical proofs. This is the origin of modern mathematical physics — Wayfarer

This all makes sense to me. When I studied physics, I was seduced by the classic Newtonian stuff. The ghostly skeleton of the world was a realm subject to law, describable in exact hieroglyphics. I was learning calculus at the same time. It was all very seductive, especially since movement itself was being captured in a quiet eternal language.

So this mathematical method provided a way to transcend or 'bracket out' the merely subjective and idiosyncratic. It was a radical break with medieval science, because it also eliminated telos and intentionality, and much else besides. — Wayfarer

I agree. That bracketing was perhaps a blessing and a curse. It allowed science to ignore the most mysterious and difficult aspects of existence and concentrate on the prediction and control of objects. Such concentration obviously revolutionized human life, but of course it just might lead to our extinction. We built a 'toy' that just might be too big for us. I can imagine intelligent life arriving to find our remains and putting together the narrative. 'These clever fools accidentally wasted themselves. They just couldn't work as a team.' And isn't that the problem facing us from the point of view of the 'species essence'?

So the kind of 'self-negation' that modern science engenders, is nothing like the 'self-abnegation' of the contemplative traditions which is based on the transcendence of ego. It is more rooted in the tradition of liberal individualism, the pursuit of progress and the common good. And again, it's a very 'this-wordly' enterprise. And hey, there's a lot to commend that. I really don't like the Green/Left disparagement of science and democratic values. I owe a hell of a lot to it myself. But there's a spiritual vacuum at its core still. — Wayfarer

I think you are being a little unfair here. Of course I do see the 'spiritual vacuum' in some interpretations of science, but I think you are forgetting romanticism's love of nature. If I were to go back in time and become a natural scientist, I think I'd choose biology. I'd want to be out there just looking at the animals. I can't help but think that some scientists are quietly opening themselves to what is, just amazed by it. Of course this is indeed this-worldly, but it seems like a good form of this-worldly-ness.

To end on agreement, I definitely perceive an ideology out there (Dawkins and other pop atheists) which is not at all about just looking at the world but very much about imposing itself as a spirituality. The contradiction is that we are 'just apes' who are still supposed to have some trans-pragmatic respect for science as Truth and not just an implement for prediction and control. Rorty is at least consistent. He wants to de-divinize natural science but use it among other discourses (like religion) to build a 'centerless,' liberal utopia 'where love is pretty much the only law.' Angry scientism is by comparison 'still too pious.' It's the very dogmatism that it projects.

The issue is (this is going to cause me some grief) is that Darwinian biology is not actually a philosophy. It's a biological theory. But due to the vagaries of history, it has now become something like judge, jury and executioner for philosophy itself.

In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature–even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man–frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity. The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy. — Max Horkheimer

Eclipse of Reason, pp. 123-127.

I can imagine intelligent life arriving to find our remains and putting together the narrative. — sign

The thought does sometimes occur to me that the reason SETI has never found signs of an advanced civilization is that none of them survived the discovery of atomic weapons. :groan:

Great Horkheimer quote. Something occurs to me 'against' the pop atheists. Let's just pretend that somehow religion was erased from the earth. Do we have utopia? No. We have ten thousand varieties of humanism clashing, just as religions have clashed in the past. While the inner experience varies, both humanism and religion are largely visible in the world as politics. There's already so much tension in the position sketched by Horkheimer above that a world full of Darwin-as-philosophy individuals would quickly schism in terms of purity and direction. Some would become radical pragmatists perhaps while others held strangely to science as an undistorted ascertainment of its Object. As I see it, we already have clashing varieties of humanism in our politics. Religion is an underdog and a scapegoat in many cases. That's one reason I like to work religious thinking into my philosophy. The alternative often enough seems to be a religion that takes itself as anti-religion and enacts the faults it projects on its scapegoat.

It is my opinion that the problems in understanding these aspects of reality, will never be resolved until we release the scientific representation of time, and return to the religious ideology for guidance. — Metaphysician Undercover

A brave opinion put well. I agree with it more than I disagree.

Reality also appears to be unified and invariant.

In a kind of 'absolute' sense I can see where you are coming from, though: the feeling I had this morning actually happened, it was real, it really felt like whatever it felt like, and in that sense you might say it was objective. But 'on the ground', so to speak, what is objective is what is available for inter-subjective scrutiny and confirmation. — Janus

Did your emotional state cause you to behave a certain way? Close friends and family can read you better than you can sometimes. Having a more objective perspective of someone can give you an insight into that person that that person doesn't have of themselves, because people have a habit of fooling themselves.

We can only see the "surface" of anything, rocks, trees, water, people, etc. It's how our minds model the world. We use scientific experiments to explain the behavior of these "surfaced objects".

Indeed. And what do you think of the idea of the primacy of the future for human beings? We 'incarnate' the future, acting in the present in terms of a desired or fear possibility? — sign

I would say that the future is manifested within us as anticipation.

This is a deep issue. Memory seems fundamental here. The past exists as memory, one might say. But surely it's not so simple. I'm interested in the accumulation of meaning. The past is learned from. Experience is synthesized. The 'living' past along with the future experienced as possibility seems to govern our interpretation of the present. — sign

I would like to see a separation between "experience" and "future". I believe it is wrong to say that we experience the future, and this is a big problem with philosophies based in experience, like empiricism, these philosophies cannot account for our relationship with the future. So what happens when "experience is synthesized" (as you say), memories (experiences) are contextualized at an actively changing present, in relation to the future. So what it is which is synthesized, i.e. produced by our minds at the present, contains elements of experience as well as elements of anticipation. Therefore this cannot be properly called "experience". Our being at the present is a synthesis of memories (past) and anticipations (future), experience being proper to the former but not the latter.

