2. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" (1861) – Julia Ward Howe
Context: Popular during the American Civil War, this song became associated with the Union Army.
Message: Its lyrics evoke a sense of divine justice and righteousness in war. It glorifies the idea of fighting for freedom, equating the Union's cause to the will of God. — Chatgpt

"With God on our side" mentality running high, battalions enter battlefields. Can a song be musical art and propaganda simultaneously?

Art can be a weapon, an olive branch, a medicine, whatever, or merely aesthetic. — praxis

Is there an aesthetics of human manipulation of context?

If ucarr is transgressing the bounds of implicit/explicit virtue/etiquette as an artist contra the philosopher, maybe he is the evil artist.

He must run back to church to give what that unanimous crowd demands, in an alignment of the sensible wills of such a peer group: good, clear, hygienic, rigorous and rational sense in selfless service. — Nils Loc

If God consciousness is a sub-division of human psychology (the savior was fully human), then I can advance an argument claiming that what the divine looks like to humanity needs continual fine tuning and updating, and that this work is the work of the artist.

Now, I've declared art being at risk of blasphemy as a natural part of the territory enclosing the artistic raison d'etre.

Are the masses of people entertained? If so, perhaps their pleasure can defuse my condemnation by the state.

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have. Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences. — ucarr

This is directly contradictory. If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former. — AmadeusD

In the above quote you make a claim about my statement. Can you show that my statement is a contradiction? I'm asking you to take the words in my statement and arrange them into a configuration that shows it is a contradiction. This would be an argument supporting your claim.

Backing up claims with supporting arguments is the proper way of doing things here at TPF:

Here's my claim:

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have. Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences. — ucarr

Here's my example; it takes what's abstractly expressed in my claim and fleshes it out with practical things configured according to the abstract pattern :

Example: When America went to war with Germany in 1942, both countries were fighting for the best quality of life for its citizens, and both sets of citizens consisted of married couples, their homes, their families and their communities. Both sets of citizens did similar things in the four categories. However, unlike during peacetime, which in our context here can be likened to love, during wartime, the similar ways of life of the two countries were partitioned off from each other as each side tried to slaughter the other side. — ucarr

Here's my argument; it invalidates your logic with an alternative interpretation establishing my example as a counter-example:

So, love and war and the quartet (marriage, home, family, community) cannot be in a relationship of: If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former because they have much in common and thus there is no mutual exclusion. On the contrary, there is mutual inclusion because both sides have scarcely any important distinctions between them at all: American marriages_German marriages; American homes_German homes; American families_German families; American communities_German communities. The bone of contention creating the war consists in each side wanting to destroy the other side, and that too is something they have in common! — ucarr

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have. Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences. — ucarr

This is directly contradictory. If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former. Can you choose one? Is it love and war, or the series of personal opinions on marriage, home , family and community? — AmadeusD

As I've already stated, love and war are both about marriage, home, family and community. They share a large region of common ground. They stand apart on the issue of their approach to fellowship; love does not partition fellowship; war partitions fellowship into good and evil, with both sides demonizing the other.

Example: When America went to war with Germany in 1942, both countries were fighting for the best quality of life for its citizens, and both sets of citizens consisted of married couples, their homes, their families and their communities. Both sets of citizens did similar things in the four categories. However, unlike during peacetime, which in our context here can be likened to love, during wartime, the similar ways of life of the two countries were partitioned off from each other as each side tried to slaughter the other side.

So, love and war and the quartet (marriage, home, family, community) cannot be in a relationship of: If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former because they have much in common and thus there is no mutual exclusion. On the contrary, there is mutual inclusion because both sides have scarcely any important distinctions between them at all: American marriages_German marriages; American homes_German homes; American families_German families; American communities_German communities. The bone of contention creating the war consists in each side wanting to destroy the other side, and that too is something they have in common!

Imagine you did none of these things. You can still experience immense adventure, or war... — AmadeusD

A singular person who enlists in the armed services during wartime finds home and family within his platoon; he finds marriage through his belief in his country for which he jeopardizes his life; he finds community within the fellowship of related armed services divisions, and he finds community within the localities he protects as a soldier.

Love in theory is moral guidance on paper. — ucarr

Moral guidance on paper is merely a fictional story designed to align the wills of those charmed by it. — praxis

Are you charmed and deceived by the ten commandments?

Don't be polite. Tell it to me straight why building marriage, home, family and community as the important experiences of your life is a claim obviously false. — ucarr

Imagine you did none of these things. You can still experience immense adventure, or war. They have no logical connection to one another. THe claim is both faulty (in that you're not being consistent in what you're claiming) and utterly absurd, in that you are claiming there are two motivations for all behaviour. Patently ridiculous. — AmadeusD

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have. Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences.

