Does life have any potential to be anything beyond suffering, — Arnie

There's "good news" at the end.

If you indulge me to dissect "life" for humans into two parts: organic life, life proper; and the human experience, life constructed...if you go with that for 30 seconds, might I suggest the following answer briefly?

And note, these are my understanding of "things" from my very possibly heretical take on what I have gathered from voices, text, and coincidence. Im not an authority on any subject I address. Though I might present ideas as if I am regurgitating what is true to some source(s), I am not. I do not keep an academically responsible track of my sources, though like everyone, I am not unique from my sources, but at "best/worst", a unique by-product thereof.

Organic Life: not suffering. Its natural state is bliss; but within that context there is struggle. Life, because blissful, is driven to survive, and necessarily struggles to satisfy that drive. Inevitably there will be instances of fear, fatigue, hunger, pain, solitude (we naturally bond). But these feelings arise in our organic being without dissatisfaction, anxiety, angst, resentment, hatred, anger, strife, jealousy, misery. Life, already blissful, is not in perpetual becoming, not incessantly reaching and grasping, but rather, being, maintaining being. There is no "something." There is only being/doing-in-(successively)present-reaction-to-being.


Human experience: is suffering. But suffering is not real. Mind having displaced the drive to survive the present bliss, with desire to construct "something" and be heard (projection), has also displaced the natural bliss of being with incessant becoming. Because desire is necessary for becoming, dissatisfaction is necessary in order to perpetuate desire, which, in turn, perpetuates becoming, the manifesting of our projections. Desire cannot cease in Mind's world. And so we must suffer in order to desire the constructions we "pretend" are desired to end suffering; an ineluctable loop, which displaces natural fear, hunger, fatigue, with what we construct as anxiety, anguish, misery, all of it flawlessly perpetuating our becoming.

It might be an iota from impossible to stop becoming. If you were born into a world post prehistoric human animals, if you were born in History, you are programmed to displace being with becoming. Existentialism, thinks it has brought us methods of authentic being, but it only provides reasonable ways to navigate becoming. And though Zazen might appear as a means to bring one to the "silence" of being, and the extinguishment of the "I" of becoming, it doesn't last. You cannot delete, nor press "reset". The program automatically kicks back to the "Factory setting," and becoming continues on autonomously. Besides, you cannot "know" that being, you can only be "it," and the second you succeed at "returning" through Zazen to being, you desire to "know" that being, triggering you right back into the programmed becoming. The locus of inevitable suffering.

The"good news," it's OK. You are not that thing, the "I" (of) becoming. You are really that blissful being.

You wonder, is Life just suffering? No.

Human existence has suffering built in. It's how we grow. In a strange way of putting it, but it is no less a fact, without suffering, there would not be Shakespeare, the Eiffel Tower, Socrates, DaVinci, Icecream, Mozart, Billie Holiday, Charities, and Volunteer Firefighters, and as you know, we could fill this forum with the list of good which we get to experience, albeit constructed by us, and requiring, as one of the ingredients, perpetual suffering; good which we can choose to recognize, by simply incorporating it into each of our Narratives, as at least balancing the suffering. And we can choose to do so with gratitude.

Why? Because our being, that which matters, is bliss. And the becoming, well, we construct it, we can put effort into which projections surface upon our narratives.

It's not a bad deal, at all.

committed to daily recovery from foolery — 180 Proof

A kind of meta-psychotherapy?

A sharpening not of the narrative(s) of the mind for improved functionality of the individual narrative in history (which might be what psychoanalysis/psychotherapy is); but, rather, a sharpening of the what of, and the way mind writes/understands its narratives, and further, the "world" thereby constructed (for improved functionality of each of the individual narrative, the narrative in history, and, ultimately, for the improved functionality of history (and all of them, also, ultimately, holistically and "globally")?

I think we are historically/culturally/linguistically situated — Fooloso4

I am on board with that part.

but not thereby determined. — Fooloso4

Then--unless I misunderstanding--

1. Whence history/culture/language?
2. What/what process/who situate(s)/(d) us "there"?

Are these "things" H/C/L, at least at "source", immutable, preexisting, inevitable? By design?

And note, while I recognize our real beings, our bodies, are not directly determined by HCL, our Minds, are both the source of and determined by HCL.

However, no need to debate this further unless you feel it compelling. I'm already enriched by your comments, comfortable with what I view as minor divergence in our paths, and look forward to the next time they cross.

what is it about a candidate that experiences, such that he must consider something, the negation of which is impossible.

Answer: he must consider himself as subject. He is that to which all representations, all objects of consciousness belong, such that there resides an implicit unity in the manifold of all rational/intellectual doings. — Mww

I agree with that, because of the qualifier, "such that there resides an implicit unity," which of course is the function of the Subject. That is, to unify the movements under a surrogate "self" displacing/standing in for, the "embodied" being.

formerly a positive paradigm shift in philosophical thought but now in somewhat diminished favor. — Mww

No kidding? It seems "ahead" of its time to me. Regardless, I like it. A lot.

