Since the problem of a purposive universe was raised and the claim by Wayfarer that something along the way was lost, we need to consider whether in what way what was said to be lost was even present, but also whether our understanding of the universe should include models of the divine, what that means, and what they are. — Fooloso4

Consider the famous essay by Bertrand Russell at the dawn of the 20th Century:

That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins–all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built. — Bertrand Russell, A Free Man's Worship

This became the theme of an enormous range of literature, drama, art and philosophy in the 20th century. One book worth mentioning is Max Horkheimer's 'Eclipse of Reason', written immediately after WWII. The main theme of this book is that in classical philosophy and culture, reason is assumed to be objective, in the sense of underlying the cosmos. The role of philosophy (and science) was naturally assumed to be discerning this reason and acting in accordance with it. 'Since it is objective and not bound to a particular subject, the rationality of correct ends is the rationality of the whole world or universe, it’s proper ordering or harmony. Humanity’s understanding of it is not a technical accomplishment so much an achievement of revelation or wisdom achieved.' ¹

However, he says, the ascendancy of instrumental reason, the reason of means and ends, and specifically its formalization and application to science and technology, have undermined the objectivity of reason by exposing its mythological origins. While we have countless traditions still based in old ideologies that give us shared values and norms simply out of habit, they have been exposed as superstition because of their connection with mythological creation narratives (as Neitszche diagnosed in Twilight of the Gods and other works). And so while the human ability to engineer outcomes has been vastly amplified, our ability to pursue goals with intellectual integrity has collapsed, due to the perceived meaninglessness of the Universe. This is a crisis - perhaps another facet of that described in Edward Husserl's 'Crisis of the European Sciences'.

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1. 'Plato was clearly concerned not only with the state of his soul, but also with his relation to the universe at the deepest level. Plato’s metaphysics was not intended to produce merely a detached understanding of reality. His motivation in philosophy was in part to achieve a kind of understanding that would connect him (and therefore every human being) to the whole of reality – intelligibly and if possible satisfyingly.' - Thomas Nagel, Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament.

There's no name for the perceptible difference. One thing is an orange colour, and another thing is a red colour. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is no single word for the perceptual difference. But the term for the difference would be "the difference between red and orange". The fact that there are two colour names 'red' and 'orange' entails that there are two different colours, red and orange, If there are different colours then there is a difference between the colours. Of course red and orange are not each one determinate colour; there is a continuum shading between them; a range that goes from almost mauve or purple to almost yellow. There is nothing controversial or puzzling about any of this.

Distinctions are not explanations.

I recall what a shock it was back in the day when I was still an engineering undergrad to read Horkheimer (and Adorno ... re: The Frankfurt School) about 'instrumental reason', 'calculable rationality', 'the culture industry', etc. It wasn't until I'd studied Spinoza years later, however, that I understood that 'the myth of reason' Horkheimer & co were peddling was based on their misunderstanding of reason as ever having been 'autonomous', or unalloyed, without the admixture of "objective", "subjective" & "instrumental" tendencies or limitations (re: Spinoza's 'three kinds of knowledge'). A quasi-Marxist, Hegelian-psychoanalytic interpretation of culture and political economy itself still seems to me too futilistic because it concludes what it mistakenly assumes, namely that (western civ) has "fallen" losing something it once had (which, of course, it never had), and thereby can / has lead nowhere but into a cul de sac of "pure reason" nostalgia.

Russell's essay more or less says as much; the question for his time like ours is 'whether or not we can muster the collective courage to go on without lying to ourselves about ourselves with mythic / religious / idealistic-ideological denials' (E. Becker, R. Brassier). Horkheimer & co say no, we can't, it's too late for this mass consumerist civilization. Same as Heidegger. Same as other faux-Cassandras like Žižek. And woo-fundies of every apocalyptic persuasion and sect too. What could be more decadent, or futile, than ritually reenacting 'the fall from imaginary grace' (i.e. philosophical suicide) like a bunch of latter-day (cyber)Gnostics?

which, of course, it never had — 180 Proof

That’s where we differ. Something genuinely was lost, and it’s very hard to discern what.

