Blessed are those who do God's work. — Fooloso4

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/846860 Amen! :halo:

Okay, so the idea is that secularism denies this vertical dimension? — Leontiskos

Well, the issue is, as I keep saying, the 'vertical dimension', which is the domain of values, the qualitative dimension. In traditional philosophy, like the Aristotelian, this was assumed - eudomonia, virtue ethics, and so on. As these became absorbed into or incorporated with the Christian ethos, so correspondingly the decline of the Christian ethos often entails the decline of those kinds of principles. Do you know McIntyre's book After Virtue? Said to be one of the cardinal texts in modern ethical theory. McIntyre started out as a Marxist but ultimately converted to Catholicism mainly as a consequence of this analysis. That massive doorstop of a book, A Secular Age, Charles Taylor, also a valuable reference. But I don't want to over-egg the pudding. I definitely value living in a secular culture, as distinct from a proscriptively religious culture. But secular philosophy, as a kind of self-conscious philosophical outlook, is lacking in that 'dimension of value' in my opinion.

How do you use the word? — Tom Storm

I think the word must at least convey a sense of superiority, and generally a form of superiority that implies an unbridgeable gap, such that the elitist is a person who considers themselves superior in a definitive way.

So I don't think that merely forming comparative judgments of persons implies elitism. For example, if I think Michael Jordan is a superior basketball player when compared with Scottie Pippen, this does not make me an elitist. I think everyone believes that there are hierarchies of competence, but I am sure that not everyone is elitist.

I use the word the way critic Robert Hughes used it. I’ll fish out a quote later. — Tom Storm

Okay, sounds good.

It's this:

“I am completely an elitist in the cultural but emphatically not the social sense. I prefer the good to the bad, the articulate to the mumbling, the aesthetically developed to the merely primitive, and full to partial consciousness.”
Robert Hughes

I tend to agree but the implications of this are one can become a snob and eschew certain people and popular culture on the basis that they are not worth our time. Hasty judgements can be made. I think this counts as elitist, but isn't as bad as some expressions of it.

When I was young, I might have responded to your Michael Jordan comment with, "I don't really know what you're talking about, I find sport trivial and boring." I would not say such a thing today, but it would be true to say I have never really watched any sport, except for a few minutes by accident on TV's in waiting rooms. :wink:

I think everyone believes that there are hierarchies of competence, but I am sure that not everyone is elitist. — Leontiskos

I think this is a good point. I wonder where the line is.

I think this is a good point. I wonder where the line is. — Tom Storm

Competence in many areas is, at least in principle, publicly demonstrable. For example, technical proficiency, if not aesthetic command, is demonstrable in music, the arts and literature. Competence in science and mathematics is demonstrable to one's peers, if not the public. Competence in the trades, crafts and all kinds of practical pursuits is easy enough to demonstrate. Competence in religion or spirituality is not, and hence there is no way to determine whether a purported master or man of God is the real deal or a charlatan.

Yes, that’s how I would think about it. However, I would also say I prefer the thoughtful theological thinking of David Bentley Hart over the shallow proselytism of, say, evangelist Creflo Dollar. I can tell shyster from a thinker even if I might consider both are wrong.

The last two comments illustrate what I've been saying. As soon as discussion turns to the qualitative dimension, the domain of values, then the response is 'Ah! You're talking religion.' Next stop: Televangalism! Fake gurus! It's highly stereotyped. Not saying anyone is at fault - it's more fault lines. This is what I mean by the cultural dynamics.

For me the answer lies in secularization. The older Judeo-Christian culture had an anchor for equality, namely the imago dei and a "balancing" afterlife, which was thought to reestablish justice. The religion and the anchor were lost, and at that point equality became an all-or-nothing affair. E.g. A Rawls-or-Nietzsche affair. — Leontiskos

This seems a reasonable hypothesis, although I suspect that there are other factors as well.

Quantum observations are completely explainable without invoking the "particle" concept. Modelling the physics using the concept of particles works in many, but not all cases. Modelling it in terms of waves works for all the observations. — Dfpolis

I don't agree with this. The reason for modeling "particles" is to account for the waves' interaction with physical bodies. This is exemplified by the photoelectric effect. In this example the wave activity is a form of "becoming", understood as a continuity of change through a duration of time. The physical body is a form of being, is understood as the continuity of an unchanging subject with changing predicates.