Regarding the singular humans, such as priests, nuns, monks, old bachelors, spinsters, elderly shut-ins and even hermits, they oftentimes attach themselves to the four named categories: they attach to their parents, so that's their attachment to marriage, or, they're married to the higher power that frames the church; they attach to their nuclear family of parents and siblings, so that's their attachment to family; they attach to their extended family of cousins, uncles and aunts and also to friends and neighbors, so that's their attachment to community.

Some hermits attach to a spiritual higher power, so that's their attachment to marriage, to the family of believers, and to the world community.

The term 'adventure' here is nothing to do with what I've said, and I'm not sure what you mean by it. — AmadeusD

By "adventure" I mean taking action in the world towards a goal and gaining experience as a result.

What do you mean 'get away with'? How 'much' of what? What do you mean by 'much' even here? — AmadeusD

I mean how far can I go outside the established boundaries of acceptable behavior without incurring punishment from the state.

Love and war are the two big adventures. — ucarr

This seems to be so obviously false It's hard to respond to politely. Suffice to say: No, they aren't. — AmadeusD

I mean love is building marriage, home, family and community; I mean war is taking a partisan stance on behalf of one society of marriages, homes, families and communities in opposition to the same interests held by people in another society.

Don't be polite. Tell it to me straight why building marriage, home, family and community as the important experiences of your life is a claim obviously false.

Everyone who lives pushes against moral boundaries in their effort at living. — ucarr

No. Morality is within each person who lives. It isn't something that can be pushed up against. Your attitudes guide your behaviour. That's all that can be said. — AmadeusD

We've already agreed morality resides within the mind. So it's obvious I don't mean a literal pushing up against like pushing up against a stone blocking my path. Yes, my attitudes guide my behavior, and that's internal conflict that I, and you, sometimes push up against (speaking figuratively). We don't always want to do the right thing.

This attempt to lie, cheat, slip and slide our way out of moral boundaries in life, by my observation, is necessary, and that's what I'm trying to focus on here. — ucarr

...are nothing but our personal attitudes. There are no boundaries you could possibly point me toward that could fill that spot, for your utterances. Do feel free to try! — AmadeusD

Are you claiming never to have gone back on your commitment to do the right thing?

And thus the church shows its wisdom when it declares human nature corrupt from the git-go. — ucarr

No, it doesn't, in any way that could be conceived by a rational thinker. — AmadeusD

I mean to say that the moral guardians of the church are right in their expectation that humans will sometimes fail to faithfully carry out all of their moral commitments. Do you know any individuals who are perfectly faithful to their own moral commitments?

When the slithering demon comes on stage, that's when the interest begins. — ucarr

Nothing in this or hte previous part of your reply has any bearing on the concepts you're trying to discuss. — AmadeusD

Part of my effort in this conversation is defining "interest" as a kind of bias, or partiality towards one particular choice over another choice. So, when I say the slithering snake arouses interest, I'm talking about how the presumed evil of the snake is a type of bias away from the peace of equilibrium towards excitement and, unfortunately, murder.

Have you not found that a movie depicting a beautiful sun setting its glow over a vuluptuous woman with soul-stirring music on the soundtrack puts you to sleep after ten minutes if something doesn't go wrong, thus threatening the woman's — ucarr

I have to say, this sounds somewhat unhinged, in terms of trying to make any kind of point. — AmadeusD

I'm trying to say that either jeopardy or joy are necessary to interest because either state is far from the equilibrium - and dullness - of peace and stability too prolonged.

There is no 'sinful' in nature. — AmadeusD

Are you saying you believe crimes such as rape and murder have nothing to do with sinful perpetrators? What do you suppose motivates rape and murder if not being sinful?

If a man doesn't take delight in this rousing of the feminine will to survive, that man belongs in the vestry with the robes and the sashes. — ucarr

This fails, entirely, to answer the questions I put to you in clarifying what it is you're talking about. — AmadeusD

I'm herein trying to talk about the big experiences in life; they are the ones that promise great pain or great joy.

Still missing the point. — praxis

Art and morality within the context of this thread reduce to four elements:

Love | War

Love -- Marriage, home, family, community

War -- Power & Money in service to Partisan: Marriage, home, family, community
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When we love we build: marriage, home, family, community.

When we war we partition marriage, home, family, community into segregated modules.

Love in practice is love on earth.

Love in theory is moral guidance on paper.

As we know, there is no perfect agreement between theory and practice.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Existential | The Social

The Existential -- Flesh & blood humans walking the earth

The Social -- Flesh & blood humans self-constrained to a social contract whose memorized contents are made existential by prescription.

When we act existentially, we are creatures of the natural world.

When we act socially, we are creatures of our own minds.

Pain (war) is another instrument of revelation. — ucarr

...I still don’t see war. — praxis

Some see life on earth as a time of tribulation before one's appointment with their final reckoning. Pain management, during the time of tribulation, holds center position in the determination of the final reckoning.