That’s where we differ. Something genuinely was lost, and it’s very hard to discern what. — Wayfarer

How do you know something was lost if you don't even know exactly what that something was?

Good question, and very hard to answer. Still working on that. Maybe I’ll find the answer in those ancient texts.

If there are different colours then there is a difference between the colours. — Janus

Right, but that's a logical inference, that there is a difference between them. It's not something sensed. If we simply sense that one colour is different from another colour, there is no necessity to proceed logically to the conclusion that there is a difference between them. But when we label them as "red" and "orange", there is a desire to use the words correctly and the need to determine the difference between them arises from this desire. It is from this desire, that the inference "there is a difference between them" is derived.

Notice that the logical conclusion requires the unstated premise, of a correspondence between what you sense, a difference of colour, and the reality that there actually is such a a difference. This constitutes the assumed truth of "there are different colours". The assumed truth of the proposition, "there are different colours", relies on an assumed correspondence between sense and reality, so the conclusion ":there is a difference between the colours", is dependent on that assumed correspondence. The skeptic doubts this correspondence, and is not lead to that conclusion. The determination, and designation of "different colours" might be completely arbitrary. Therefore a justifiable theory is required to account for "the difference between the colours", in order to prove the truth of "there are different colours".

Of course red and orange are not each one determinate colour; there is a continuum shading between them; a range that goes from almost mauve or purple to almost yellow. There is nothing controversial or puzzling about any of this. — Janus

This is just theory though, which you appear to be presenting to justify your claim "there are different colours". I will warn you that this principle, a "continuum" fails in any attempt at such a justification. It implies that there is an infinite number of differences between any two colours. To justify real "different colours" requires discrete differences without the necessity of assuming another colour which lies in between, as this results in infinite regress of different colours between any two colours. The infinite regress negates the original purpose and requirement of correspondence with reality. Aristotle demonstrated this problem in his bid to combat sophism.

Something genuinely was lost, and it’s very hard to discern what. — Wayfarer

I think what was lost is the premodern worldview that emerged through millennia of human thought and experience, a worldview that was more in tune with both man and the cosmos, that enabled humans to create great art and architecture, and inspired them to great thoughts and actions. The spirit that gave birth to great civilizations and moved our ancestors to conceive of and aspire to higher realities and ideals. We have lost touch with the Form of greatness and for this reason we need the ancient authors to remind us of and guide us to the lost heritage that is waiting to be rediscovered and that, when found, will make us whole again, that is, both human and divine.

This is, in my opinion, a romanticized image of ancient philosophy.

Notice that the logical conclusion requires the unstated premise, of a correspondence between what you sense, a difference of colour, and the reality that there actually is such a a difference. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm only talking about what we see not some purported reality beyond that.

This is just theory though, which you appear to be presenting to justify your claim "there are different colours". I will warn you that this principle, a "continuum" fails in any attempt at such a justification. It implies that there is an infinite number of differences between any two colours. — Metaphysician Undercover

I used the word continuum to refer to the fact that there are many many gradations between red and orange, not a clear boundary, I haven't said the gradations are infinite.

That’s where we differ. Something genuinely was lost, and it’s very hard to discern what. — Wayfarer

I don't think it's that hard to discern; I'd say it's a sense of profound mystery, awe and the reverence that goes with that is what has been lost. It lives on in (some) philosophy, arts, music and poetry and in (some) religious and spiritual practices. Some scientists also seem to be alive to that sense of mystery, awe and reverence.

You can have that sense without needing to draw any conclusions about the nature of reality. That's really the point; the sense of mystery and reverence do not warrant any such conclusions and become banal when they are applied.

I think the greatest need is to learn to live with uncertainty. But the modern sensibility characteristically feels entitled to answers, and to the assumption that it knows all the answers. That sense of entitlement and smug self-assurance is what has been gained to our detriment in my view.

I'm only talking about what we see not some purported reality beyond that. — Janus

But we don't see with our eyes, the difference between red and orange, that's the point. We see red things and we see orange things, and since we perceive them as not having the same colour, i.e. we see them as different, we infer that there is a difference between them. That you see them as different does not imply that you see the difference between them. Do you grasp the difference between these two, seeing two things as different, and apprehending the difference between them? The latter is a matter of understanding theory.