The obvious issue here is that we do not understand the medium (substance or aether) within which the waves are active. We know that waves are an activity of a substance, but we do not know the substance which these waves are an activity of. It is often argued that the Michelson-Morley type experiments have demonstrated that there is no such substance, but as I just argued in a different thread, this is a faulty conclusion drawn from those experiments. In reality, what those experiments show is that the relation between physical bodies and the waving medium is not as premised.

With this way of looking at the medium which the waves are active in, the photoelectric problem is better exposed. The relationship between the waving medium and the physical body is not properly understood or represented. The body needs to be represented as a property of the medium, negating its supposed independence from its environment. This means that Newton's first law of motion which represents a body as an independent thing with a necessary continuity complete with "identity" as per the law of identity, with changing properties, is a faulty representation.

Therefore the body, individual, or particular, must be stripped of its identity as a thing in itself with a temporal continuity of sameness (law of identity), and be represented as changing properties of an underlying substratum, the waving medium or aether. This would allow that any body, in its entirety, could come into being, or cease being, at any moment in time, as we normally allow contrary premises. The temporal continuity, which in Aristotelian physics is assigned to matter as the supporting substance, is then passed to the underlying medium.

This has been made necessary by the advancements in physics which have seen the need to represent the continuous (existing as a temporal continuity) "potential" of the world as "energy" rather than as "matter". Aristotle represented this potential with "matter", and provided a guideline for restrictions to it with the law of identity, representing the potential as inherent within individual bodies. This supported the Newtonian concepts of mass, inertia, etc.. But the modern concept of "energy" allows that this underlying potential readily transfers from one body to another. Now we see that this underlying potential cannot be properly represent as inherent within individual bodies because the interaction between bodies cannot be adequately represented in this way. So that entire conceptual structure which assumes the temporal continuity of a body as having an identity as a body, must be deconstructed and rebuilt based on the underlying medium having an identity as the temporal continuity of potential, with the bodies being properties of the medium.

In general I agree, it is not all or nothing. But we also need to consider what it is that one is said to be wise about. Aristotle says, for example,

... we consider that the master craftsmen in every profession are more estimable and know more and are wiser than the artisans

(Metaphysics, 981a)

He goes on to say:

Thus it is clear that Wisdom is knowledge of certain principles and causes.

Since we are investigating this kind of knowledge, we must consider what these causes and principles are whose knowledge is Wisdom.

And to your point:

We consider first, then, that the wise man knows all things, so far as it is possible

(982a)

this is where faith comes in. — Janus

In Proverbs we are told that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It is both a starting point and a terminus. The Biblical God is a willful God.

There is another sense, which is what I think you have in mind. Perhaps you intentionally left open the question of whether one comes to know or only feels they know a higher truth.

The obvious issue here is that we do not understand the medium (substance or aether) within which the waves are active. We know that waves are an activity of a substance, but we do not know the substance which these waves are an activity of. — Metaphysician Undercover

The ancient Greek concept of a Quintessence, Fifth Element, or Aether to serve as space-filling medium for physical processes, such as light propagation, has been raised and discarded several times over the centuries. Newton postulated a Luminiferous Ether ; others imagined a Gravitational Ether ; Einstein used the term "ether" as more of a metaphor than a material substance ; but Dirac described the quantum vacuum (zero-point energy) as ether-like ; and deBroglie imagined Pilot Waves in a "hidden medium" to serve as a universal reference frame. So, the metaphysical notion of Nothingness (Vacuum : Gk -- emptiness) has always been difficult to reconcile with our physical sciences.

