The brain activity, non-consciously constructs our perceptions. We don't experience "raw" perception. By the time a perception hits the executive part of put brain, where we can consider it, it's already gone through filters that include our preconceived notions about how the world works. Our model of the world isn't created by what we perceive, or at least not solely, but it is not entirely untrue that our model of the world determines what we perceive. It's a (to some extent) self-correcting feedback loop.

It sounds like you're trying to convince me that there is inherent meaning in the pursuit of knowledge — daldai

Nope. I don't think the idea of "inherent meaning" is coherent. Meaning is something that words have, and a dictionary can give you most of the meaning you'll need in life.

Again, I just suspect that you think that you've reasoned yourself to what you think are the only logical conclusions. For some reason you're unwilling to test that reasoning against criticism. I'm telling you I'm pretty sure you're mistaken, but unless you walk me through this reasoning, we'll never know.

You must be a nightmare when your partner is looking for an argument. — daldai

My partner doesn't go looking for arguments. I lucked out with that. We're both pretty non-confrontational in our personal lives.

But still you need to be a little charitable in understanding that I am not talking about the change from an empty to a full stomach. Thus losing a limb is no doubt a life-changing experience of the exterior life; it may or may not be also life changing in one's relation to oneself, and in such case it is also a spiritual experience. But one also talks about a 'spiritual person', or the spirit of the times, or as I mentioned before, of a group. — unenlightened

I'm trying to be charitable, which is why I keep asking questions, to make sure I do understand, or if not, to find out where the misunderstanding lies. So a spiritual experience is one that is life changing about one's sense of self? Doesn't that make it basically the same as "transformative", which wouldn't normally refer to incidental out exterior changes? If not, in what way is it distinct?

You bring your own metaphysical baggage with you, and on that basis complain about another's. — unenlightened

I don't think I've brought in any metaphysical assumptions beyond such brute concepts like "things are" and "communication is possible", and the sorts of things that should be uncontroversial and are necessary preconditions to meaningful discussion. What baggage are you talking about?

Something that changes the rational analyst does exactly defy rational analysis. — unenlightened

Agreed, but I think that I am/have been told the latter, not the former by some people in this thread, and in other discussions about the subject. Perhaps I misread/misunderstand them.

Are you unaware of the religious metaphysical baggage of "epiphanous — unenlightened

I was wondering if you'd pick that out. FWIW, I'm pretty sure the new sense of the term predates the challenging of spirit/body dualism/duality, so it doesn't have the same sort of baggage.

Surely there needs to be a thread of constancy on which change hangs, and against which it can be compared. Or is this just a theoretical, metaphysical claim? I'm not even disagreeing with you here, except to clarify that an experience can be intense without changing the direction of one's life. — unenlightened

Well, 98% of the atoms in our body are exchanged every year, yet we still consider it the same body. For some practical reasons, we seem to have to apply a sense continuity to objects and ideas that change slowly. We often feel that implies that there is a sort of "essential" "necessary" or "defining" quality, but that's just an assumption, and it doesn't add any explanatory power to things, so I didn't bring it into the discussion.

But I have the sense that you are just refusing to engage in an exploration of inner life, and in such case you can have no 'home' in which you can entertain such ideas. — unenlightened

I don't know where you get that sense. I'm often accused of being too introspective and self-contemplative, so that's an odd thing for people to think about me. I don't think it's true.

I'm not sure what I meant. What did you mean by "belief"? — daldai

Something you think is the case. The same thing everyone means, isn't it?

Quick formatting note: If you highlight the text of someone's post, a black box with the word "quote" will appear. Click on it, and you'll get the fancy looking quotes people are using.

No, I google it. Really though, I think of that as a set of proven logical, rational rules for solving problems that have nothing to do with belief. — daldai

Solving problems like "I believe it's going to rain tomorrow"? Then you have a belief system. You have a systematic methodology to arrive at dispositions regarding states of affairs. Or in more common language, you believe things, and you have methods for arriving at those beliefs.

I think you're reading too much into my use of the term "bitterness", or I misused it. But if you can choose how you emotionally respond to a given situation, you're a better man than me. — daldai

To some degree I can, and to some degree I cannot. I can create habits. I can intentionally exploit the loopholes in my own psychology. I can be aware of the psychological and external precursors to the sorts of emotional responses that I would prefer not to get caught up in and, to a degree manage those in order to avoid those emotional reactions. So I'm not totally the master of my emotions, but, like with my environment, I do have some control. Anyone is capable of that, at least to some degree.

Again, we're getting things back to front here. I don't regard nihilism as the "logical way to think", but the logical conclusion to any open-minded enquiry into the nature of the universe, and that's why I don't consider it a philosophy. — daldai

Fine, if you don't want to call it a philosophy, that's fine by me. So what, exactly is this conclusion? What question does it answer?