I used the word continuum to refer to the fact that there are many many gradations between red and orange, not a clear boundary, I haven't said the gradations are infinite. — Janus

That's just your theory, and as I explained, it's not a very plausible one. In the classic spectrum, orange is beside red. There are different shades of red, and different shades of orange, and people may disagree as to whether certain shades are properly called "orange", or "red", but there are no other colours between red and orange. If your theory explains the difference between two colours as a matter of there being a third colour between the two, you will have an infinite regress of colours, and the necessary conclusion of an infinity of colours between any two different colours. Between colour A and colour B is another colour, C. But between A and C there must be another colour D, Then between A and D there is another colour, ad infinitum. And the same between C and B, and all of the other colours required as the difference between two colours. It's a completely unrealistic theory as to what constitutes the difference between two colours.

we see them as different, we infer that there is a difference between them. — Metaphysician Undercover

If we see them as different then from the point of view of seeing there just is a difference, otherwise how could it be that we see them as different?

If your theory explains the difference between two colours as a matter of there being a third colour between the two, you will have an infinite regress of colours, and the necessary conclusion of an infinity of colours between any two different colours. — Metaphysician Undercover

The theory would be that humans cab see different colours on account of differing wavelengths of light (and also possess the requisite visual capabilities, obviously). But I don't need that theory in order to see different colours, obviously; I don't need any theory at all to do that. Animals can do it too, to varying degrees and in different ways.

Humans can differentiate millions of different colours. Computer monitors purportedly can generate over a billion. I haven't said anything about the difference between two colours being on account of a third colour between them. The difference between two colours is on account of the fact that we can distinguish between them. If there are more colours that may be generated by a computer than humans can differentiate, it follows that there are different colours that humans are unable to see any difference between.

For sure, these last centuries our social practices are arranged around and directed by perceiving nature and thereby society (ourselves) far more algorithmically (re: causal relations) than heuristically (re: correlative relations), through (in)numeracy instead of (il)literacy, which is almost the mirror image (photo negative) of the centuries and millennia of parochial or folk 'worldviews' preceding the advent of mathematized natural science and mechanically precise time-keeping. Premodernity, if you will, was based on perceiving 'the world' far more heuristically via narrative (orature broadly, literature narrowly) than algorithmically and therefore with greater ambiguity-tolerances (i.e. allegories, metaphors, signs (omens/miracles)) for filling in – reducing anxiety of – the gaps in (parochial) understanding of their daily lives and 'world' within which they lived and died. With modernity, acceleration has supplanted (and increasingly risks obliterating) the agrarian, even seasonal, cycles which have constituted the human condition for at least a hundred millennia.

So is that a great, or profound, epochal "loss"? Is the infancy, or even childhood, of our species, especially traumatized to the extreme (re: sanguinary histories), "lost" by recently becoming a barely adult species (maturing, or wisening-up, much too slowly for our own good) which completely debilitates h. sapiens' further cultural and social development? Is it all downhill metaphysically (or spiritually) once we've entered puberty and our "eyes opened, and saw that we were naked"? And that striving to think for ourselves (i.e. learning to take smarter risks despite uncertainty aka "black swans") rather than submit to being told by invisible "mysteries" & "revelations" what to think and believe is a(nother) "fall from grace"?

If we see them as different then from the point of view of seeing there just is a difference, otherwise how could it be that we see them as different? — Janus

We can't take that for granted, that's the point of skepticism. Things are not necessarily as you perceive them. So the conclusion "they are different" is not validly derived from "I see them as different".

The theory would be that humans cab see different colours on account of differing wavelengths of light (and also possess the requisite visual capabilities, obviously). But I don't need that theory in order to see different colours, obviously; I don't need any theory at all to do that. Animals can do it too, to varying degrees and in different ways. — Janus

We were not talking about simply seeing them as different. We were talking about labeling them as "orange" and "red", and this is what I said requires theory.. You seem to be either attempting to deny that there is a difference between seeing things as different, and being able to identify the specifics of that difference, or else you are just not grasping that there is such a difference. So whenever I say something about the latter, identifying the specifics concerning the difference between what is called "orange" and what is called "red", you attempt to reduce this to a general capacity of seeing that there is a difference. But seeing that there is a difference could apply to any different colours, and what we are talking about is specifically the difference between orange and red, not the general capacity of seeing that two things have different colours.