Consequently, I have wondered if we could take Nothingness seriously, and eliminate the perceived necessity for a mysterious ethereal substance. Take a typical atom for example, and watch as an electron (point particle) jumps up, and then back down, between energy levels (orbits). This up & down -- maximum to minimum -- action produces waveforms on an oscilloscope. But the actual jumps seem to occur almost instantaneously. So, what if we imagine them as quantum leaps without passing through the space (nothingness) in between. In that case, the pattern would look more like a series of dots than a sine wave curve. {see image below}

In this scenario, with no medium except nothingness, the path of propagation would be a series of measured isolated dots with no curved line connecting them. So, what we would perceive (or measure) is on/off or max/min blinks/winks/twinks over time, but nothing in-between. This would eliminate the inferred interpolation*1, and the unbroken graphic curve. What's left is just instantaneous oscillations (vibrations) of energy from min to max, with no energy in the interval*2 : zero energy, zero momentum, zero particle, no continuity, just blips in nothingness over time.

Is it possible that this is actually what we perceive, and the continuous curve is an interpolation by the brain to make sense, in view of our commonsense concept of time as continuous*3? Hence, the Ether is inserted into our models as a place holder (medium) for the empty space between ticks of discrete Time. We can count discrete elements, but we can only imagine continuity*4. Maybe that Medium is "hidden" because it is metaphysical instead of physical : Ideal instead of Real. :smile:


*1. Interpolation : the insertion of something of a different nature into something else.

*2. Do particles with exactly zero energy exist? :
The complete absence of energy is only possible for a massless particle of zero momentum.
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/193996/do-particles-with-exactly-zero-energy-exist

*3. Is time discrete or continuous and why? :
Although time is theoretically continuous, and many mathematical models (like geometric distribution) model continuous time, in an empirical setting, events or states are measured at selected points in time. Because of this measurement structure, we often have to use discrete time models.
https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/218426/when-is-time-treated-as-a-discrete-variable

*4. Philosophical Continuity :
The principle of continuity asserts that the universe is composed of an infinite series of forms, each of which shares with its neighbour at least one attribute.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/priniciple-of-continuity


SINE WAVE : red dots = On - Off - On ; blue curve is imaginary interpolation


ELECTRON JUMPS between energy levels

I think this is a good point. I wonder where the line is. — Tom Storm

I think it's <here>. :wink: For example, Merriam-Webster: "2: The selectivity of the elite, especially: Snobbery. 3) Consciousness of being or belonging to an elite."

I think that if one does not believe oneself to be superior, then they are not an elitist. Such a condition is necessary, but not sufficient. Not everyone who believes themselves to be superior is elitist, but you need that aspect to be an elitist.

---

Competence in many areas is, at least in principle, publicly demonstrable. For example, technical proficiency, if not aesthetic command, is demonstrable in music, the arts and literature. Competence in science and mathematics is demonstrable to one's peers, if not the public. Competence in the trades, crafts and all kinds of practical pursuits is easy enough to demonstrate. Competence in religion or spirituality is not, and hence there is no way to determine whether a purported master or man of God is the real deal or a charlatan. — Janus

True, but I think there is also an inverse correlation between public demonstrability and intrinsic value. That which must be publicly demonstrable tends toward utility, as a means rather than an end. That which is not publicly demonstrable tends toward intrinsic value, as an end in itself rather than as a means. For example, the technical proficiency you speak of is a means to the end of aesthetic enjoyment and aesthetic contemplation. The former is publicly demonstrable while the latter is not, and it is the latter that is the truly valuable thing, the reason why the technical proficiency exists in the first place.

So an overemphasis on public demonstrability tends to invert means and ends, and this is a very deep error. If a musician possesses technical proficiency without the ability to enjoy or contemplate music, they end up in futility as a circus monkey. ...Or perhaps they are a mercenary musician who simply plays for the money, and uses money as a means to X. But the same issue immediately arises, for if X is another means and not an end, then the futility persists. There must ultimately be a recognition of, valuing of, and ordering towards, ends in themselves. This will simultaneously represent a decreased focus on public demonstrability.

---

The last two comments illustrate what I've been saying. As soon as discussion turns to the qualitative dimension, the domain of values, then the response is 'Ah! You're talking religion.' Next stop: Televangalism! Fake gurus! It's highly stereotyped. Not saying anyone is at fault - it's more fault lines. This is what I mean by the cultural dynamics. — Wayfarer

Right, and this seems especially pronounced in America, not only because of current religious aberrations, but also because of past religious aberrations (e.g. Puritanism and an excessive emphasis on work ethic and utilitarianism).