If it wasn't the only logical conclusion I would be wrong (and cured) but it is, so the only cure is stop thinking about things in a purely logical way, but I don't know how to do that. I admit that the connection between my social limitations and the logical way I look at things may be more correlation than causation, or that there may be something I'm missing. — daldai

I disagee. I think your logic, to whatever extent you've shown it here, is flawed, imprecise, and it doesn't look like you've even questioned if it was. It's intellectually lazy, as far as I can see. Perhaps if you want to explain your reasoning, you'll show me to be wrong.

I'm struggling to imagine a reading of my last post that reaches this conclusion. — Mariner

Let me explain how I read the last few exchanges, and perhaps we can uncover where the miscommunication lies.

Here's how it looks from my point of view: I was asking you about your reasoning. You rejected that it had anything to do with reasoning. I asked why the term bothered you. You said it didn't reflect reflect reality. Those things that are not real are make believe. So It seemed like you were saying that reasoning was make believe. As little sense as it makes to me, I ask the question, hoping you'll clarify.

That question of yours is being "laid back"? — Mariner

They're questions. I'm trying to understand. Maybe you think they're rhetorical attacks, couched in questions, but they're not. They're questions. So yes, they are laid back. Sorry if that wasn't more clear. I am absolutely getting frustrated with our apparent inability to find any common points of discussion that might lead to some understanding, and that frustration might come out more than is ideal, but I'm trying to understand.

Yes, on this specific question of the nature of spirit, there was a singular, monolithic pre-Cartesian worldview. So, you don't have to read every book written before 1600 AD -- pick any book you like (including Shakespeare, incidentally) and you'll see it there. — Mariner

See, this is what I'm having a problem with. You just state authoritatively that there is a singular worldview. I say there wasn't. If you don't offer clarification, reasoning or evidence of your claim, then we are only left to "yes there was!" "no there wasn't!" like school children. Surely we can be better than that?

What exactly do you expect from this conversation? (Not a rhetorical question. If you tell me what you want from me, there is a greater chance that I'll be able to deliver). — Mariner

I want to understand the steps in thought that led from either having no conception or a previous, and different conception of spirituality, to your current conception of spirituality. I want to understand mentally how you got to where you were to where you are now.

I'm resistant to use a term that does not describe reality. — Mariner

So you think reasoning is just make believe? You don't think there is mental cause/effect? Do you think everyone's beliefs are arbitrary? By reasoning, I'm just talking about the reasons why you believe what you do. The mental steps you took from no belief or a different belief, to your current belief. Nothing more than that in this context.

Also, I've been pretty laid back about this because I always remembered you being someone who was fair-minded and easy to discuss with, but I really find it hard to discuss with you when you make statements in the form that present yourself as the authority on reality. Why are you any greater an authority than I am, or anyone else? So is there a problem with a change in tone regarding making absolute statements, one's you probably know I don't agree with you about, as if they were incontrovertible?

Well, the entire pre-Cartesian worldview — Mariner

You say that like there is a singular, monolithic pre-Cartesian worldview. Throughout the entire history of recorded human thought, people have conceptualized things differently from each other. I have no reason to doubt that there were analogues to you and I at any given moment in history, discussing analogous differences in worldview. So I'm asking if there's a level of specificity somewhere between "the entire pre-Cartesian worldview" and "I'll have to explain my entire worldview in detail to you", where you can point to that contains the relevant concepts and vocabulary so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel, but I don't have to read every book ever written prior to 1600CE. So for example, if (like earlier in this thread) the concept of intuition came up, you could say something similar to "I'm referring to Kant's conception of intuition", at which point, I would know, more or less, what you mean.

So you reference Jung. He was a pantheist. Is pantheism basically the worldview you are talking about? Or a modified version of pantheism?

I have beliefs in the sense that "I believe that it's going to rain this afternoon" but absolute belief in anything that I don't know to be true, I really don't think so and this is what I mean by nihilism — daldai

What is an absolute belief, and why should the lack of having one be a problem? Why do you expect anyone should have them?

Again, I can't stress this enough, it seems, but I don't have a "certain approach" - the universe approached me and said "go on, make sense of this." — daldai

So when you're trying to figure out the answer to a question, you just pick random answers? I doubt it. I suspect that you have a system, conscious or not, by which you test possible answers and determine, at least provisionally, which one is the best answer for the moment. You almost assuredly employ heuristics, even if you don't use formal methodology. That's what conscious humans do.

Oh come on, it's perfectly normal to feel bitter and helpless in the face of what's going on in the world, no reasoning involved, and that's something I know I'm not alone in, so that's not leaving me isolated. — daldai

It's common enough to not be abnormal, but it isn't the only logical option. That's up to you, be as bitter as you want to be, but I doubt it has anything to do with philosophy. If you don't want to be bitter, you don't have to be. That's also up to you.