Whatever the "real truth" might be, it is not something we possess and not something we can come to know through a misguided model of reason based on the success of mathematics. — Fooloso4

I'm with you there.

"Words" can have multiple paths that can be traced by their history. To do so may require desedimentation. Doing so can open paths that have been closed, leading us away from our conditioning. Paths can be walked and paths can be made. — Fooloso4

Almost shocking how much I see it that way too. Funny how it takes me a few "call-and-responses" to start to understand another's narration.

What these prohibitions mean is subject to interpretation. — Fooloso4

Right. If it appeared otherwise, pardon my unwieldiness. I was saying both moral issues are similarly the product of and resolved by and as language (and not by reference to some eternal law accessible to Language and its multiform projections). But don't kill, being a path well tread seems like it comes to us from nature; more than don't eat meat which requires a dialectic on the surface to take place first but they are both similarly projections of Language and its autonomous processes

I want to know to what it is reducible, such that THAT is irreducible, hence, primordial. — Mww

Do you mean further reduced organically, what are the cellular or bio electrical impulses? Deeper?
The molecular? Atomic?

I know you mean metaphysical, right? And if so, I'm placing that outside of this, the Organic/evolutionary. The metaphysical is an incessant pursuit because (and I am not blind to the hypocrisy/irony: I engage in it wholeheartedly, but I'll comment later)...because it is not going to uncover anything. Mind (the locus of the metaphysical) cannot uncover reality, it can only construct "reality."

But still, though I'm constructing it, I know what you're after. The Real "thing" being while being-displaced-by-becoming is aware-ing, natural consciousness. That is the primordial condition, to be an aware-ing Being. (It's the Body, BTW, aware-ing its sensations, feelings, image-ings, drives, movements--but these become overshadowed by the projections of mind).

But that's not what you're looking for. You/we desire the metaphysical, the brilliant constructions triggering Body to feel that eureka, but getting it through, sure, a special kind, but no less, fiction. Because, every living thing has the primordial condition for Mind, aware-ing. Trees grow to the sun, single cells react to environment. But only our level of image-ing could become its own thing and fool not only its now, host, but even itself into belief.

Before they become words, they are schemata, that which as a multiplicity of minor conceptions, is subsumed under a major. You touched on it with your “image-ing”, which I hold as a requisite component of human intelligence, in that we actually think in images. But we cannot express an image, project it beyond ourselves, so we developed language to do just that. — Mww

Very nicely worded, and, if I may, exactly what I so clumsily beg to say.

In logic, this is tautological — Lionino

Preface that I'm not confident (as in my own weakness) beyond generally that I understand your concern about the logic and precisely how it applies. Sorry in advance as, despite my best efforts, I limp through any logical aspect of what follows.

But, I'm asking genuinely, if something is impossible in logic, can it not be possible "outside" of logic? Is there no outside? Who says? Logic? Is that tautological?

You might choose to stop here, and just answer.

If your answer is yes, logic precludes it, you might not want to read further. Understandably, it may frustrate.

And I respect that. But what Im about to ask, I ask sincerely, and neither to disrespect nor challenge well supported thinking. Plus I'm eager to be corrected let alone challenged because my thoughts have never been just my own. Are anyone's?

Can it be that belief does come back to itself, in the sense that "belief" is not what the word conventionally signifies; (or is that but is also) a mechanism within a perpetual loop, a process becoming out of and back to itself. Not just belief; everything.

And talk about A --> A, what if even logic proceeds from itself within that process? Hence, the loop (which) defies logic.

The "reality" we're "writing" about precisely here is morality (for e.g.), and we think we are discerning the "real" of it. But we are nowhere near the real of it, "trapped" within the loop holding and forming our inquiries and their emissions. We search for the real of morality in subject or object for e.g.. The loop constructed "difference". The loop constructed Subjective/objective both writing themselves into the narratives moving everything in becoming, changing as we go albeit to us, slowly. Our resistance to change another mechanism having evolved to ensure that slow and complex dialectic functionsoptimally for the survival and prosperity of the loop. Logic evolved, a "tool" in the dialectic; a "successful" mechanism to expedite a settlement/belief. And from belief proceeds the Dialectical process settling at a new belief, and so on, and so on, becoming belief, never being True or Real.

The loop never uncovers any independently existing Reality. There might be a Natural Law of "morality," we might naturraly live by it, but we're not going to uncover it with our constructions, fantasy or logic. We are in a loop "constructions" proceeding from a constructed system of construction; affecting our bodies to act and feel; but displacing all of our natural attention with experience in narrative form, all of it fleeting and empty of any of that "the real of it" which we will always endlessly pursue. Illustrating yet again illogicality even of this hypothesis bothering to express itself. Unless expression is the only point. It dresses itself up with logic and poetry to give it the maximum chance for survival and with the hope of its prosperity, that is, settlement by others.

Nice. Thank you.

But it wasn’t just a moment. It happens everyday, — Fire Ologist

I agree (I got carried away with the drama of the Eden myth).