The difference between two colours is on account of the fact that we can distinguish between them. — Janus

This is the faulty principle which falls to skepticism. You claimed, :I'm only talking about what we see not some purported reality beyond that", yet you claim that there is a real difference on account of the fact that you see a difference. Until we thoroughly understand the means by which colours are sensed, and discount as impossible that one could be deceived in sensation, this conclusion is not valid.

We can't take that for granted, that's the point of skepticism. Things are not necessarily as you perceive them. So the conclusion "they are different" is not validly derived from "I see them as different". — Metaphysician Undercover

You're not paying attention. I already said I am not making any claim beyond what is the case in the context of seeing colours. IF we see different colours we see colours as different from one another, from which it logically follows that there are differences between colours, as seen.

So is that a great, or profound, epochal "loss"? Is the infancy, or even childhood, of our species, especially traumatized to the extreme (re: sanguinary histories), "lost" by recently becoming a barely adult species (maturing, or wisening-up, much too slowly for our own good) which completely debilitates h. sapiens' further cultural and social development? Is it all downhill metaphysically (or spiritually) once we've entered puberty and our "eyes opened, and saw that we were naked"? And that striving to think for ourselves (i.e. learning to take smarter risks despite uncertainty aka "black swans") rather than submit to being told by invisible "mysteries" & "revelations" what to think and believe is a(nother) "fall from grace"? — 180 Proof

I don't know if it is a general loss. I don't know to what degree the average person in ancient and medieval times was suffused with feelings of the magic, the poetry and mystery of existence. I don't much favour analogies between the development of humanity as a whole and individuals: Babyhood, childhood, adolescence, adulthood as applied to general human development; I think they are somewhat facile.

As I said I don't think those experiences of magic, poetry and mystery are reliant on any particular worldviews, at least I don't believe they are for those whose thinking is sufficiently subtle. As for the so-called "common man", I really don't know if anything has been lost for them.

You're not paying attention. I already said I am not making any claim beyond what is the case in the context of seeing colours. IF we see different colours we see colours as different from one another, from which it logically follows that there are differences between colours, as seen. — Janus

Then you've changed the subject. We were discussing how one would distinguish red from orange, not simply how one would see that one thing's colour is different from another thing's colour. The former, distinguishing red from orange, is what I argued requires theory.

Then you've changed the subject. We were discussing how one would distinguish red from orange, not simply how one would see that one thing's colour is different from another thing's colour. The former, distinguishing red from orange, is what I argued requires theory. — Metaphysician Undercover

We distinguish red from orange by seeing one thing as red and the other orange; which just means that we associate the term 'red' with one and 'orange' with the other. There is no theory involved; it is just seeing and acquired association; and the latter is just habit, if you like. I am at a loss to know what it is that is confusing you about this, so I am afraid I can't be of further help.

I am at a loss to know what it is that is confusing you about this, so I am afraid I can't be of further help. — Janus

It's not that I'm confused, not at all. I just find it a very poor explanation, and therefore unacceptable. If you said "that thing is red, and this thing is orange", and I asked you why you say so, and you said because I associate the term "red" with the colour of that thing, and the term "orange" with the colour of this thing, I'd say that's a very poor explanation. In fact, I'd reject it as most likely false. It's the answer of a lazy person who does not want to take the time and introspection required to determine the real reason why the one was designated as red and the other as orange.

The thing about habits is that they must get formed, created. They cannot be taken as granted. So when asked, why do you do things in that particular way instead of another way, the explanation is not "because it's my habit". The true explanation is the process which formed the habit. And, it is the person who is avoiding the question due to intellectual laziness, or some other infliction, who simply says "because it's my habit".