Regarding if it's why you're isolated, you can dismiss what I've said, but as a rule, people don't gravitate toward bitterness, and bitterness isn't something that is likely to drive you toward people, so it seems pretty logical that it might be a factor, and maybe even a big one.

I never said I was having a philosophical crisis. I don't have a philosophy so how can it be in crisis. — daldai

What do you think nihilism is, if not a philosophy? There's a whole entry on it in the internet encyclopedia of philosophy. I mean you can just say "I don't have a philosophy" all you want, but you clearly think that whatever you imagine that "nihilism" is, it's the only logical way to think about things, and that you wish that wasn't the case (you ask for a cure to it). I'm telling you that you're wrong, and that the "cure" is to stop being wrong. That means that you stop hiding behind "I can't explain it". That's a sign that you haven't thought it out clearly. Maybe you can't explain it because it doesn't make sense? If it doesn't make sense, then you should stop believing it.

and it is a life-changing experience, then I would call it spiritual. Obviously, there is no absolute delineation that separates ordinary experience from spiritual, but one can say, perhaps that everyday experience accumulates as habit whereas spiritual experience disrupts. — unenlightened

So spiritual is synonymous with "life changing" then? Why not say that? Or "transformative"? Why cop-opt terms of religion, with all the baggage and possibility of misunderstanding that it entails? I guess if the context makes it clear that there is no implied metaphysical baggage, then communicating however you want is fair game. I'm just saying that it often isn't clear. Not to the listener, and (more controversially) to the speaker. Let me give you a few quotes from this thread to highlight this:

To be devoid of spirituality is to be homeless. At least that's what it seems to me.

spirituality is incomprehensible if the student does not explore a time (historical or psychological, both avenues are fruitful) in which spirituality and materiality were merged in a single, unnamed concept

Spirituality: The inner life of the outer experience of the world.

So it seems to me that the way it is used often includes importing metaphysical implications. Just push against it a little and they begin popping out. The other effect of pushing against it a little, is you tend to get a sort of mysterianism. Claims that there is 100%, unarguably something there, but it is something that defies explanation, definition, and rational analysis. Surely the notion that something is life changing doesn't defy rational analysis?

It is more than mere intensity. If one has a spiritual experience, one is not the same person after it as one was before; it is traumatic, though as I said it gets mis-used for the merely dramatic. If you are indeed re-formed, then I would think you have had a spiritual experience. — unenlightened

We are destroyed and reformed all the time. Mostly it happens so gradually, little piece by little piece, that we don't notice, but sometimes we mark a specific event on the road of our reinvention as being epiphanous, because it is great enough in it's effect to move above the background noise of the constant change. How is that not a matter of intensity? If it isn't a matter of intensity, what is it a matter of?

except that I've never felt that there should be objective meaning in the universe. — daldai

Then what does nihilism mean to you, and why is it a problem?

All I know is that my lack of a belief-system has left me feeling isolated from other people when it comes to building strong relationships. — daldai

Why do you think you have no belief system? You have beliefs, right? You create those beliefs base on a certain approach (scientific materialism from what you've said), right? Are you sure you don't mean "religion" when you say "belief system"?

Also, what makes you think that it is your philosophical beliefs that is isolating you from others? Could it be that there are other factors? You say you have a "strong sense of bitterness and helplessness". Might that be it? Have you convinced yourself that bitterness and helplessness are the rationally appropriate responses to how you see the universe to be? I'd like to hear how you came to those conclusions, because I think it's based on poor reasoning.

I don't know, but it would explain why I seem to be suffering from such a severe form of nihilism that even other nihilists, reformed or otherwise, find it hard to understand me. — daldai

I don't think there are levels of severity to nihilism. Perhaps you need to explain exactly what you think you mean by the word. I suspect that I understand you pretty well. Maybe, maybe not. We can keep talking and figure that out.

Frankly, I don't think you're having a philosophical crisis (or at least nothing you've said to me indicates that you are), I think you're lonely and dissatisfied, and have just assumed that had something to do with your belief system.

Well, if ever a thread played into my wheelhouse, this is the one, as you might guess by my username.