It wasn’t bad to put clothes on. It wasn’t the knowledge itself. — Fire Ologist

Not bad, I agree. But I do see it as knowledge itself. Not as in the pivotal moment, but as in beyond its use for survival prehistorically (I imagine) clothes are made up of signifiers making knowledge (for me knowledge is meaning settled upon from time to time). What strikes me, is its uncanny appearance in Genesis.

The story in the Bible shows us what is happening right now — Fire Ologist

Yes. Uncanny, eh? It's tragic that art can be admired universally in pretty much any form except religion. Has Christianity been an influence for good? Maybe the pith of the question is too obvious to ask, it has been an influence, period. Like DaVinci or Einstein, but on a much grander scale. We write good and bad, regardless of the influence.

we killed him, we still want to hide. That’s just like us, don’t you think? — Fire Ologist

lest I misrepresent my angle, I'm approaching this particular segment of this thread as mythico-poetry, not theologically (not saying you are/aren't). But, yes. I do think so. He says, "wake up," and turn your attention. The "Thing" we're all looking for, because we lost it, is not where you're looking. God's world is the birds in the sky, the flowers in the field, who neither reap nor sow, labor nor spin. It's not in the gathering nor the knowing, it's in the living. Dont believe your constructions from time to time, believe in that eternally. Find your soul. What profit is in gaining the whole world but losing your living soul. And not only did his contemporaries kill that in order to remain with their attachments to knowledge, repeating the mistake in Eden, but the moment he died they constructed a fiction in his name, Christianity and we have pretty much been lost in that and its antitheses (heresy, atheism, secularism, science, Islam/Eastern "paganism", hedonism/materialism, communism) ever since.

misses the significance of the Picasso to seek the uses and causes of something sublime. — Fire Ologist

Thank God, 'cause I've wandered so deep into "my" imagination here that science is a faint echo in a remote corner of--by the way--the same system, functioning to find truth, in the end, in the same way, settling upon what is most fitting/functional given all competing factors.

We could ask has Science been an influence of good? And the answer would be, like its sister, religion, it has been a remarkable influence. Good or bad is just how we write.

insofar as I see no reason why the human cognitive system in itself, in its synthesis of conceptions to each other, have not in effect described the conditions by which an experience is given, without ever expressing a single linguistic representation of those conceptions or the cognition which follows from them. — Mww

That's what I'm saying. (Although it may not be what you're really saying). These signifiers, the vast majority of them, Freud on stilts, operate subtly. So that it seems like they are not expressing a single linguistic representation. But they are. If not the words "its a beautiful day" when you instantly apprehend that it is, there are nonetheless signifiers working, moving, until finally the apprehension surfaces as...

My point (and--because all of our Narratives are written with and for others--I hope this is what you were saying, if not, please correct me) is that though you use "apprehended"
and that triggers belief that at least in some cases when you "know," you are getting it directly from the source, Reality, and only afterwords superimposing "description" (or constructed meaning), its too late for you to hang anything at all on the so called apprehension. Its not that its gone, its that its only there in the present. And you're not. You're already in the description, the constructing of meaning. Sensation is instantly displaced by perception. The fact that there is apprehension is moot. We abide in the constructions of meaning.

Why I think/thought we agreed is because though you said, "without ever expressing linguistic etc." You also said "in effect described the conditions by which an experience is given." I'm inferring that you are holding nonetheless that experiences are their descriptions. That this seemingly silent apprehension, is in fact, yet a subtle description.

Question: of all that supposedly attributable to lesser animals, in your opinion which is the primordial consideration such creature must attain antecedent to all else, in order for him to be afforded meaningful experiences? — Mww

Pardon my presumptuous intrusion.

My hastily surfacing answer is, "nothing." No so called lesser animal (a label which I dispute) has any hope/fear of having meaningful experience because meaning is precisely what distinctly human mind constructs out of its incessant and autonomous dialectical processes. Animals, like our own "Real" being, the Organic aware-ing human animal, "independent" of the constructions with which mind has displaced its aware-ing, have no "concern" for meaning.

Upon further thought, however, I think I can answer the question at least hypothetically. [Assuming I am interpreting "consideration" fittingly] The primordial consideration such creature must attain antecedent to all else if they were to similarly construct meaning, is to have evolved organically a system with similarly sophisticated image-ing, similar memory, and a feedback loop involving endorphins and the like.

Why? These allow for what has evolved into the human mind. An image-ing system so complex it no just longer recalls image of tiger to trigger flight; it now calls and recalls, structures and restructures, arranges and rearranges Signifiers to trigger all of our feelings and actions. Part of the evolution of that system of signifiers involved meaning. The system "wants" to thrive in order to best serve the "host" organism; and it is what it is today, because the constant constructing of meaning to displace reality evolved, leading to an astronomical growth of the Brain's image-ing sense. And it's still growing as we construct novel variations (like this) of meaning perpetually.

So yes, indirect realism gets my vote. There is a Real world--we are that real organism in that real world--but we have displaced that real world, its drives, feelings, sensation, with desires, emotions, perception. The former just are; the latter construct meaning in their process of becoming.

like Adam hiding himself in clothes, dividing himself from God. We all do it. — Fire Ologist

Nice, Fire. The hypothetical moment when "we" divided/displaced "God's creation" our natural selves, with our constructions, choosing knowledge over life.