Does earthly life and its outcome boil down to each person's time management and pain management?

Did you find and attack the serious goals of your life in a timely fashion?

Did you make the world a better place by decreasing the pain of others when you were able?

The escape clause is either receiving a free ticket to The Louvre, or being granted a confession at the Vatican. — ucarr

Your option (b) is getting close.

Death is the human tragedy forestalled by the necessary oscillation between the two poles before finally succumbing. (There is a proffered escape clause, but nowadays that business is too controversial, so I’m leaving it out.)[/quote]

Above I've underlined a word that serves as a clue to the answer. When you realize what it is, the moment will be anti-climactic, as this escape clause is the most heralded news on earth.

Very simply, I think Morality practices 'nonreciprocal harm-prevention/reduction' whereas Art explores 'catharsis from existential limits/failures of morality' – they are complements (dialectical), not opposites (binary) – pace Nietzsche. — 180 Proof

This is excellent. Thank-you for making it available herein.

Yes, the existent makes adaptive choices for survival and otherwise and, of necessity, must sometimes compromise moral restrictions in conflict with doing so. The necessity resides within the fact blooming creation is too full of value to allow the sentient total passage through life without doing harm to the innocent.

So, the drama in life is no less about redressing wrongs than about avoiding them.

Now we come to the hard part: art is about seeking out the shrewd deformity that mysteriously and judiciously transforms the ordinary into the beautiful.

Singularity is the heart of aesthetics. As such, it produces a gravitational field around itself that bends, warps and distorts the conventionality of established morality. A viable singularity makes necessary an adjustment in the established morality. Morals must be modified and tailored to the new existential demands of the singularity.

The singularity has two aspects: positive/negative.

Just now we're witnessing singularity in its negative aspect: the ascension to power of a destroyer. The process is warping morality to an extent making the masses dizzy.

Two centuries ago, we witnessed singularity in its positive aspect: the ascension to power of a savior. The process warped morality to an extent making the masses dizzy.

The destroyer/savior switch is the lotus blossom in the center of the garden of the expression.*

The switch keeps us perplexed about the distinction between good and evil.

*The vital artist reaches beyond success to failure.

So existence without life is not interesting and besides, no human knows anything about it. — ucarr

Anything other than ideas in human minds carry nothing moral. — AmadeusD

This is a useless supposition because no human lives in a world without human minds. That being the case, the world outside of human minds is irrelevant to us — ucarr

Yet, it dismantles your premise. So, clearly, its relevant to us in demarcating what is moral...You seem to admit this, but deny its relevance? — AmadeusD

Why do you think setting the boundary of morality (within the mind) dismantles my premise (my quote at the top)? Of course what's interesting, or not, depends upon minds.

Here we have an opportunity to define "interest" in an interesting way: it is bias towards one thing or another. Bias presupposes a sentient individual with an enduring point of view accompanied by a set of needs and desires and goals. These things comprise interest and the interesting. I can artificially imagine a world without life. There's no interest and nothing interesting on such a world because there's no bias anywhere. When the wind blows the rocks hither and thither, there's no reaction, no goals achieved or thwarted. All events are a matter of indifference. In short, on a lifeless planet, there's no bias toward desires, no dramatic suspense awaiting outcomes, i.e., no interest, nothing interesting.

If anything, your demarcation of the scope of morality aides my premise by clarifying its theater of action: the mind. Thank-you.

Am looking forward to Robert Eggers Nosferatu, and the premise is related, pushed to the limit. A young bride is being possessed to the horror of everyone around her, by a really awful demon that wants to copulate with her and she with it (my assumption based on trailer). — Nils Loc

:up:

He [Girard] draws a line between unanimous expulsion of the scapegoat, to the sacrificial rites as what imbues archaic culture with its powers to keep order. — Nils Loc

Yes. The struggle is both external and internal. As for the external struggle, there's a monster out there lurking, on the hunt for victims (Frankenstein). Morality is correct behavior forestalling victimization.

As to the internal struggle, the monster dwells within and morality is stern repression of its emergence. (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde).

When the existence of the monster is just being discovered, and it still evokes terror within the masses, it is the artist who ventures into the dark cave of destruction with open eyes, ready to escape after close observation, bringing back an account to the people (Oedipus).

There’s an endless war between art and morality. — ucarr

Instead of art and morality being juxtaposed, is it possible to look at morality as a subset (or genre) of art? Someone living a “moral life” (define this as you will) can be viewed like a type of “performance art” – alongside of dance, theater and opera. — Thales

You have an excellent idea going here. What's to be made of the lives of the saints when they are viewed through the lens of aesthetics? Poet Keats declared, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -- that is all." Was his "Ode on a Grecian Urn" also a tribute to lives dedicated to the eternal afterlife?