I share a general worldview with you. I don't think there are any spirits or forces or higher powers. The intellectual issue with nihilism is simply a lack of specificity. I know that sounds too easy, and in a way it is, because there is an emotional element underpinning the intellectual one. But let's deal with the intellectual issue. Basically, the problem is that there is no objective meaning, right? and it feels like there should be, right? So the questions are, why does it feel like it should be that way, and what would an "objective meaning" even consist of? The answer to the second question is the easier, which is that there is no satisfactory answer. If there was a God that handed down meaning from on high, you could just ask, "yeah, but why should I care about your meaning?". So we're looking for a squared circle. We have a worldview that precludes what we're looking for. So why are we looking for it? Why does there have to be a singular, objective meaning that defines our striving in one fell swoop? Because it matches with 1) the myths from our culture, and 2) evolution isn't kind enough to give us a psychology that is perfect, just good enough to keep the species going, and it fits with the flaws of our psyche.

So the cure isn't to fool yourself into thinking there is actually some meaning, but to realize that the search for the type of meaning that is universal, objective and singular is not necessary, and bound to lead to sorrow. That's where the emotional part comes in. People have evolved something called habituation, which means that no matter how good or bad we have it, we always end up getting used to what our current state is, and wanting more. It should be obvious what the evolutionary pressure for that is. That means that for the most part, people feel a vague sense, often unattached to anything they can put their finger on, that something is missing. It is common to associate this generalized feeling of dissatisfaction to a lack of meaning. I would suggest that simply being aware that such an effect is happening eases it's unpleasantness, and over time, can make it disappear. It worked that way for me anyways. I am now about as content with my life as I could imagine, and don't feel "existential angst" at all, ever.

I'm not as familiar with hypnosis as I am with placebo, but with placebo, it seems like belief gets focused on as the driving factor, where expectation might be a bigger factor. That might be a subtle distinction, so let me give an example. If I take a placebo pain reliever for a headache, and after some time, my headache subsides (as it is bound to eventually), I will ascribe the pain relief to the pill, because that meets my expectation. This doesn't account for the entirety of the placebo effect, but covers a big chunk of it. I suspect that some similar mechanism is at least partly involved with hypnosis. Something that seems less mundane, but turns out not to be.

As distinct from non pseudo religious? It does not seem like a good place to start; it looks as though you want to translate spiritual into material, which is why I suspect, Mariner wants to look at the distinction rather than try and 'correct' your translation — unenlightened

I believe there is no factual refferent for what spiritual is historically used to speak about. That doesn't mean I'm trying to translate spiritual into material, any more than I would be translating a unicorn into a horse by saying there are no unicorns. I also believe that there is a more recent common use that is usually ill defined, sometimes incoherent, and could often be substituted for "psuedo-religious" without loosing meaning. I am open to hearing what other meanings might exist, that don't fit into these paradigms.

Spiritual: pertaining to the general condition of the experiencer. — unenlightened

Would that make it synonymous with "subjective"? If so, why not just use that word, which is laden with much less metaphysical baggage? Also, what would make a spiritual experience distinct from a garden variety experience?

Edit: That definition also doesn't account for the way the word gets used. By this formulation, "I listened to a Beethoven sonata, and it was a spiritual experience" is roughly equivalent to "I had a piece of cold left-over pizza, and it was a spiritual experience", and there's not much meaningful difference between just saying you listened to the sonata or ate the pizza. Isn't the word usually making a claim about the sorce or nature of the experience? That it's special and district from normal experiences in some way?

I know that if I am calling an experience spiritual, I am saying that it is as emotionally moving as a religious experience that portents to contact the experienced with the divine. I am also no doubt using hyperbole. Exactly the same way as I would use the word "divine" to describe the tiramisu at the restaurant down the street. I'm co-opting the historical meanings, but being (I hope) transparent about being metaphorical. That makes "pseudo-religous" a pretty accurate description of the use as far as I can tell. I just suspect that some people use the word without considering if they are using it historically or metaphorically, so they just use it and if they don't run into any cognitive walls, they don't ever bother to make the distinction, or they figure it's a third thing, but never take the time to figure what that thing is.

I'm still not sure what the distinction between you presenting the reasoning why the way to look at spirituality is valuable, and what you are doing (which to me looks like you presenting your reasoning for your way of looking at spirituality). Is there a reason why you are so resistant to adopt that term? I'm very fond of it myself, because it offers a reason for me to choose between alternatives.

I guess I'm concerned that if I'm required to commit to a metaphysical model before I can even understand what is meant by the use of a word, and we can't even used philosophical shorthand to indicate the philosophical underpinnings. Is that correct? Is this something that doesn't already exist in the broader philosophical cannon? I might already know it, or could read up without having to take every small step with you. If it does, give me the origin, and we can save some possible confusion.

This seems to be an area worth exploring. I would tend to say 'bodily' rather than 'brain', I would worry about 'result', - but I would also say that this whole section is a 'scientific' way of speaking that slips into assuming it can represent other ways of speaking, that it can speak for us all in all contexts.