It doesn't have to be "bad," as I know you know. But it did kind of go bad, and so one of the hypothetical moments* when "God" surfaced into "our constructions," to "remind us" to construct away but to not to get "lost" in the constructions, I.e. as Jesus, we construct something out of that, call it Christianity, and here we are today. Has it been an influence for good? Of course. Some narratives prioritized life, applied the constructions to that end. Francis Assisi, et. many als. For bad? Yes, some narratives, in spite of Jesus, stayed lost, and took Jesus with them; constructing Jesus not to serve Life, the body-family-community-species, but to serve the constructions. As it happens those Narratives are attracted to Narratives of ego and power. And, it's as easy for a wealthy man to live in God's domain (Living) as it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, so...

**also applicable to Buddha as Siddhartha, Vishnu as Krishna, and likelyva few so ons.

This marks a wrong turn in the history of philosophy that fails to strike us as odd and out of touch because we have become so accustomed to philosophers making such claims, as if thinking and feeling are two separate, independent things. — Fooloso4

Though you are far from the point I'm about to make, and I apologize for "mishandling" yours. But for me, you have illustrated exactly the way I believe morality moves (the "stances" we take on "truthity") a thing is a well tread path and we believe
habitually. Morality is a conditioned response triggered by the habitual paths "words" take.

Your challenge does not demonstrate a unique uncovering of real truth; nor does it demonstrate the sole individual rising up against conditioning. It is just another conditioned path which surfaced because multiple "words" moving in your locus of history triggered the beliefs you are espousing.

Both do not kill and don't eat meat follow that process and are neither relative to subjective choice, nor grounded in Natural Law.

Being that the fact of the propositions comes to be once I start believing in them, something is causally connected to itself, which I am confident is not desirable. — Lionino

My understanding, which I will confirm in advance, won't be presented through syllogism (though I admire and respect that process).

The point you--in my opinion, correctly observed--supports, for me, the conclusion that the "reality" we are trying to decipher, is as it turns out, "causily connected to itself," a "loop," all of it, the "thing," the proposition (about thing)and the belief, taking place as a single process "appearing" as separate, giving rise to more propositions about subjects, objects, Beings and Truths.

where do you disagree with my assessment here? — Bob Ross

First, I apologize for not responding in one post. Secondly, your logic seems (to me, not a technician) very tight and I cannot at my skill level, navigate my answer through your logic. Which, Prima facie might indicate I have no business responding at all, to which I apologize in advance.

My current understanding is that your conclusion that moral subjectivism fails the test of logic seems to imply that moral realism is the truthity of this thing morality, and the stance one ought to take.

But perhaps morality is neither "subjective" nor "real". It is not "subjective" in the sense that it follows a unique process (even if that process applies reason and facts) leading to an independent choice for each
individual. It is not Real or "objective" in the sense that it is informed by (pre)existing Laws independent of the individual's choice.

Perhaps it is a process which has evolved in human History, input into each of us since childhood, and operating autonomously in accordance with evolved mechanisms, having evolved to "trigger" "beliefs" which happen to be most suitable for any given moment and locus/individual in History.

So, now, subject is not deciding what is true, nor drawing upon what is True, but over and over again settling upon a temporary but intricately fitting "conclusion."

When it comes to the mechanisms conventionally triggering belief in the truthity of not killing, these are well structured paths, well tread, and thus very commonly, and without apparent dialectic, we arrive and settle there. It neatly falls within the structures of Univeral and Absolute. It may be "really true" somewhere in ultimate reality. But we do not access that reality at all when we construct it and settle there. By the same token, it seems like the choice not to kill is subjective, and based upon weighing relative pros and cons. But it is neither. Morality is the result of dynamics and mechanisms, functions and relations of Signifiers moving us to a conclusion from time to time and based upon the intersection of multiple minds and circumstances having met there.

Like I said, the well tread moral issues amenable to deontology for e.g. like don't kill, don't rape, make it seem like these
are Natural, the conditioning is so quick it seems organic.

The dilemmas are what make us wonder. Press the button and kill one baby to save a million. Here the path to belief is not so well tread, we watch the Dialectical process taking place and assume subjectivity. But the problem is, even the very Subject to whom we designate the final belief, is just a mechanism in that system.

Again, if I have crossed the boundaries of your interest, sincere apologies. I recognize I have not provided enough details, nor framed it in precisely logical terms.

C1: Therefore, a belief cannot make a proposition true or false. — Bob Ross

And, yet, I settle at the same conclusion. I believe it, not because it is true, it is true because the mechanism of belief was triggered at the end of the (dialectical) process leading to it: belief, or the so called stance on truthity, and on "something."

P1: A stance taken on the truthity of something, is independent of the truthity of that something. — Bob Ross

If you assume that that "someting" is unlike the stance, a thing so called "out there" in the real world independent of Mind.