Looking on the flip side, I confess to struggling with the idealism of the painterly lovers on the urn with their forever unruffled hair. I take too much repose in the mess of real life to feel completely comfortable inside museums wherein look but don't touch is the rule of law.

Is she a good girl if she let's you muss her hair? I say, "yes."

You think it sinful to see beauty in ugliness? — praxis

On the contrary, I see virtue in the mind's transformation of ugliness into beauty. This process is essential to human perception encountering the radically new: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, polytonal and violently complex, aurally speaking, sent its virgin audience into fits of violence, their introduction to the transformation process.

Is there a parallel in science with Bohr's Copenhagen Interpretation vís-a-vís Einstein's Denounciation?

...we see the spirit of the age wavering between perversity and brutality, between unnaturalness and mere nature, between superstition and moral unbelief; and it is only through an equilibrium of evils that it is still sometimes kept within bounds. (NA XX, 320–21/E 97)

To the extent that it [The Play Drive] deprives feelings and passions of their dynamic power, it will bring them into harmony with the ideas of reason; and to the extent that it deprives the laws of reason of their moral compulsion, it will reconcile them with the interests of the senses. (NA XX, 352/E 127) — Schiller

:up:

Thank-you for bringing my attention to Schiller's pertinent ideas.

It is the equilibrium of evils, vitality/constraint, that compound into beauty, the peak of inspiration. The motive force of highest inspiration becomes an evil when it lacks the proper context for its expression.

Yes, beauty becomes itself when it partakes of, in part, deformity. It's the element of deformation making beauty singular that distinguishes it from the merely symmetrical and pleasingly pretty.

No we see that beauty is closely allied with freedom. Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky, both beautiful individuals, together made a bid for freedom from the moral precepts of matrimony, an honorable institution. Ultimately, they were not strong enough in their own time to achieve escape velocity, but look at the assertive promiscuity of continental society today.

So far it seems that the only thing you have to be grateful for is the direction to fear. I for one would not be grateful for that. Perhaps you’ve received more than the advice to fear a higher power? — praxis

It's true I'm a very fearful person, however, I've received deliverance to a quality of life beyond my own merits, and for that I'm grateful. It took me a long time to realize how much is being done on my behalf by the people in my life, and I'm grateful for my awakening to this truth.

I'm struck by how next to nothing I am outside of society. I think I understand correctly that short time in a deprivation tank and I'd even forget my own name. The human brain can be mighty, but it never stops being frail.

Pain (war) is another instrument of revelation. It forces us to see our real limitations. The depiction of pain is central to art because it is such a powerful driver of human behavior, both towards and away from goodness. Tragedy, that sharpens the focus on the tragic flaw of the noble person, and the self destruction it causes, functions as one of humanity's greatest art forms.

Pleasure (love) is the counterpart to pain and it too highlights our catastrophic limitations: Othello murders his beloved, Desdemona.

I repeat, morality is a derivative of dynamic and forceful lives, and thus it is the handmaid of vitality, not its judge.

Would you choose moral restraints upon the dynamic leader of the people over unrestrained vitality as their motive force?

Oh, what direction has a higher power given you? — praxis

Firstly, I've received the direction that I should fear the higher-power. Without my fear, my arrogance would have me at the bottom of the oubliette before sundown.

God is pretty much whatever someone needs to dream up, I think. — praxis

That's a tempting thing to say, but if you've ever been delivered from your limitations into a situation you could never earn you way into, it's more fitting to feel gratitude towards a higher power.

We see beauty in ugliness through aesthetic experience (art). — praxis

Yes.

Life on earth is interesting, and art and morality, in turn, are also interesting to the extent they remain connected to life. — ucarr

This seems to be just your opinion. I think distilling this, though, we can say that existence is. Life can be. When they coincide in time, interest arises. — AmadeusD

Well said. We're agreeing interest arises when human life within an existing world passes time with adventures. To this I add further interest by seeing how much humans can get away with in their behavior.

Love and war are the two big adventures. Can I kiss the girl? Can I shoot the enemy? Everyone who lives pushes against moral boundaries in their effort at living. As you've said, "Life simply is."

Well, the naked fact of being in life as a human individual has no boundaries so absolute we cannot attempt to lie our way out of them. This attempt to lie, cheat, slip and slide our way out of moral boundaries in life, by my observation, is necessary, and that's what I'm trying to focus on here.

Anyone not frequently tempted to lie, cheat and steal their way through life is probably a low-vitality person who is not interesting.

And thus the church shows its wisdom when it declares human nature corrupt from the git-go.

Even the rare, authentically righteous person has to fend off fiercely their temptations toward pride of person regarding their rectitude. For us humans, Eden without the snake is unthinkable.

When the slithering demon comes on stage, that's when the interest begins.

You say we humans aren't sinful by our natures and that our art likewise -- though sourced from us -- is not sinful. Have you not found that a movie depicting a beautiful sun setting its glow over a vuluptuous woman with soul-stirring music on the soundtrack puts you to sleep after ten minutes if something doesn't go wrong, thus threatening the woman's happiness?