It's still much more useful, for example, to talk about 'personality, emotions and identity' in terms that aren't *reducible* to brain processes. So to argue that they are 'the result' of brain processes troubles the Humean in me: how has this been demonstrated? The models are primitive. 130 years since William James and the present-day psychological work on emotions, for instance, is amazingly primitive and lacking a secure philosophical basis, or so it seemed to me earlier this year when I was reading up about emotion. — mcdoodle

Well, nothing can be understood perfectly, and in terms of what is the best way to describe something, there is room to frame things broadly or at a very fine grain, depending on context. Having said that, using terminology like "spirutuality" has connotations, and historically those connotations include a "something else" that is not just different than the body, but different from everything we know, and the reason we even seem to have this conception is that we never used to know just how much the brain/body did in terms of our perceptions and sense of self. Have a look at some of the links in my earlier discussion in this thread, if you haven't. It is very compelling stuff regarding the brain being the source of stuff that used to cause philosophers of the mind all kinds of problems. We know more about these things than I think most people who don't follow the neuroscience realize.

I am pretty sure I wrote this with a mostly objective perspective. I equally criticized the religious as that they seem to be overly emotional. — Lone Wolf

You may have been even-handed, treating both sides equally badly, but I'm not sure that's the same as being objective. I would suggest that the principle of charity would be a better approach. That means basically trying to figure out what the best interpretation of someone's argument is. That way you know you're not making a strawman to knock down.

The lowest estimates have the population as low as 100 breeding pairs.

I don't know anything about Yellowstone, but I was talking about the Toba supervolcano theory.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory?wprov=sfla1

which at the time was more under Russia, I believe — Wosret

I think it was Indonesia. I think I'd rather live during the cold war than a 10 year long volcanic winter.

There was a time where human population had dropped to as low as 10k-30k. We might have qualified as an endangered species by today's standards.

I just think you have an odd approach to where the burden lies in this discussion. You said that something is demonstrable, so normally, I would assume that we are either going to use conventional meanings, or you are going to define things, and if I find those definitions problematic, I'll point it out and explain why. If you think it's demonstrable, surely that's based on something, right? So why play coy and ask me to define existence?

Edit: I suspect our differences are more about how we conceive value than existence. As far as I'm concerned, value is something a person ascribes based on all sorts of subjective and personal factors, not something that can be objectively demonstrated. That's why I can prefer living to it's alternative, even without the prospect of an afterlife. Because I have thoughts and opinions and value systems that might be different than yours.

Sure, it's not the end of the world. It just reminds me of the Carl Sagan quote "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe". I'm not sure if everyone sees the reductio ad absurdum implied by this quote. The point being that people make apple pie from scratch all the time. People also demonstrate points all the time without litigating the definition of existence (Perhaps the most difficult and contentious element of philosophy). Just saying.

Ok, so when you say something is demonstrable, you mean only if I already agree with you?

If you burn a dollar bill, does the dollar (not the bill) still exist in a different state? Does it not exist? It doesn't really matter to me how you answer that, but I will disagree with you that I can't choose which case is preferable to another.

What do you mean by comparable? They are two different states. Why couldn't we compare them? Or do you mean in a more colloquial sense "there's no comparison"?

I did reply. Perhaps you think my reply was somehow unsatisfactory. However, if it is demonstrable, you shouldn't require my cooperation to demonstrate it, so even if my response is unsatisfactory, please go ahead and demonstrate your claim to be true.

Which is what? Non-existence? That has no value and you've never experienced it, so you can't compare it to existence. The only way to find out would be to commit suicide, but even then, you'd have to assume that there is no afterlife before committing the act. — Thorongil

I can draw conclusions and make assumptions with imperfect information, which I do (and we all do all the time). We obviously have drawn different conclusions, which is fine by me. Given the information available to me, I judge life to be preferable to the alternative.

Now did you care to demonstrate that your claim was so, or do you withdraw it?

To determine the probability of something, you have to establish a baseline to compare it to. Seeing as though we only have one universe to talk about, and nothing to compare it to, we can't sensibly come to any conclusions about probability, excepting that there is a 100% chance that universe under the exact conditions of ours will turn out exactly like ours.

Most atheists are confirmed optimists and believers in progress, so they view any philosophical or religious tradition that stresses the rottenness of life and the imperfection of human nature as backwards thinking, primitive, and so on. — Thorongil

Most atheists I know focus on the imperfection of human nature. On the ways that people consistently and predictably get things wrong. They attribute religious faith as one, or a sum of many of these foibles. Not necessarily as primitive, nor even backward thinking. Just a product of the natural imperfection that we are subject to as humans.

I'd also like to point out that quoting Dawkins as support for what most atheists think is not very good evidence. If anything, Dawkins has marginalized himself among atheists, because he isn't very likable (usually a prerequisite for being seen as a spokesperson for a particular movement or set of ideas). It might be wise to avoid assuming you have a grasp on what "most atheists" think, unless you have some statistical data.