If you assume the stance and the something and the truthity are mechanisms in one dynamic process...

that, we are.

seems that you hypothetically want to perform greater than others in such a way it would reflect as 'hardness', — Barkon

Not sure I understand. My interest in malleablity is not per se driven by any moral drive. Rather, I'm suggesting--under the influence of Zhuangzi--that the obstacles to free and easy functioning "in the face of this world," and the resulting suffering, comes from hardness.

isn't this just reaching the same conclusion, aren't you being malleable to be hard? — Barkon

Hmm. Intuition tells me to look into that further, but on the face of it, I'd say no. I'm, maybe being "hard" regarding malleabiliy. But that's not what you mean, right?

I personally prefer the opposite (not necessarily as a moral position, but as a functional position--if the two are mutually exclusive, which, I think not).

I prefer malleable, like the Taoist "suggestion" to be as an "uncarved block".

Easiest thing in the world to bring someone down, a literal dried piece of excrement on a sidewalk can do that. — Outlander

Yet, when asked what is Buddha Nature, the Master Yun Men answered, " a shit stick." Presumably used as TP.

If our condition is not static but perpetually becoming. There's no point in being a hard dried-up turd blocking your own bowels from discharging their duty, movement. Move along. Exercise discrimination where needed such that you are satisfied that you have discerned the most functional place to temporarily settle. But move, keep moving.

I subscribe to the idea of a fallen world or society, at least. Not necessarily in the Biblical sense, — Outlander

I think I do too. In fact the Eden Myth offers itself up as a brilliant allegory (in my opinion, as brilliant as the Cave). It is because we have fallen from being (Tree of Life) and chosen becoming (tree of knowledge (of difference, i.e. "good and evil")) that we cannot be Hard, even if we think we can. We are like that piece of plastic in the film, American Beauty; and like the answers in Bob Dylan's early "hit", blowing in the wind.

In fact, Heidegger protests against not only the idea of a world independent of our models of it , but the very idea of a subjective or intersubjective scheme, model, narrative , theory that we impose on the world. He wanted to get away from a subject-object dualism entirely, and the accompanying assumption of a normativity or conventionalism within which we view each other and the world. — Joshs

Very nice.. I misunderstood. Not anymore.

Thank you.

in authentic Being, which is not a subject representing a world to itself, but a self continually changed by ‘coming back to itself’ from its world. And this world , for its part, changes reciprocally with self. — Joshs

Here, I diverge. But no worries, armed with the info above, it is clear to me, how and why.

in both cases what ‘is’ is already organized on the basis of prior expectations and anticipations. — Joshs

Understood and agreed

The role of moral structures can be seen most clearly not within a community closely united by shared understandings, but between communities divided by differing intelligibilities. The individual deemed in violation of one group’s moral norms has found themselves caught between two communities, just as is the case with scientific heretics. It is unfortunate that the very bonding around shared intelligibilities that forms a unified community inevitably leads to alienation from those outside of the community. It then becomes necessary to protect that community from foreign ideas and actions which threaten to introduce dangerous incoherence into the normative culture. Thus the need for moral codes and structures. — Joshs

Insightful!

our ethical norms aren’t conventions in the sense of optional fashions that we put on or take off as reasonable members of a consensual community — Joshs

Of course not. I'd go a step further and say they "dictate/code" our feelings and actions, in spite of being "constructed". But I do not need to insist upon that "dangler" in order to "fit" your admittedly helpful depiction here.

Good one. Will rethink with that.

But I disagree if the quote from Amadeus means the good never forms. There is an object, a definition, that forms, from our experience, called “good.” — Fire Ologist

Nice

I think Plato was pointing to what is formed once the good is developed in the human (so he was wrong to point to an eternal form). — Fire Ologist

Yes. I get that [now]. You're probably properly using "object" associating it with "objective" and thus present, not a fleeting nothing. Fair enough.

We still need to glean a definition of good if we are to leap into judgments of better and worse. — Fire Ologist

I agree. But because let's not ignore, our constructing of good serves a functional end, [survival and prosperity. But ignore that if its distracting]. Not because there is an innate thing, "Good", in Nature.

But nevertheless, like letters, we fix good in our lives everyday. — Fire Ologist

Yes we do

Couldn’t you say that the innate in conscience is where the good is gleaned, where the good is constructed?
— Fire Ologist

I can see some sense in which it's a 'construct' but I also believe there is an innate good, although not everyone will agree. — Wayfarer

I'd love to agree. But where? Where can you show me innate good without walking me through constructs?