If you said "that thing is red, and this thing is orange", and I asked you why you say so, and you said because I associate the term "red" with the colour of that thing, and the term "orange" with the colour of this thing, I'd say that's a very poor explanation. In fact, I'd reject it as most likely false. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you deny that some animals see different colours? What explanation could there be for seeing different colours other than that there are different colours? I would see different colours regardless of what I called them; or are you denying that? So what does it matter if you call two colours red and I call one red and one orange?

What could explain that difference between us other than I associate a different name to one of the colours than you do or else you see one as being more red than I do due to your inferior capacity to distinguish differences among colours? I'm telling you the truth as I see it: reject it if you like. I don't care. This "conversation" has already been a complete waste of time.

Do you deny that some animals see different colours? What explanation could there be for seeing different colours other than that there are different colours? I would see different colours regardless of what I called them; or are you denying that? So what does it matter if you call two colours red and I call one red and one orange? — Janus

You seem to be missing the point altogether. A person might see two completely different shades of red, hence different colours, yet call them both "red". Likewise with orange. And, the same thing which I might say on one day is "red", I might say if instead I encountered it on another day, under different conditions, is "orange".

The issue is not a matter of seeing differences of colour, it's a matter of seeing instances of different colours, and calling the different colours by the same name, "red". In this case we are saying that two different colours, which we clearly perceive as different, are the same colour, red.

This is why I say there must be theory involved. It is not a matter of always seeing the very same colour, and calling it by the very same name, "red". It is a matter of seeing a very wide range of different colours, and calling them all the same, "red". The capacity to categorize a particular instance of colour, under the classification of "red", cannot be a matter of habit, because one can see a completely new shade of red, never before encountered by that person, and have no problem categorizing it as red. How could one be employing habit in the completely new activity consisting of categorizing a colour never before encountered?

So what if I might call some colour red one day orange on another? All that indicates is that on the borderline cases there is no clear boundary, or the lighting conditions might be different. I might even say that it's kind of reddish orange. naming in this case is by no means precise, but that imprecision does nothing to cast the habitual association of colour names into doubt.

I don't see anything of significance that you are trying to get at here.

Premodernity, if you will, was based on perceiving 'the world' far more heuristically via narrative (orature broadly, literature narrowly) than algorithmically and therefore with greater ambiguity-tolerances (i.e. allegories, metaphors, signs (omens/miracles)) for filling in – reducing anxiety of – the gaps in (parochial) understanding of their daily lives and 'world' within which they lived and died. With modernity, acceleration has supplanted (and increasingly risks obliterating) the agrarian, even seasonal, cycles which have constituted the human condition for at least a hundred millennia. — 180 Proof

You've explained your belief that 'all religions are false', but I don't share it. Sure, religions are a mixture of history, myth, superstition and many other things, but there is a vast range of documentation, based on witness testimony, describing various super-normal and paranormal abilities and powers that yogis and ascetics obtain. And there are also many instances of individuals with gifts in such areas with no discernable training or other kinds of ability. Of course, most of these instances will never be subject to 'peer reviewed science' or reproduced to the satisfaction of so-called empirical science, and frankly, attempts to validate such claims through paranormal psychology and the like seem pretty gauche as far as I'm concerned.

But all cultures, all religions, in all periods of history, have various terms for 'higher knowledge'. Liberation, as articulated in the Indian traditions, is a reality, notwithstanding the fact that Western materialistic science has not the least conception of what it is.

Just want to amplify one more point about the above. It is in relation to concepts, and how concepts relate to religious or spiritual discernment or understanding.

In a broad sense, a concept is something that needs to be expressible in thought and language and that correlates with something observable or intelligible. In the Western tradition, as Russell points out in HWP, Pythagoras plays an important role, as (arguably) the first philosopher, but also a scientist and a religious seer. It was his recognition of the importance of number and ratio which gave Western philosophy its uniquely mathematical bent, and which differentiated it from the mysticism of the Orient (from the chapter on Pythagoras).

As the Greek tradition evolved, there was enormous emphasis on epistemology, the nature of reason, the role of geometry and mathematics, the ideas of form and substance - and so on. None of that is news. And I am not slighting it in the least, I'm of the view that this is why the 'scientific revolution' occured in Europe, and not in China, which, recall, at the time of the ancient Greek was arguably considerably more advanced in many of the arts and sciences than were the Western cultures of the day.