Without the hope of salvation, which religion provides, life is demonstrably not worth living. Your typical atheist, like Dawkins, seems to realize this on some level, but the fact is clearly too much for him to bear, as shown above. — Thorongil

If this is demonstrable, I'll ask you to demonstrate it please.

As far as I'm concerned, life is worth living because it is superior to the alternative. No hope of salvation is needed. I'm not even sure what I'd need salvation from? I don't believe I am stained by the mark of sin. Isn't that what salvation is usually supposed to apply to?

Why are those deemed "religious" considered weak and inferior to those proclaimed irreligious and/or atheistic? — Lone Wolf

I think most people think that whomever agrees with their position is better in some way, and whomever doesn't is worse in some way. That's human nature.

Although I'm subject to the same biases as anyone (including, I presume, you). I don't think these things. I just think they hold as true things that are not true. Maybe this is a flawed premise.

Those from an atheistic view seem to see it as if the religious are largely crybabies who are afraid of water. — Lone Wolf

Again, it's human nature to justify your beliefs by trivializing those held by people who disagree, and negatively characterizing them. That's why strawman and ad hominum fallacies exist. Are you sure you aren't also engaging in this?

Calling lying honest is playing a language game that is designed to alleviate a person's guilt for what they feel is intuitively wrong.

One can imagine situations where lying might be morally preferable to telling the truth, however...

As a rule, I agree with Wosret. If you want to live in a civilized society, the society is a better place to live when trust is at it's highest. Trust is at it's highest when people lie the least. I believe it is most psychologically healthy to integrate what you say with how you believe the world is.

Most lies are not to prevent murders, but rather to prevent embarrassment. If you can become comfortable with embarrassment, you have increased your ability to learn and grow. For most of our waking hours, we interact with each other and the world reflexively;out of habit. Say "How's it going?" to someone, and they'll answer you without even considering how things are going for them most of the time. That's why I advise making honesty habitual. Just do it all of the time, and you'll do it without thinking. The world is a better place, and you're a better person if you do.

The next step in symbolization, you mean. To insist on a reasoning before we straighten that out would skip the important steps. — Mariner

Well, that's not what I meant, but for the sake of argument, I'll play along for now.

BTW, I missed your post because you didn't mention me. Just as a bit of pragmatic housecleaning, would you mind making sure I get tagged in any response you make to me?

History can be of two kinds: personal (psychological) or social (i.e. cultural). — Mariner

I assume that is meant to be a practical distinction, not a logically necessary one? If the latter, you'll have to explain how you come to that conclusion. If the former, I'm fine with seeing were this goes.

What is needed now is the study of how (a) a baby learns how to develop the notions of experiencer/experienced (and what are the names given), or (b) the etymology of the words matter:spirit. — Mariner

Why specifically those things? Are there no other possible considerations, or are those just the one's you judge to be important? What criteria are you using to choose those questions over others?

Note that this approach is prior to any questions regarding argumentation or reasoning. We are trying to understand the origin of the symbols being used, and to trace those symbols to the underlying experience. — Mariner

If you aren't presenting your reasoning to me, then what are you doing, and (honest question) why should I care?

What has made you believe there is no God? — Beebert

That's sort of a weird question to answer. The strictly rational answer is "nothing". I see nothing to make me believe that there is any god, so I don't.

Like with most things, there's a more complicated answer too. I was raised a Christian. I believed, but I did notice things that didn't seem to fit into the conception of the world that I'd been taught. I also realized that the things that we now call "mythology", were once called religion, and believed as fervently as our current religions. It seems obvious to us now that Zeus was a superstitious way to explain lightning, personifying something we don't understand. It didn't take much to put two and two together from there and realize that Christianity (or Buddhism, or Islam...) fits into the paradigm of mythology as easily as the Greek or Norse pantheons do. It didn't happen all at once, because we tend to invest our personalities and senses of identity into religion, so it's harder to just let go of. But over the course of years, I just let go of a little bit at a time. Now, I'm as "unreligious" as a person can be.

Not any god, nor anything like a god. No. Why do you ask?

Sorry if this has been covered (I'm not up to reading all 28 pages of this thread), but Gordon Pennycook's work on Psuedo-profound bullshit seems to speak to the performative element of language in a way that is rarely dealt with in philosophy:

http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf

In the case of this sort of bullshit, language seems to be indisputably "doing" rather than "meaning".

For fun (but it's also instructive), here's a link to Seb Pearce's "new age bullshit generator".

http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/

I think it's worth noting that if there was a historical Jesus and/or Buddha, there's no way to reliably confirm that what they said or believed is represented by the texts that are considered cannon today. I'm not really familiar with the historicity of Buddha, but the cannonical gospels are only four out of many, and as Bittercrank mentions, none were first hand written accounts (all were written decades after when Jesus was proposed to have lived).