I think if there is an innate good in nature/reality, we can only Be good, but we cannot know that. The instant we know it we have constructed it. So we can be good but we'd never know if we were. That is, if we're talking about Good in the real world independent of Mind. (If we cam even so talk: which, we can't. So Good is not a thing innate in nature)

Inherent" and "experience" are incompatible concepts. "Inherent" is something we have by nature, we are born with. — Alkis Piskas

I agree. But I also assumed the word wasn't used to denote the contradiction, but rather, in tge sense of "belongs" to experience, "is derived" from etc.

fallacy is in thinking we can separate out the natural from the moral, the ‘is’ from the ‘ought’. — Joshs

since it was precisely Heidegger’s point that a science presupposes as its very condition of possibility a set of metaphysical assumptions about how the world ought to be understood, which implies an ethics. — Joshs

The way I read "natural from moral" above is to infer you mean morality at least has its basis in nature (a lessening of the two are one, and inseparable). Ought is derived from is. And you cite Heidegger above. But I read H (assuming you depicted H precisely not loosely (as I might)) as implicitly saying not that the pursuit of any knowledge requires a natural framework, Laws of Nature, [to re-present?] or that the two are actually inseparable, but rather that there be convention on how some basic structures should be framed and settled upon as "true"; i.e., how to "construct" a universal framework for our further constructions, or pursuits.

With respect, he had to. We all do. Even in our mundane interactions. If we don't do that (agree on a constructed framework), "I love you" becomes what it is structurally and inherently, empty and meaningless. If he didn't do that, for example, he could not have reflected so profoundly on the dynamics of what was necessarily restricted to the becoming Mind, and present it as though it had captured Being.

First, you see the evil in the world.
Then, you see the evil in others.
Eventually, you see the evil within yourself. — Scarecow

And that's when you finally see the good in the world?

Do you agree with this, namely that the notion of good in inherent in the primacy of experience, and not something that can be learned by simply looking up a definition and analyzing it? — Shawn

I think you could say that about everything. Take apple. I wasn't born knowing it. Nor did it ever instantly come to me. As I first learned it, I might've confused it with peach or pear. But for obvious reasons apple, like many Signifiers purporting to (re)present the real natural world (and physical objects we construct using signifiers) has evolved to seamlessly trigger the "same" response for all of us.

"Good" is not only abstract, and therefore "infinitely" broader in its triggering, but we use the same Signifier triggered by and to trigger different very different "newpaths". Good time, person, taste, work etc. Anyway, that's why we ask the question about Signifiers like "good" and not "apple".

But not only do both apple and good have to be learned through experience. But they are both continuously having to be learned, though sometimes seemingly imperceptible, incessantly becoming (learned by experience). Everythung settles at that moment settlement (knowledge/belief) is triggered (the illusion of being present). But nothing settles permanently.

I might taste an apple tonight which subtly changes the Signifier Apple and how/what it triggers for me by way of more Signifiers and ultimately feeling. My thoughts right now may have subtly engaged new signifiers. This has caused so called clarity. Apple seems brighter to me now.

I might learn something in this thread which changes Good for me. I might even say forever. But though the revised chain of Signifiers structuring Good which I picked up here may remain for me forever, Good will yet change for me, as new Signifiers are triggered to trigger newly revised chains.

What can we learn by just picking up the definition and analyzing it? 1+1=2? I think no. First you experienced difference, that took months, then quantity, etc etc. Am I being strangely meticulous, or misunderstanding that the question was intended for a moral assessment?

I think morality is the good, and both, related chains in the evolution of Signifiers and how they structure knowledge/experience, are never discovered by an instant assessment. They are never discovered; but are always becoming. And when we "want" to use them as they quickly move, when we are triggered by a fitting function, we just pick up our
latest version. And call that Good.

:up:

moments.
— Fire Ologist
I told ENOAH the same thing not long ago. — Patterner

It's because I'm atonal, mixing with an arid humor.

Ofc I'm on some fantasy rant here. But I enjoy dabbling in wild metaphysical speculation — Benj96

I think this topic betrays the underlying current of art which--like it or not--drives all philosophy.

Also, ultimately, if it were a Simulation (which I have no reason to believe) then our efforts to prove or disprove are absurd give the "Simulator" would likely be utterly other than us and our comprehension. And yet we toil.

Which I guess brings us back to art.

it is impossible to produce a complete representation or simulation of Mona Lisa.

Yet many people seem to believe that the whole universe, or at least our experienced part of the universe, is or could be a simulation. — jkop

Interesting, your discussion of "representation." I do not believe the universe is a simulation.

And I don't believe our experiences are or are a part of a simulation.

But I am entertaining the thought that our experiences are representations (or at least structured thereby/processed thereby). No need to elaborate now. But does your adamant position regarding simulation preclude that?

Could it be, Nature is not a simulation. We are not in a simulation. But--to be very brief and simplistic--because all of our knowledge is "delivered/processed/constructed" by representation (of the presumably real thing--like your Mona Lisa), we are necessarily "closed off/boxed off/inaccessible to" the real "thing;" causing this (problematic) intuition that our experiences are "appearances/projections/illusions"? Hence, the idea in popular culture of the Simulation.

And though I am far from understanding the physics..., maybe even the scientist/mathematicians who so theorize (about a simulation), do so because they are inevitably using our representation based experiences to uncover reality, I.e , to uncover always "the Real thing" of things. And yet, those representations necessarily box us off from that real thing (just as the painting necessarily boxes us off from the real Mona). This inevitably causes them to arrive at calculations and conclusions suggesting we must be in a simulation. While, really, it is because they are only examining representation, and they are only using tools of representation.