This is indeed a great issue. I'm looking into Derrida lately, and he seems to be questioning the presence of the present. I'm still making sense of his difficult work. It seems like a radical thinking of becoming (which may subvert the idea of 'becoming.') — sign

We did a reading group of Voice and Phenomenon here at TPF a couple years back. If you're interested, search it. We covered the book quite thoroughly (though I'm not sure we quite finished) with opinions from different people. If I remember correctly, his distinction between presence and present, might be described in a simplified way as subjective being and objective being, with a sort of transcendentalism. I think Heidegger's description in Being and Time is similar, but more Platonic in the sense that Heidegger builds on the distinction and relationship between the more general and the more specific. This is actually the heart of the issue in all of its complexity. You'll find it in Plato's Timaeus, further developed by Neo-Platonists and early Christian theologians. Simply put, the future appears to us in the form of possibility, which is the general, universal, conceptual. But the past is revealed to us as the existence of particulars.

So according to Plato's Timaeus, there must be an act which is occurring at the present whereby the universal Forms are informing the passive receptacle, matter, to produce the physical existence of particulars. In any case, this is the difficult problem, the future appears to us in the form of possibility, which does not consist of particulars, it is general, universal, though we may express particular possibilities in an attempt to understand and choose. The past appears to us as particulars, individual things with material existence. We can put this into context of this thread by saying idealism looks to the future, while materialism looks from the past. The difficulty is to bridge the boundary between them, which is existence at the present.

This is very good point. I've been looking into Husserl lately, and it seems he was always developing his thought. As you may know, he also tackled the problem of time. He saw that the present was 'thick' and not point-like. Anyway, the deep questions are indeed just difficult. One struggles to find the words and often has to invent some. — sign

I haven't read Husserl but I know that the trend in modern presentism is toward a dimensional, or 'thick" present. I call it the second dimension of time, "breadth". The issue is that the "present" is defined by our presence. But our presence is as described above, a synthesis of elements from the past as well as the future. The present cannot be a non-dimensional point in time which separates past from future because this would deny the possibility of us being at the present. Further, we notice that activity occurs at the present and activity requires a passing of time. So we must allow that there is a passing of time which occurs at the present; whereas this time which passes at the present is not accounted for by the timeline which represents the present as a point between past and future. Einstein's concept of the relativity of simultaneity really opens up this possibility, by demonstrating that the point which marks the present, is really a vague "zone" on the timeline. The one dimensional timeline is produced from one synthesized, or average, perspective between the two extremes of large and small existence. But to allow for the existence of this "zone" at the present, the timeline must have breadth, and this allows for numerous parallel timelines depending on the frame of reference.

Reality also appears to be unified and invariant. — Janus

I don't understand why you would say this. Don't we confront many distinct possibilities at the present, implying the exact opposite.

So is "objective" the same as "fact" and/or "truth" on your view?

But the religious perspectives are far more insightful for giving us guidance toward understanding the nature of time.. — Metaphysician Undercover

What are some examples of that then?

That's not a definition, it's a bunch of incoherent nonsense. Look, you class "oscillation in pressure" and "particle velocity" together within the same definition. This is clear evidence that your so-called example of a definition of sound is nothing but incoherent nonsense. Clearly you just copied that off of some random website, — Metaphysician Undercover

It's the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) definition, from the American National Standard on Acoustic Terminology document, which is also quoted on Wikipedia, yes.

Beautifully put. But Wayfarer himself emphasized detachment. I think we can all meet on this common ground. I suggest that the move basic to both 'true' science and religion is against the 'bad' subject, the irrational or ungodly or greedy or superstitious or alienated subject. 'I' strive to transcend what is merely 'I', perhaps by finding some 'kingdom of God' within this 'I.' The 'I' strives towards its 'substance.' What I seem to strive for is some kind of communion (with God or nature) or community of [synonym for good] people. Of course this has to be vague in order to point at a general structure, but I think the vagueness allows for a common ground. — sign

Thanks. I think Wayfarer and I have plenty of common ground. We do have a couple of areas of disagreement, though.

I agree with you that the most important things are communion and community; which in some senses are the very same things. For me both consist in dispositions which are based more in feeling than in intellectual understanding; they are more poetry than science, that is. Good poetry can well do without science (although it may benefit greatly from scientific insight) but good science ( that is, beneficial science) cannot do without poetry. This signals to me that nothing is more important than feeling, and love is the primary feeling that both binds and releases.

What are some examples of that then? — Terrapin Station

I described that in my preceding posts.

It's the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) definition, from the American National Standard on Acoustic Terminology document, which is also quoted on Wikipedia, yes. — Terrapin Station

As I said, the definition provided is quite incoherent. Considering that light exists as particles, that definition would class light as sound. You ought to check your references before you quote them because it's probably false that the ANSI defines sound in that way. Anyway, even if the ANSI defines "sound" in that way, this would be an instance of a business defining the term for the specific purpose of that business. That's not a good source for a philosophical discussion.