Both sets of teaching seem to express philosophical ideas that were new, but present in the culture of the time, and the current popular interpretations of either set of texts also reflect the morality and values of our time. If anything, Buddhism is taught as the cool alternative to western thought. Don't get me wrong. There is value in loving your neighbor, and in getting out of your head and stopping judging everything. There is value in looking for the middle way or in forgiveness. That's one of the reasons why those religions have stuck around for so long.

And remember... a Revelation without dancing is a revelation not worth having. :D — 0 thru 9

Awesome movie. I got to play Ciaphas on stage years ago.

Well, then you need to continue your dialogue with Mariner, for it's not clear to me that it's any *better* to describe how I feel when listening to Shostakovich or feeling a sense of oneness with the universe 'in terms of material causes'. I talk about artistic feelings in artistic terms usually, political matters in political terms, and and spiritual matters in sometimes spiritual terms and language. What your claim to 'best description' seems to involve is a rejection of the very possibility of 'spiritual terms and language', i.e. I am welcome speak on your terms, about science and stuff, but you won't speak on my terms, because you claim your terms encompass my terms. Pomos would talk about 'discourse' here and I think that's a useful term. — mcdoodle

That's a very fair answer, but I think it ignores that the term "spiritual" has cultural and historical baggage, and unspoken assumptions associated with it, that don't reflect a growing group's way of thinking, so it ends up being non-representative and exclusive. It's funny. I was just (10 minutes ago) speaking with a person I know on social media about traditional gender norms, and how they relate to people with non-traditional sexuality or gender identity. I, in trying to talk about this relationship, mentioned that people I knew (it's been 20 years since I had gay friends that I regularly hung out with) identified as "the wife" and "the husband". I was informed that to suggest those sorts of roles (in that manner) to a gay couple today would likely earn me a black eye. That's because there is baggage (emotional and intellectual) associated with that sort of language. To a straight guy, there's no reason for me to consider that baggage, just as to someone who doesn't reject the metaphysical idea of immaterialism, and what it implies epistemologicaly, doesn't have reason to reject the language of spiritualism. I think the value of this sort of dialogue is to examine the way we speak as a culture and society, and if there is value in doing so, change the way we speak about these things.

For myself, I can imagine there might be some sort of sociology-biology-chemistry-physics chain of explanations that could in an imaginary future universe show me the 'material causes' of my saying, say, 'I believe there are more things in heaven and hearth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' But it's a long way off, and involves a leap of faith in the scientific enterprise. It isn't here now, revealed in the fmri scans of 23 Columbia Uni students to be the basis of thought. — mcdoodle

I'm not familiar which study you are referencing, but I'm not sure what sort of standard would have to be met to determine that virtually all of the things we have traditionally associated with a soul or spirit are actually physical/biological. I mean we don't understand the brain perfectly, nor are we ever likely too, but that doesn't mean we don't know anything. We also don't understand the universe perfectly, but we can reasonably claim some knowledge, and ideas that were previously widely accepted, we can dismiss (geocentrism, Luminiferous aether, etc). I think we can say without any scientific controversy that personality, emotions, identity (and it's locality inside or outside your body) and everything else we would identify as "cognative" are a result of brain processes. Is it theoretically possible that there is a "something else" involved? Sure, there's nothing that makes that logically incoherent. There's also no good reason to assume that there is such a thing. Or at least none that I'm aware of.

I disagree about emotions, incidentally, and I think that's a contributory factor here: I take emotions more seriously, as cognitive factors, than I think you do. Emotions are, under one sort of description, judgments about the world, and it's useful to talk of them in that way as well as in terms of hormones and a brain. When you argue for 'material causes' you seem to me to make a commitment to the rightness of a certain kind of scientising enterprise, and that commitment is as emotionally-based as any reasoned 'spiritual' commitment. — mcdoodle

Who says I don't take emotions seriously? I'm just saying that we have a pretty good handle on the biology of emotions. Better than we do on the biology of thought. Raise epinephrine levels and you'll get anxiety, testosterone; aggression, oxytocin; caring. Those are a little bit oversimple (for the sake of discussion), but there is an undisputed causal relationship between hormones and emotions.