...the fight between a more inclusive narrative of human reality and the edited version that's morality-friendly... — ucarr

This is one of my best forward passes with the lance of my wit. It is another one of my central points of focus: the artist wants to threaten the beautiful woman with something of interest menacing her composure. If a man doesn't take delight in this rousing of the feminine will to survive, that man belongs in the vestry with the robes and the sashes.

I've underlined all of my central points of focus.

Wagner, who so alienated Nietzsche, composed sublime music...canonical names glorified within the pantheon of human deeds, yet grounded in blood and flesh mired in sin. — ucarr

This reads like uninspired journalism. — Tom Storm

I plead guilty.

I would argue the points made are moot. — Tom Storm

I acknowledge that they are. I posted here because I need to have my points examined critically.

...the sentences seem archaic in structure and the inflated style - reads like early 20th century pamphleteering. — Tom Storm

I plead guilty.

In the end you seem to be making the commonplace observations that good art can be made by flawed people. — Tom Storm

Yes, I am repeating the commonplace observations. Here's how my statement tries to diverge: my claim goes on to imply good art softens moral condemnation by arousing sympathy for the human condition in a dramatic situation with circumstances pushing the individual beyond his limits: Hamlet, bedeviled by the demands of the ghost, the assignations of his mother, the vulnerabilities of his girlfriend and the protests of his adversary, murders Polonius.

You didn't answer any of my points. How about one at random? — Tom Storm

The artist walks a mile in the shoes of humanity-observed non-judgmentally. — ucarr

Shakespeare, in writing Hamlet, lives Hamlet's life non-judgmentally. He walks through his many trials and, in the end, gives Hamlet a soliloquy about choosing suicide over and above the terror of the unknown and even worse, the unearned ruin of Job's lengthy suffering.

It's non-judgment in the rendering of a life that extends art beyond the scope of morals. As AmadeusD says, "Life simply is."

However, some things in life bump against the filter with more force than other things. — ucarr

Yes, but that changes from person to person, culture to culture, institution to institution. Says nothing moral, of itself. — AmadeusD

On a planet with no life, nothing interesting happens.

Life on earth is interesting, and art and morality, in turn, are also interesting to the extent they remain connected to life. So existence without life is not interesting and besides, no human knows anything about it.

Morality is not an aspect of the world outside of human minds. — AmadeusD

This is a useless supposition because no human lives in a world without human minds. That being the case, the world outside of human minds is irrelevant to us.

Since we can't escape morality, reference to a world without it yields us nothing.

What I claim to be interesting is the proposition life is bigger than moral life, its derivative. Now, if art is sinful by nature because humans are likewise sinful by nature, and if art, following the lead of human nature, enacts the audacity to be more inclusive than moral life, then the fight between a more inclusive narrative of human reality and the edited version that's morality-friendly amounts to being a fight between true representation and reductive, idealized representation.

Art looks past the ideal towards telling a more complete truth about who we are.

Is this an anfractuous way of saying that God is ugly? — praxis

While the human individual lives s/he struggles with what is best to do going forward. Having a higher power to take direction from provides comfort. Is God a sub-division of human psychology? Well, the savior was fully human, so I'm on solid ground answering "yes."

Ugliness is quite rare and instructive -- it makes us rethink what constitutes good (The Elephant Man) -- so a deformed higher-power might possess ugliness as one of its infrequent aspects that only the stalwart person can bear to witness.

There’s an endless war between art and morality. — ucarr

I don't think so. Culture wars are frequent - certain groups/people will utilize moral arguments against art they don't understand or like. The most infamous of course being the Ziegler's Degenerate Art exhibition in 1937. — Tom Storm

As humanity survives across the march of time, human nature continues to open new chapters of revelation. The artist works to present substantial details of the revelation. The artist walks a mile in the shoes of humanity-observed non-judgmentally. The more substantial the revelation, the more likely conflict between what is revealed and the local culture's commitments to what human behavior should be. This is the conflict and the war.

Perhaps there is now no new human behavior under the sun, and thus the revelations are repetitions of prior revelations. In that case, art enables us to remember what we've forgotten, and perhaps what we wish to remain forgotten.

If human history continues to be unique going forward, with human nature in new situations revealing heretofore unseen facets of itself, then we can surmise human nature is bigger than local codes governing behavior.

Perhaps the Nazi holocaust shows us nothing new about the murderous impulses of aspiring men, but their hoarding up of the art pieces denounced publicly and treasured privately alerts us to something interesting about the connection between hatred and envy. This peculiar relationship is today still being examined in documentary movies.