As soon as discussion turns to the qualitative dimension, the domain of values, then the response is 'Ah! You're talking religion.' — Wayfarer

That may be true in some cases but certainly not all. Above all, it should not be framed in terms of theism vs anti-theism.

For example on the thread Heidegger's Downfall I said the following:

[Stanley] Rosen said:

Nihilism is the concept of reason separated from the concept of the good.

...

Basic to the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle is the desire for and pursuit of the good. This must be understood at the most ordinary level, not as a theory but simply as what we want both for ourselves and those we care about. It is not only basic to their philosophy but basic to their understanding of who we are as human beings.

Phronesis, often translated as practical wisdom, is not simply a matter of reasoning toward
achieving ends, but of deliberation about good ends.

...

In more general terms, how severing reason from the good is nihilism can be seen in the ideal of objectivity and the sequestering of "value judgments". Political philosophy, for example, is shunned in favor of political science. The question of how best to live has no place in a science of politics whose concerns are structural and deal with power differentials.

In a thread on Nietzsche, How May Nietzsche's Idea of 'Superman' Be Understood ?, I said:

What is properly regarded as good or evil is historically contingent. At one historical stage the morality he sees as unhealthy was a means to man's self-overcoming, but it is no longer so.

This a a problem he addresses in "On the Use and Abuse of History" from Untimely Meditations. He addresses the problem of nihilism. Those who think he was a nihilist should read this. It is the reason the "child" is necessary for the three metamorphoses of the spirit in Zarathustra. If what is called "good" today was at some earlier time "bad" and may at some future time be called "bad", if, in other words, there is no universal, fixed and unchanging transcendent good and evil than this can lead to nihilism. Nihilism, the "sacred no" must be followed by a "sacred yes", but this is only possible if there is a kind of deliberate historical forgetfulness, a new innocence.

I also quoted the following in that thread:

Only man placed values in things to preserve himself—he alone created a meaning for things, a human meaning. Therefore he calls himself "man," which means: the esteemer.
To esteem is to create: hear this, you creators! Esteeming itself is of all esteemed things the most estimable treasure. Through esteeming alone is there value: and without esteeming, the nut of existence would be hollow
— Zarathustra, On the Thousand and One Goals

Nihilism is the concept of reason separated from the concept of the good.

Interesting. I can see how this might work as a definition of nihilism. But by this account then quite a range of people who believe in transcendent entities, such as gods, might qualify as nihilists - Islamic State faithful, some Christian apologists, for instance, who do not have any conception of the good but only a divine command theory which holds death to apostates, applied misogyny, homophobia and sundry ani-human beliefs.

I always understood nihilism as a lack of belief in ultimate purpose or some ultimate transcendent reality. I certainly don't beleive in these and do not see how an idea of 'the good' can be more than a human construction which changes over time, however useful and beneficial such a construction might be.

No, I see subjects only in subject-object relations. There is no being a subject without having an intentional relation to an object known, willed, hoped for, etc. All of this is essentially intentional. Nothing about it demands physicality. — Dfpolis

You seem to simply beg the question that intentionality can exist without physicality. The problem is that you can't provide any evidence of intentionality without physicality, so it seems you take the possibility of intentionality sans physicality on faith.

So, what you are doing is generalizing from a single form of knowing, to all knowing. Clearly, there is no logical justification for this kind of induction. — Dfpolis

There is no deductive justification, but it remains an unfalsified hypothesis (that knowing depends on an information processing substrate). Feel free to try to present some evidence falsifying the hypothesis.

Think about information. While it can be physically encoded, it is not physical. What computers process is not information in virtue of any physical property. Label a bit’s physical states a and b, and ask what the byte aababbab means? Reading left to right and interpreting a as 0, and b as 1, the byte means 00101101. Interpreting a as 1 and b as 0, it is 11010010. Reading right to left, it means 10110100 or 01001011. Thus, a, an arbitrary physical state, lacks intrinsic meaning. — Dfpolis

Meaning depends on a physical interpretive context. The fact that aababbab doesn't have any clear meaning outside a physical interpretive context isn't relevant to anything. To treat it as an eight bit number, something would have to translate whatever a and b are to valid bits (binary digits) which can only take the value 0 or 1. As soon as a physical interpretive context is assigned to aababbab then aababbab will have the meaning it has within that context.