So where I'm going with this, is that the role of conceptual reasoning and mathematics is what gave rise to truly modern science, through the synthesis of Galileo, Newton, Descartes, Bacon and the other seminal thinkers of modernity. Again, a mighty and world-altering achievement, and not seeking to cast any aspersion on that.

But, when it comes to understanding what is called in comparative religion 'the sapiential tradition' - the traditions embodied in the metaphysical and spiritual lore of the various cultures - you're often NOT dealing with the kinds of insights that can be encoded on that conceptual-mathematical language (even though, again in the Western tradition, there is some resonance between them, as you see, for example, in Einstein's more mystical musings.) But the point I'm trying to make is that this is why, for example, you cannot properly speak of 'the concept of Nirvāṇa.' Because it is emphatically not a concept, and cannot be navigated, understood, comprehended, by conceptual means.

Of course, at this point the near-universal conclusion is, 'ah, then you're talking about faith, believing something with no evidence'. In my case, emphatically not. I recognise the role of faith (and not only in the religious context) but am also of the view that religious traditions encode forms of understanding that are not simply a matter of believing or doing as you're told, but are also not amenable to quantitative analysis. In other words, they are (or can be) a kind of knowing - something learned by doing, as part of a community of discourse, and as part of a narrative history. Karen Armstrong, who's a scholar of religion, not a religous apologist, said in respect of religious myth:

Stories of heroes descending to the underworld were not regarded as primarily factual but taught people how to negotiate the obscure regions of the psyche ¹. In the same way, the purpose of a creation myth was therapeutic²; before the modern period no sensible person ever thought it gave an accurate account of the origins of life. A cosmology was recited at times of crisis or sickness, when people needed a symbolic influx of the creative energy that had brought something out of nothing. Thus the Genesis myth, a gentle polemic against Babylonian religion, was balm to the bruised spirits of the Israelites who had been defeated and deported by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar during the sixth century BCE. Nobody was required to "believe" it; like most peoples, the Israelites had a number of other mutually-exclusive creation stories and as late as the 16th century, Jews thought nothing of making up a new creation myth that bore no relation to Genesis but spoke more directly to their tragic circumstances at that time.

Above all, myth was a programme of action. When a mythical narrative was symbolically re-enacted, it brought to light within the practitioner something "true" about human life and the way our humanity worked, even if its insights, like those of art, could not be proven rationally. If you did not act upon it, it would remain as incomprehensible and abstract – like the rules of a board game, which seem impossibly convoluted, dull and meaningless until you start to play.

Religious truth is, therefore, a species of practical knowledge. Like swimming, we cannot learn it in the abstract; we have to plunge into the pool and acquire the knack by dedicated practice. Religious doctrines are a product of ritual and ethical observance, and make no sense unless they are accompanied by such spiritual exercises as yoga, prayer, liturgy and a consistently compassionate lifestyle. Skilled practice in these disciplines can lead to intimations of the transcendence we call God, Nirvāṇa, Brahman or Dao. Without such dedicated practice, these concepts remain incoherent, incredible and even absurd. — Karen Armstrong, Metaphysical Mistake

Of course in our techo-centric post-industrial culture, many of these ideas do indeed seem 'incoherent, incredible, and even absurd'. But the problem might be just as much with the reciever.

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1. Which would not be news to anyone familiar with Carl Jung

2. Wiki entry on the origin of 'therapy'.

Some say that all the studies in epistemology and metaphysics in history up to now, is just footnotes of Plato.

:chin: Thus, the ancient, as well as Indigeous peoples', prohibitions against making graven images: oral traditions, which had enacted ritual practices, when written down as "scriptures" became (conceptual, symbolic) idols ... dogmas ... absurdities (i.e. saying what can only be shown or practiced).