In regards to "scientising", I think a quote from Steven Novella encapsulates my thoughts on the matter:

“What do you think science is? There's nothing magical about science. It is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. Which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic?” — Steven Novalla

Lastly, to say that "emotions are judgements of the world", as far as I can tell, is twisting language to a breaking point. The common use of the term "judgement" is "an opinion or conclusion". You have a considered opinion (a judgement), or after thinking about something, you come to a conclusion (make a judgement), so it makes sense to associate judgement with thought. This is different than a "reaction or predisposition", which makes sense to associate with emotions/feelings. When you have a reaction to something (you feel X way about it), or you are emotionally predisposed toward different experiences (you have feelings about a subject). Don't you think this is a more common way of using these words? I'm glad to talk about emotions in terms of reactions or predispositions, but you'll have to give me some context, a question that requires an answer, or a problem that requires a solution, whereby that's a relevant thing to talk about. If I talk about spirituality as a predisposition or reaction to an experience, then I am accused of dismissing it. I do think that with what many people think of as spiritual experiences, they are emotionally affected in such a way that causes a reaction and a predisposition toward gravitating toward whatever their cultural version of religious mythology is (or other mythology they are exposed to, like ghosts, UFOs, generic godheads, or "something greater than myself").

I'm glad to talk about emotion, or whatever you think is relevant. Normally, I'd expect you to actually propose what you think about what emotion (or whatever else) has to do with the subject though, before you accuse me of ignoring it or making light of it. I'm only talking about what seems relevant given what is presented to me by whoever is talking to me.

Edit: I'm going to state this explicitly, even though I alluded to it in the last post. You responses seem to be based on a pre-defined characterization of what you think an "angry atheist" or "evangelical atheist" looks like, and you seem to be offering critiques of that characterization. I am an empathetic, creative, caring person, who is interested in the truth. I do also sometimes come on strongly, but I'm no Richard Dawkins, and I'm 100% not what the average person who dislikes Dawkins thinks he is. I have come from a place where I thought about things lazily, and over the years, sometimes because of the rough treatment of people who had a more rigorous approach, my thinking became more rigorous (if anyone remembers Gassendi1 from the other forum, I thought he was a dickhead, but he pushed me to think more carefully. I heard he passed away a few years ago, and I'm sorry he never knew the benefit I got from him being so critical).

Well, the dichotomy is in the language and is present in much philosophising, including yours. I believe we are constantly both reasoning and emoting and that yours is as false a dichotomy, between being and doing, as whatever you thought mine was. — mcdoodle

Being and doing aren't a dichotomy, they're just two different things. That's exactly my point, and exactly why reason and emotion are also not dichotomies. You seem to also agree when you say "I believe we are constantly both reasoning and emoting". We clearly are doing both simultaneously, all the time, or at least nearly all the time.

The general feeling I have is that many critiques of 'spirituality', including yours, fail to account for spiritual feelings and emotions. What is it that the religious are feeling when they describe profound emotions? — mcdoodle

I'm not sure that I have to account for emotions. Emotions are already accounted for. We have hormones and a brain and they interact in such a way as to produce different emotions.

Unless you are saying that inter-personally, I should be more sensitive to the feelings of those who hold a different view then mine, in which case...

The Dawkins/Dennett approach is largely to ignore that aspect of things, and to treat religions as if they were pseudo-sciences, with all the emotion distilled into propositions. I should like to begin with mutual respect, between atheist and believer, and such mutual respect seems to me to involve accepting that 'spiritual experience' happens, feels profound to the person it happens to, combines deep thought with deep feeling, and as such has considerable standing in one's evaluation of how things are, how the world is. Even if you're an atheist like me! — mcdoodle

I'm sorry, but I feel like you've just mixed a huge pile of different things together here. The first thing is that Dawkins, Dennett, and I are three separate people, who share some beliefs about religion, but not every belief. The three of us also share vastly different interpersonal approaches (it may not feel that way to you, but I promise it is true). That is the way of the world. There are some people that are loud, over-step social boundaries, are brash. There are people who are measured and careful, and there are all sorts of people in the middle. There are also people who will mince words and not say what they truly believe for fear of hurting someone's feeling (I'm not that type of person). It takes all kinds of people to make the world go around, including the brash loudmouths. Can you see some benefit for being tolerant to people's different styles, ignoring them as much as possible, to engage in their actual arguments?

The other thing that I think needs to be addressed is the notion that people who argue against spiritualism think that they fail in "accepting that 'spiritual experience' happens, feels profound to the person it happens to, combines deep thought with deep feeling, and as such has considerable standing in one's evaluation of how things are, how the world is.". I'm sorry, but this is just factually wrong. Everyone I know, or at least anyone that is taken the least bit seriously in the world, that argues against spiritualism, publicly and repeatedly acknowledges that people have experiences which they believe to be spiritual, and that are very emotionally moving. Of course people do. Everybody knows that. It doesn't change the fact that to many of us, we believe that those experiences that people have can actually be best described in terms of material causes.

Yup, I agree. I've always wondered why there's no particle physics analogue to Daniel Dennett or Noam Chomsky.