Since information is not it's encoding, there is no contradiction in having intelligibility without a physical substrate. — Dfpolis

As far as I can tell there is no intelligibility outside a physically interpretive context so I think that you need to provide some reason to believe that there can be intelligibility outside a physically interpretive context.

Finally, your assumption that human intentionality supervenes on brain states is demonstrably false. Consider my seeing an apple. The same modification of my brain state encodes both my seeing an apple and my retinal state being modified. So, one neural state underpins two distinct conceptual states. — Dfpolis

You seem to be getting inputs and outputs confused. Your retinal state supervenes on the physical effect of an apple reflecting light from a light source into your eye. Your brain state supervenes on your retinal state. When you are thinking about the apple you see, you will have a different neural state than when contemplating light striking your retina. so I don't know what you have in mind when talking about one neural state underpinning two distinct conceptual states.

It is relevant because it shows that matter is not essential to all objects of thought. Ask yourself how physical states can determine immaterial contents. For example, what kind of physical state can encode Goedel's concept of unprovability? — Dfpolis

Physical ink arranged on physical paper serves just fine for encoding Godel's theorems. Neural states can encode the concept. You are just presupposing without supporting evidence that "objects of thought sans a physical information processing substrate" refers to anything.

Anyway, I don't expect saying this to make any appreciable difference in your thinking in the short term, and I'm quite confident that you aren't going to be able to provide any evidence supporting your view. So this seems like a good place to agree to disagree. I'm not very inclined to get into long winded discussions like this, so I'll likely let you have the last word.

I certainly don't beleive in these and do not see how an idea of 'the good' can be more than a human construction which changes over time, however useful and beneficial such a construction might be. — Tom Storm

I think the quote from Nietzsche cited above speaks to this:

Only man placed values in things to preserve himself—he alone created a meaning for things, a human meaning. Therefore he calls himself "man," which means: the esteemer.
To esteem is to create: hear this, you creators! Esteeming itself is of all esteemed things the most estimable treasure. Through esteeming alone is there value: and without esteeming, the nut of existence would be hollow
— Zarathustra, On the Thousand and One Goals

What matters is that things matter.

the possibility of intentionality sans physicality — wonderer1

A fatal abstraction.

As soon as discussion turns to the qualitative dimension, the domain of values, then the response is 'Ah! You're talking religion.'
— Wayfarer

That may be true in some cases but certainly not all. — Fooloso4

Agree it might be a generalisation, but it is an observable tendency.

Meaning depends on a physical interpretive context. T — wonderer1

'Physical' meaning what, exactly? I can encode information - a recipe, a formula, a set of instructions - in all manner of physical forms, even in different media, binary, analog, engraved on brass. In each case, the physical medium and the symbolic form may be completely different, while the information content remains the same. So how can the information be physical?

In Proverbs we are told that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It is both a starting point and a terminus. The Biblical God is a willful God.

There is another sense, which is what I think you have in mind. Perhaps you intentionally left open the question of whether one comes to know or only feels they know a higher truth. — Fooloso4

Yes, faith is very much emphasized in Christianity, but I think it is also important in other religions like Buddhism; one of the seminal texts is The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana. Religious practice cannot but be sustained by faith, even in religions like Buddhism where it is the 'living' insights that come with practice that are considered to be the most important.

But as you seem to imply in your second sentence, even in relation to "spiritual experience" it is faith that grounds any interpretation or propositional exposition of that experience, despite the protestations of those who want to claim that direct knowing is possible. (If you ask them whether what is directly known is anything propositional, I've found that you will not get a straight answer).

That said, faith plays an important role in almost every aspect of human life, so it comes as no surprise that it should be pivotal in all religious and spiritual practices.

So, in answer to your last sentence I would say that one, even an enlightened one, could only be certain of their conviction that they know anything propositional (such as claims about previous lives. karma, God or the afterlife and so on, to be the case); even the enlightened, being mere humans, could not be infallible.