I would need to review Paul's writings for antisemitism — BitconnectCarlos

You could start (and end) with his letter to the Galatians. But as I said, I don't think Paul was being antisemitic per se. Paul himself, Jewish, and likely a Pharisee.

What I think Paul was doing was responding to a mixed Jewish and gentile faction who insisted that gentile followers of Jesus must adhere to Jewish laws like circumcision and abstaining from pork and other unclean meats. Either, 1. He was sincere about his Christology that Jesus as Christ atoned for humanity, and emancipated it from law *see letter to Romans. Or, 2. He was an "evangelical" genius who realized the Greeks were more compelled by high christology than eschatology, purity laws and sacrifice.

But I'm either recalling or hypothesizing (read Gallatians and you might see why) that Paul's diatribe against the "Judaisers" was used as a weapon against people of the Jewish diaspora, particularly after the Empire converted to Xtianity. At the very least, it (unwittingly) painted a picture.

I came away from the Gospels hating the Pharisees/Jews — BitconnectCarlos

Of course contrary to the teachings of the so called Church, and with respect to that perspective, many have taken a historico-critical approach. And while I am not up to speed, I recall that both the gospels and epistles need to be understood in their historical (Pre-The One Holy and Apostolic Church) context. And--even unashamedly to the authors--you find that there were "political" "scriptural" "religious" motivators in the writing.

We now view it as having recorded history. But to them it was a document glorifying a movement (and the authentic Paul Epistles were mostly addressing instructional concerns of his associated church communities) . The opponents to that movement were portrayed deliberately accordingly. As didactic. But also to set-up the system their way (the way we do still today; though it embarasses us). These are the bad guys so we depict them that way. And their depiction emphasizes their opposition. The Gospels were written after Paul had already established himself in the early church. The "negative" depiction of Pharisees and Saducees was not to record history, and almost certainly not to garner hatred against their own race and heritage as a whole, but to express that the new movement has at least loosened adherence to Tanakh and other traditions, displacing both with the person of Jesus, now truly "the Christ," and that (naturally) the establishment, Pharisees and Saducees opposed that.

I think your comments about Luke and ff, if understood in the context above, reveals that the early church, far from being antisemitic, were carrying on a Jewish tradition, opposing, not Judaism nor the Jewish race, just their "political" opponents in the Sanhedrin.

Revelations/The Apocalypse, which emerged much later, does the same but more cryptically, and now, shifting its focus with respect to their opponent, Rome.

Arguably, just as the Gospels and Epistles are misused to "justify" antisemitism; Revelations has been misused by Protestant factions to justify anti-Roman Catholicism.

What goes around, eh?

Knowing what philosophers do in the academic field is a first criterion to separate cheap mysticism, pseudoscience and youtubers from serious philosophy. — David Mo

I agree with you that that is what it is, and I fully agree with and cannot argue against the functionality of it.

But tragically, a thing all of humanity can turn to for clarity in a complex universe of constructed and competing Narratives, is just another closed institution. It must. I know. But is there no refuge from prejudice? No "place" where we can judge the institutions?

And if you say, that's why you have freedom of choice. You judge which philosophy is reasonable to you. Well, still I must confine myself...and If you say, you judge all philosophies, judge philosophy etc. Yes, but it is already implied, built in, I, a pseudophilisopher* am necessarily wrong.

*I am not "sulking" I'm being honest.

Philosophy is not based on authority but on the exercise of personal reason. — David Mo

Ok. But I still agree that philosophy proper must adhere to the methods and conform with at least a reasonable finding accepted by academic philosophy.

We think we're ok with personal reason, but, without judgement, I've seen personal reason attacked often for not adhering to accepted methods of academic philosophy. Is that qualifier just implied?

Philosophy is academic philosophy. The rest of us are adults playing cops and robbers. (honestly).


I honestly liked the rest of your observations. I didn't want to reiterate for each, the obvious qualifier, "within the institutional confines."

The happy note, which I can already tell you have similarly implied, is the unqualified can benefit both by reading and discussing within the confines, provided they are careful not to pass themselves off as philosophers; and, by crossing the bounds (a thing which an ordained member of the institution cannot do for risk of excommunication) and exploring things so called pseudo.

If it used to be the love of wisdom, I guess it's now the love of the analytic brain. — Noble Dust

Yah. I think you're right. But dont tell anybody, or it's over (the way I'm reading it--for what is the brain, but us?).

Wisdom, in turn, is not merely some set of correct opinions, but rather the ability to discern the true from the false, the good from the bad; or at least the more true from the less true, the better from the worse; the ability, in short, to discern superior answers from inferior answers to any given question. — Pfhorrest

I agree with that. Would you entertain this read of that? Maybe it is implied in that, I don't want to presume either way. Feel free to shift your read of what follows into metaphor if it is easier to work with.

And now my offer:
Would you agree that both so called wisdom, and its pursuit move about in the "world" projected by/within uniquely human mind(s). Any "appearance" of pursuit even, let alone uncovering/possession of Reality or Truth, is just that, a re-presentation of something (no longer) accessible (or only accessible in the being (of) it, in the present; only knowable (objects of pursuit) as representation in the moving about of time).