From all of this we know that the artist is the town crier who tries to get away with shouting as much carnal truth about the human nature of sin as possible. — ucarr

I think most people will find this anachronistic thinking. Art as sin might fit into some old Christian worldviews. Perhaps you had a fundamentalist childhood? — Tom Storm

The human individual will do things to adapt to immediate circumstances and therefore, killing -- even murder -- are not off the table. This is what art reveals when the story features a murderer up against society's disapproval for taking the life of a pawnbroker. He wants the victim's money to finance his greatness of character and its attendant, albeit as yet unrealized, greatness of achievement.

Herein we see a curious contradiction: our job as proper human individuals is to hew closely to the modeling of the savior, and yet we mustn’t get too close to the ways of the savior lest we become full of ourselves and thereby deify ourselves. — ucarr

I would say this is nonsense... — Tom Storm

Sometimes moral correctness allows only a narrow tolerance between ice and open flame. Of course we're all sinners in the game of steering a course midway between love and hate.

Why don't you simply start with the premise that you are a conservative thinker with some traditional ideas about Christianity which you are projecting upon the world of art within a Western context. — Tom Storm

The scriptures are a narrative and the higher power is a character within it. Not even the higher power escapes violation of its own prescriptions for right behavior: the older stories include transgressing individuals struck down for what today we count as infractions.

Very interesting post but you should've left this out if you don't want us to ask what this controversial escape clause is. — Nils Loc

You have caught me in the act of writing pretentiously.

NMorality is a mental habit — AmadeusD

What is NMorality?

Morality is not an aspect of the world outside of human minds. — AmadeusD

This is true. However, some things in life bump against the filter with more force than other things.

Pain. It may not be moral in of itself, but let a human individual experience it beyond a certain level of intensity and s/he becomes hard-pressed not to scream out in rage and despair against that heartless neutrality.

Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire and burned up in protest against political oppression. Although a superb demonstration of life's indifference, it was used as an alarm awakening the minds of the complacent public who are, after all, simply life, albeit life aware of itself.

...philosophy considers very subtle questions, that are beyond the scope of science not because they're incredibly complicated, but because they're generally very simple questions with a lot of depth. — Wayfarer

ideology | ˌidēˈäləjē, ˌīdēˈäləjē |
noun (plural ideologies)
2 archaic the science of ideas; the study of their origin and nature.
The Apple Dictionary

I'm wondering if the archaic definition of ideology most especially applies to the philosophical project: the examination of the origin, nature and truth content of ideas.

Buttressing my supposition is my perspective on a simple question with a lot of depth: if the simple question addresses something fundamental, then it's no surprise if the complexity of the question's answer is large.

From your post I see a triad of three things: substance - a raw material with the potential to take on form (I note that a raw material has an innate inclination towards taking on a form that expresses its nature: this is Aritsotle’s recognition of chemistry: the innate form of gold differs from the innate form of lead); a form that expresses an organizing principle imparting a specificity of shape and function to a substance (an iron hammer); content - an implicit narrative about the natural world received by a comprehending mind (the Madonna with child statue conveys the role of women as nurturers and protectors of children).

Form and content are distinct from substance because they are closer in proximity to mind.

You ask about the back and forth of human conversation, a phenomenon that argues for itself as being the highest creation of the universe to date.

Consider a handful of sand gathered on the beach. The silica within the sand supports the making of glass.

Consider a crystal chandelier and a handful of sand.

Consider the moon’s orbit around the Earth and a conversation between two humans.

The crystal chandelier is to the sand what the conversation is to the moon’s orbit around the earth.

The chandelier and the conversation respectively, are each a work up or deluxe version of the two basic things i.e., the sand and moon’s orbit around the earth.

A human conversation at bottom is the same thing as the moon orbiting around the earth.

Consciousness is rooted within the interaction of two gravitational fields.

As the moon’s gravitational field raises earth’s tides, and the earth stabilizes the moon’s location, so two conversants enrich and de-localize each other.

Where are two conversants engaged in conversation? We might see where their bodies are located in space, but we don’t really know where they are until we hear what they’re saying to each other, and that might place them anywhere within the universe.

Of what stuff are dreams made?

Just as there is gastronomic digestion of the stomach, there is cognitive digestion of the brain.

Food in the digestive tract will break down in a certain way and, likewise, cognition will break down in a certain way.

Sometimes a dream is a coherent piece of a larger cognition breaking down. Other times a dream is a motley stew of small pieces jumbled together incoherently.

The power of dreams stems from them being bits of awareness and thus a stew of not completely localized experience.

Where you, the sentient are, is a good measure of who you are. Well, cognition opens wide the reality of where you are. Thus it opens wide the questions of who you are.

If you want to know someone’s location in identity, it becomes important to know what they’re thinking.

Now what might a person be thinking? The answer to that question might encompass the whole world , or even the whole universe!

This possibility points up the power and the depth of meaning to identity and location of a person of imaginative thinking.