Agree it might be a generalisation, but it is an observable tendency. — Wayfarer

I'd say it is more of a tendentious observation.

Pot, meet kettle.

Glib.

Agree it might be a generalisation, but it is an observable tendency. — Wayfarer

The point is, theology and religion do not have exclusive rights to the "domain of values".

it is an observable tendency.
— Wayfarer

I'd say it is more of a tendentious observation. — Janus

Clever turn (around) of phrase.

The point is, theology and religion do not have exclusive rights to the "domain of values". — Fooloso4

Agree. My reading is, though, that historically, much of what was valuable about the pre-existing (so-called 'pagan' philosophers) was absorbed into (some would say 'appropriated by') theologians in the early Christian era. I'm thinking in particular of the Greek-speaking theologians such as Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Augustine, and others of that milieu. Much of the 'intellectual superstructure' of Christian theology was developed this way, with particular reliance on Plotinus and the late neoplatonists. That is still visible in Aquinas and the medieval mystics, and to some degree in scholasticism. With the abandonment of metaphysics, the advent of nominalism and the ascendancy of empiricism, the philosophical content was discarded along with its theological trappings. So it's not a co-incidence that David Hume's 'is/ought' distinction comes along with the Enlightenment rejection of religious philosophy, with the ascendancy of science and positivism.

As soon as discussion turns to the qualitative dimension, the domain of values, then the response is 'Ah! You're talking religion.' — Wayfarer

That's a succinct way to describe the general slant (tendency) of this forum toward Physics (quanta), and away from Metaphysics (qualia). Originally, Philosophy studied both aspects of reality (mind & matter), but since the Renaissance secular split, philosophers have been forced to distinguish their observations from religious dogma, by providing empirical evidence. Ironically, Relativity and Quantum physics seem to have re-introduced Subjectivity (observer's framing perspective & qualitative prejudices) into Science and Philosophy. :smile:

Originally, Philosophy studied both aspects of reality (mind & matter), but since the Renaissance secular split, philosophers have been forced to distinguish their observations from religious dogma, by providing empirical evidence. — Gnomon

I read once an excerpt from the Charter of the Royal Society in the late 1600's, the first scientific foundation, that a boundary was to be set demarcating their subjects of enquiry from anything metaphysical, which was the province of priests. This is understandable, considering the extraordinary violence and conflict that marked religious wars in the Europe of that period. Then you have Descartes, also around this period, himself very interested in science, positing his mysterious 'thinking thing' that somehow interacts with the body through the pineal gland. You can see how this, allied with the astonishing subsequent development of science, leads to the deprecation of anything deemed spiritual. Which leads conveniently back to the main idea of the OP.

In more general terms, how severing reason from the good is nihilism can be seen in the ideal of objectivity and the sequestering of "value judgments". Political philosophy, for example, is shunned in favor of political science. — Fooloso4

I think this is more or less correct. :up:

True, but I think there is also an inverse correlation between public demonstrability and intrinsic value. That which must be publicly demonstrable tends toward utility, as a means rather than an end. — Leontiskos

Yes, I agree with that. The important aspects of life are precisely those which cannot be publicly demonstrated. The aesthetic dimension in architecture music, literature and the arts is of more value, or at least consists in a different kind of value, even though aesthetic quality, like any form of "direct knowing" cannot be rationally demonstrated or couched in propositional terms.

So, I agree with Hadot's characterization of some of the ancient philosophies as being (like the Eastern religions and some later Western practices) about personal transformation and not about establishing definitive metaphysical truths. As Hadot says in Philosophy as a Way of Life, the ideas in those kinds of ancient philosophies were not to be critiqued or discussed, but to be used as aids and inspiration to practice "spiritual exercises". Altered states of consciousness are to be realized not by argument and critique but by praxis.

I think it also needs to be acknowledged that if such transformations are ever achieved it is exceedingly rare, and mostly (perhaps always) transient, and given that those most likely to achieve such altered states are renunciates, I think it has little practical significance for general human life apart from possibly being a relatively minor (compared to the arts and popular religion) enriching aspect of culture.