And how that relates to what is philosophy, is that--and now it is a metaphor--philosophy is an almost infinitely complex/layered literary analysis of what human Consciousness has and continues to project in time or History. "discern[ing] the true from the false, the good from the bad... the ability, in short, to discern superior answers from inferior answers to any given
question"

Ones way of thinking or consciousness is indeed "ones philosophy". You get where I was coming from though. :D — Outlander

Actually, I did. And I was content to stay there. I think you were right, philosophy is not "ones philosophy." I think (I'll carry on as though I'm sure, but I'm just projecting thoughts) the latter's use is casual, it could mean one's disposition, rules one lives by, worldview, morality, etc.

But as for what is philosophy? I hope we stay at "saying it is the act of questioning the inherent views, conclusions, mechanisms, or observations of ones consciousness in a way that can be logically expressed" At least that expresses an aspect of philosophy proper. For me, at least, an impactful and "foundational" part.

what is your (or anyones) thoughts on saying it is the act of questioning the inherent views, conclusions, mechanisms, or observations of ones consciousness in a way that can be logically expressed? — Outlander

Ok, yah, that. Sorry.

But is a reflection of ones conciousness necessarily philosophy? I could be young and never question anything with my deepest thoughts — Outlander

Isn't by "consciousness" not necessarily my deepest thoughts? Because you're right. But rather, a reflection on that thing, consciousness, and the whats of it ?

We must eliminate those who are intent on the murder of innocents. Killing them is not murder. — BitconnectCarlos

Bitconnect, I'm an admirer of your thinking on other threads, outside of this (perhaps personal(?) and understandably so) one.

I'm just saying, I don't know if you're feeling ganged up on, and resorting to an F U response, but it doesn't appear to be helping your cause.

Now, I already know anyone of us could come up with arguments against Hamas, their "mission" and their ideology. But why not admit the tragedy of the death of so many innocents (yes, I mean the victims of Hamas, Palestinian civilians) and abhor it, and then justify the actions with strong reasons presumably demonstrating inevitability? Do you not see the violence in that contradictory statement? "the murder of innocents"

Again, I am sure Hamas is wrongful, and malicious. But a statement like that cannot be made with ease. I can't imagine any human scenario where that statement could be expressed functionally. Sure, you and I might think it absurd in this case, but I always reserve the what if, the just what if the other side thinks they're doing the same thing? Is one right? Who gets to say? Are they both right? Is that not a path to mutual destruction, extinction? Isn't the only functional truth that they are both wrong? That is, that the statement is wrong?

Anyway. This is an excruciating moment in human history. It feels like watching your siblings, who thoroughly despise each other, and likely, on some level, given each of their traumas, despise themselves. And they're no longer arguing, not even just shoving, they're literally plucking eyes, and strangling each other.

Should our conversation really be about who's right, while big brothers everywhere cheer them on to over power each other?

Anyway, I absolutely know this might be personal and please know I am sensitive to that, and if I have not been, it is only out of ignorance.

I'll continue to relish our fruitful dialogue in other rooms!

Practicing a religion could gain you divine favor in the afterlife.
However, atheism couldn't possibly gain you any divine favor, and therefore it is irrational to hold atheist beliefs. — Scarecow

I think, if there is (a) god(s), and our conventional constructions hold true, that god(s) would "see" through our self-serving reasons. In that sense (albeit, I'm speculating) an authentic atheist might garner more divine favor than a self interested adherent (albeit divine favor is not the point of religion).

In any event, theism (or "mysticism" , deism, agnostic theism, pantheism) and so on, might be as rational a mechanism as any, in "places" in philosophical pursuits where one is left having to fill "gaps" with an externally independent/atemporal/first mover etc.

On the other hand, atheism seems rational when we restrict ourselves to empirical methods, etc.

To me there are "regions" of religious thought in history which necessarily overlap with and inform philosophy (particularly moral/metaphysical) and can shed light on "truths" which for one reason or another, philosophy has overlooked.

Finally, for me, many of the arguments which this age raises against (a) god(s), stem from a mistaken expectation that god(s) are for gaining favor/reward, and avoiding suffering/punishment; that god(s) has to be active in, and "care" about, the things we care about: actively alleviating suffering, intervening to prevent "sins", choosing sides, etc. These, and questions like "why are wars so often in the name of religion?" are strictly human concerns tainting religion, giving rise to "fanatical" (angry and hostile) atheism.

To me, I do not have to profess to be a Christian to appreciate these words from its founder regarding the "proper" religious perspective on/relation to god. After telling his disciples not to seek worldly favors from god(I.e., the alleviation of suffering) he exhorts them to only do this, "seek [god's] kingdom [domain/realm/dimension/truth/reality]" and leave worrying about the world to the world.

you have been reading much and all the religious books. I am sure you would understand my points. — Corvus

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say I've been reading much, and especially not all the religious books. But I had already agreed with you about a rich analysis being needed before making any final judgment on
religion.