:up:

I appreciate your response to my note asking you to extend your correspondence with me, however briefly.

It seems you’ve picked up on some of the ideas swirling around the internet… and are trying to fashion them into a coherent system of thought… — Wayfarer

Yes. A would-be theoretician needs some thought-provoking feedback. Here are some of your points directing me towards additional thought:

‘Consciousness being non-local because of superposition’ ?? — Wayfarer

… the subject of philosophy is the human condition and the place of w/man in nature. — Wayfarer

Philosophy… is very much a matter of stance and attitude. — Wayfarer

…philosophy considers very subtle questions… they're generally very simple questions with a lot of depth.
— Wayfarer

… one of the fundamental assumptions of science since Galileo, that the domain of science is what is objectively observable and measurable. That ought not to be a controversial statement. And the reason ‘consciousness’… is intractable within that framework, is because it is not objective. — Wayfarer

Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does. — Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness, David Chalmers

When David Chalmers talks about 'what it is like to be...', he's referring to being. And being is not an object. — Wayfarer

Ideas and time; these are my valuable things.

Agent intellect meets intelligibility (Aristotle) is a duet with each correspondent fully active.

Like water and its fluidity, substance and its form are distinct yet inseparable.

For this conversation, my point of attack upon the question of the place held by consciousness within physics focuses upon a thought experiment about the perfect and complete replication of a human individual, Sean Carroll, as discussed by Kuhn and Carroll himself within the video.

When Carroll talks about his replication being an ordinary event that high technology might eventually effect, with each Carroll going his own way and thereafter having separate experiences, I think he makes a mistake in his reasoning. This is a bit complicated, so let me say I think Carroll is correct about consciousness being fully within the capacity of physicalist science to replicate.

The mistake stems from Carroll trying to contain consciousness locally. Consciousness, being non-local in the sense of superposition, possesses in its own format, the wave/particle duality. Therefore, when you perfectly and completely replicate Carroll, you don’t have two Carrolls able to go their separate ways, as he assumes. Instead, you have one Carroll now in superposition.

Carroll in superposition is one type of contradiction, a paradox of self/not self as expressed by one identity in two different places simultaneously. It’s important to understand the profound difference between this state of superposition of one self versus two identical selves existing independently.

I argue that the latter state of two identical selves existing independently, which Carroll assumes as part of his claim there’s nothing special about the ontic state of consciousness i.e., it’s just more physics, presents as an impossible contradiction, whereas the former state of one self in superposition i.e., simultaneously in two places at once presents as a possible contradiction.

Here’s the complicated business: speaking theoretically, I claim superposition isn’t really a contradiction in hyper-cubic space; it’s only a contradiction in cubic space. Hyper-cubic space is bounded by cubic space, so it affords material things an additional dimension of spatial expansion, and this addition allows a superpositioned material thing to unfold its four-space configuration.

A paradox is a higher-dimensional configuration in collapsed form at a lower-dimensional expansion.

The crux of my argument says that physics cannot replicate the non-locality of consciousness within a three-space reality. In order to complete the replication, physics must upwardly evolve the paradox of superposition. This is expressed as the ascension from cubic space to hyper-cubic space, wherein the collapsed higher-dimensional configuration in collapsed state as a paradox unfolds into full expansion, thus resolving the paradox.

The critical issue herein is that the physicality of consciousness, like the critical line of the zeta function that organizes prime numbers, requires a higher order of complexity.

Also, the requisite higher order of complexity (for physicalist replication of consciousness) evidences the fact that the singularity of a human individual is preserved across the ascension from cubic space to hyper-cubic space.

Consciousness does possess an innate stamp of individuality. At The level of cubic space, which is the level of our human world, the individuality of the human individual cannot be fully replicated without invoking superposition. This is to say that such a replication at the level of cubic space preserves one individual, albeit in paradoxical superposition. At normal energy levels for humans within our cubic reality, and given the entanglement of observer and observed, macro-scale superposition is improbable.

Nothing new in this insight – approximating, not "incompleteness…" — 180 Proof

Approximation can be incomplete, as in the case of pi. More to the point, strategic incompleteness doesn’t have a specified boundary it can approach; all correspondences operating under strategic incompleteness are relative without any universal standard of reference, so the field of epistemology as defined by its grammar is such that no one can speak final words about what the attributes of the abstract form should be.

Reification has only a weak form under strategic incompleteness because no systems are finalized into hard boundaries.

Since strategic incompleteness posits only unfinished parts of different sizes incompletely related, with no finalization of systemization:

parts (e.g. reason) cannot equal, let alone exceed, the whole (e.g. reality) to which they belong (i.e. in which they are inscribed-entangled) – i.e. reality is in our reach yet also exceeds our grasp because we are real and nothing more… — 180 Proof

The above doesn’t stand as its counter-narrative. The argument that parts cannot exceed their whole is foundational to strategic incompleteness. This limitation is the reason why systemization is incomplete; if not, the part would be able to contain the whole of itself, a paradox. This is why there is no rational origin of anything (and why your Deist god is necessary to initiate existence), and thus the point of view of strategic incompleteness says there is no beginning and no end, only partial approaches to same.