My point in the context of this discussion is that what we have "lost" is living human-scale lives (via correlation-based heuristics) of pre-modernity – and not merely "all religion is false"; on the other hand, modernity consists in living at more-than-human-scales (via causality-based algorithmics) which, for better or worse, is more deliberately risk-tolerant. I see pre-modernity having unevenly become modernity as a (Promethean) transformation-in-progress rather than as a (fatalistic) nostalgia-inducing "decline" (pace Spengler) or "Fall" (pace Augustine). I speculate further: perhaps something else 'other-than-humanity' is struggling chrysalis-like to be 'born' ...

Some say... — Corvus

...Alfred North Whitehead, in particular. Possibly his most famous saying.

Thus, the ancient, as well as Indigeous peoples', prohibitions against making graven images: oral traditions, which had enacted ritual practices, when written down as "scriptures" became (conceptual, symbolic) idols ... dogmas ... absurdities (i.e. saying what can only be shown or practiced). — 180 Proof

:ok: There's a philosopher of religion, Mark Johnston, about whom see this review. He says most of what is taken as religion is idolatory. I do see his point, but I'm also mindful of the fact that religions have to appeal to the full spectrum of humanity. There's not enough awareness of the Buddhist principle of 'the raft' - something to be 'used for crossing the river' but 'not to be clung to'. That is one of the most odious absences from Western religions (which is not to say Buddhism doesn't have idolatory of its own.)

I speculate further: perhaps something else 'other-than-humanity' is struggling chrysalis-like to be 'born' .. — 180 Proof

Well, here's where I think a philosophical framework is badly needed, and mostly absent. Again with reference to Eastern religions, I think they have a kind of naturalistic attitude, i.e. that liberation is in some sense the culmination of, or the transcendence of, the process of evolution, so in that sense has a cosmic significance. But unlike with the Christian dogma, this is not a linear and historical process, beginning at some fixed point and culminating in some fixed event at some particular point in history, but something that arises within the endless cycle of birth-and-death (bearing in mind that even so, its occurrence remains extremely rare.)

The problem is, Christianity nailed its colors to the mast with its linear and historical view. It's one of the reasons (in hindsight the main reason), I left it (although many would say it was because I was too indolent to follow its demands.)

So, with in respect of your point, and this is something I'm sure you would find in Spinoza also, the human is a way in which the Universe comes to realise its own nature. (Mindful of the fact that you won't want to acknowledge anything specifically pietistic about that.)

incidentally you might find this article of interest.

:up: Both Mark Johnston books are excellent. May reread them again soon. Thanks for the reminder.

this is why, for example, you cannot properly speak of 'the concept of Nirvāṇa.' Because it is emphatically not a concept, and cannot be navigated, understood, comprehended, by conceptual means. — Wayfarer

Correct. Even Plato’s descriptions of the “tripartite soul” or Forms are often hopelessly misinterpreted because some readers fail to understand that the descriptions in question refer to realities that are ultimately indescribable, and that language merely serves as a pointer in the direction the mind must take in order to arrive at the reality described.

As Socrates puts it in the Phaedrus:

Concerning the immortality of the soul this is enough; but about its form we must speak in the following manner. To tell what it really is would be a matter for utterly superhuman and long discourse, but it is within human power to describe it briefly in a figure (246a)

The problem tends to be compounded by some readers’ attempt to interpret Plato through Aristotle who erroneously interprets Plato’s Forms, for example, through his own categories. Thus “scholars” conclude that Plato’s statements are “ambiguous”, “unclear”, “contradictory” or “confused”.

As observed by Francisco Gonzales and others:

It is no surprise that Plato should prove “confused” when interpreted through Aristotle […] As something beyond either a universal property or a paradigm instance, though bearing characteristics of both, the form cannot be expressed in language, with the result that Plato must shift back and forth between treating it as a universal and treating it as an instance. Scholars who attempt to show that Plato is confused and mistaken, “do not understand,” in the words of the Seventh Letter, “that it is not the soul of the speaker or the writer that is being refuted, but the defective nature of each of the four [means of attaining knowledge]

- F. J. Gonzales, “Plato’s Dialectic of Forms”.

And then there are the committed anti-Platonists who deliberately use Aristotle to demonstrate the “inconsistency” and “incoherence” of a “Theory of Forms” that they choose to attribute to Plato but that simply does not exist in the dialogues in the form they claim it does ....