OP Part 3

The hyper-cubism of my speculation throws fog on the subject/object interweave, but its introduction takes us back to the interweave by showing us how objective examination of subjectivity involves an enlightening manipulation of the two modes: subjective/objective such that the symmetry linking the two modes is preserved across dimensional expansion with respect to an emergent property: consciousness. The causal power of consciousness as an emergent property is the stamp of singularity it imprints upon the individual in possession of it.

All of my science-fiction sounding speculation posits a situation wherein exact replication can be approached, but not finalized: one Carroll simultaneously in two positions is an essentially non-local identity that cannot be contained spatially (physically speaking) or proven axiomatically (cognitively speaking).

If Gödel, Schrödinger, Heisenberg apply at the level of four-space, then we have incompleteness, non-locality and uncertainty integrated into a unified wholeness hard if not impossible for us to imagine at the level of our three-space experience.

This four-space wholeness suggests a superlative freedom of being wherein the “whereness” of a unified, four-space being is, by our standards, unimaginably rich.

Russell’s Paradox, with the ascension to four-space, ceases to be a paradoxical prison, instead transforming into a liberation into a more complex utilization of the space all around us.

OP Part 2

My argument that supports leaning far over towards Kuhn and far away from Carroll without, however, reaching a binary conclusion about one man being right and the other man being wrong, is based upon an imaginative speculation about what might happen if technology actually replicates perfectly and completely Sean Carroll.

Assuming the replication to be a process over time, I speculate the replication will progress to near completion with nothing out of the ordinary occurring. However, when the process crosses the critical threshold dividing approximate replication in progress to perfect and complete replication, I speculate that something extraordinary might happen: the absolutely identitical two Sean Carrolls, occupying two different places simultaneously, will merge into one Sean Carroll, albeit one Sean Carroll paradoxically occupying two different positions simultaneously. This is what it means to perfectly and completely replicate one human individual.

These two individuals will not, as Carroll claims in the video, go their separate ways and have their independent experiences. The paradox dictates: one Sean Carroll simultaneously in two different positions. To talk about them having independent experiences is to talk in contradiction. Two almost identical Carrolls can have independent experiences; one Carroll in two positions simultaneously cannot.

In order for one Carroll in two positions simultaneously to be functional as opposed to being a physical non-starter, the two Carrolls as one must explode upwardly into a higher spatial dimensional matrix. Specifically, the two Carrolls as one must ascend upward from cubic space into hyper-cubic space.

The extra spatial dimension will be required to resolve the non-functional paradox at our level of cubic space. At our level, the hyper-cubism of one Carroll in two positions simultaneously is the hyper-cubic version of one Carroll in two positions simultaneously in its collapsed, non-functional state.

At the level of hyper-cubic spatial extension, the paradox can be resolved with the unfolding of the hyper-cubic Carroll in two positions simultaneously as a four-space human individual.

At our present cubic spatial extension experience, we can’t talk empirically about a four-space human experience of the world. I do suspect, however, that at the hyper-cubic level, Carroll in two positions simultaneously is just three-space talk with little bearing on the reality of four-space cognitive experience.

:up:

I’m thinking Tarskian is trying to tell you that the inexpressible truth is the paradox of a Ricardian number being simultaneously: a member of the natural numbers/not being a member of the natural numbers, as based upon the unresolvable paradox.

If you claim the paradox itself is the statement of the “inexpressible” truth, then you’re trashing the principle of non-contradiction, and your logical systems crash.

The overwhelmingly vast majority of truth cannot be expressed by language — Tarskian

Assuming this statement is true, what do you think is its philosophical significance? — 180 Proof

Here’s my unsolicited attempt to answer your question: writing tentatively, with the need for corrective refutation:

Tarskian’s premise suggests to our understanding that: the mapping from verbal language to experience is categorically incomplete.

In turn, this tells us that sine qua non rules about the volume and thoroughness of verbal databases of information evolve without completion, and that therefore the epistemological project is likewise an evolving project without completion.

One of the important consequences of an epistemological project that never completes is knowledge of truths that cannot be proven. This leads to speculation about the science, math and language databases all being open. If so, it may be the case there is no complete systemization.

If it can be surmised that no systemization of science, math and language can be complete, then it might follow that no correspondence between them can be complete.

In turn, this might suggest the need for a radical overhaul of our definition(s) of truth: if correspondence is always incomplete, then the cognitive vector (thinking about science, math and language) like the physical vector, with its position and momentum coordinates, might be uncertain per Heisenberg.

Please write the OP and I’ll join the conversation.