If it interests you, I think it's common sense that people turn to religion to resolve the fear of death, which as you say, and I agree, is rooted in the I/world duality.

But, when you ask these people, and I would assume, in your own mind, how does religion resolve this painful dissonance, the answer is with the promise of immortality.

That, I believe, is an error regarding the essence of religion. If that were the case, and only that, I'd stand with you on this.

However, the essence is to seek the truth that we are not this I/world duality, we are an organic being like any other animal. There is no end of the story I am identifying with and terrified of losing, because there is no story, there is no I. Thriving human which was born and though driven to surviv, thinks not of dying, and simply will die.

It is that understanding and acceptance which alleviates the dissonance by unveiling the truth behind the duality. That is the essence of religion.

But few are willing to see that religion essentially IS the world because the world is indeterminate and it is in the ethical indeterminacy of the world, or our being-in-the-world, that insists on meta-redemption and meta-consummation. — Astrophel

Very nice! Your secondary part is almost soteriological, though I totally understand and agree with the moral/metaphysical concept of a "need" for "redemption". And that is exactly what I was attempting to suggest.

But also, from that. The so called order is the determinate world which has displaced the natural indeterminate reality. To me, the latter has neither ethical nor moral concerns. It (literally) just is that it is-ing, and we are that we are-ing.

Our ethical concerns are that within that "box" we mutually understood, there are established laws relating to order, or "functionality" because that's all the box is about.

And beyond the function of the box, morality relates to that "redemption" you eloquently pointed to because perhaps by nature, perhaps by a divinity, who am I to judge, we intuit that we are in a box and that there is a truth being, and a morality has evolved which suggests that excessive attachment to the box is "evil". This provides, by chance, evolution, intuition, or design, an incentive to seek Truth. Ergo, religion and its essence.
And, ergo:

Redemption is about being "thrown" into a world of suffering, the negative dimension of ethics; and consummation refers to the positive completion found in the incompleteness of desire. — Astrophel

The negative/positive dialectic, as you put it: my "incentive to seek truth".

Both expressions of the same essence of religion.

you might find the brief discussion about Michel Henry very interesting — Astrophel

Thank you, I will.

It took our perspective away from our living reality and gave us an objectification of the self — Astrophel

This sums up what the entire human condition is, I believe, since the dawn of history/the dawn of human mind.

forgotten, as Kierkegaard put it, that we exist. — Astrophel

I think Kierkegaard made the correct and necessary movement (though there are aspects of Hegel, I prefer) for his time.

I think the movement we are ripe for today is that philosophy has forgotten we are organic beings.

this kind of "truth" can be said to be about qualia, the phenomenologically pure color or sound, say. — Astrophel

If I am understanding correctly, here is how this kind of "truth" can be said to be about...pure color or sound: because "we" are talking about the sensing (of) the organic (human, but not necessarily) being as it is sensing, presently and in "truth," and "free" of the displacing projections/imposition thinking.

But, and here's where I'm not certain I'm understanding correctly. This "sensing" "presently" "free of displacing projections" is what Kant is staying clear of. His phenomenal is the color or sound already mediated by imposition thinking. Perception; one step removed from sensation. But the kind of truth we're talking about is sensation, pure, direct, but unknowable.

qualia really doen't carry meaning. — Astrophel

Yes because "qualia" if that "experience" of direct sensation, is before meaning has been constructed and projected.

The Truth as in essence of religion, is unmediated, not knowable by logic or reasoning. More similar, in human knowledge, to "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" Or, a God who dies a criminal, to save humanity, no less.

A sprained wrist is worse than, — Astrophel

My only comment here is to acknowledge that physical pain is an example of that kind of truth. The "suffering" we primarily experience is purely constructed and projected and calls for something like "the essence of religion" to relieve us from.

However, though the first instant of physical pain provides a glimpse into that same "truth", just like it is in Zazen, or deep contemplative prayer, the truth in much physical pain is quickly bypassed by attention to imposition thinking.

It's just that I think it's important to note that this framework is always already there, even when one is questioning it's limits. It is IN the questioning. — Astrophel

Totally. For me too. It also creates the absurd irony of either of us discouraging as if we're accomplishing anything outside of the box which is not ready there, but in which we ineluctably look.

This would be a very different kind of truth that has to be set apart from propositional truth — Astrophel

Yes, that is not just a prerequisite, but the "hypotheses" informing me suggests that the Truth being sought is necessarily "beyond" logic. That is why "we" have "placed it"/"found its place" outside of conventional philosophy and in, say, "religion."

PROVIDING you have had the same kind of experience — Astrophel

And this "need" we have for truth to be objective and verifiable if not empirically then by "shared" experience is only applying the laws of the very framework that the "essence of religion" which I am positing (admittedly, also within that same framework) is a refuge from.

We understand the world through language. — Astrophel

Agreed. "Understand." But we are Truth (not propositional, but the one nondualistic truth) by being [It] by [being its] doing.

superimposed knowledge" would be dogmatism, which is accepting without justification. — Astrophel

If you are referring to my use of "imposition thinking" and superimposed, I say to clarify my perspective. There is dogma, that is like law, superimposed twice removed from being. The superimposed I'm thinking is every human mind based experience, perception, emotion, idea, thought, conclusion, belief. These are superimposed on real organic consciousness, aware-ing, by the constructions-then-projections of Mind, displacing real present being with the representations of becoming.

I submit the essence of religion may free one of that, albeit very briefly and requiring repeated efforts. Nonetheless, the glimpses into such Truth may afford a more authentic approach to the representations we are enslaved by.

Note: this is not a judgment against knowing. It has many pros. It is simply a way to consider its actual status. a
And by doing so, by recognizing that Truth is ultimately in being-doing, it may improve how knowing/thinking can function for individuals and perhaps the species. Afterall, human Mind (like our concern about AI today) is a tool that got away from "us".

we can infer that there is Will based on our own subjective aspect — schopenhauer1

Ok, yes "infer" based on our subjective. He too admits to not "knowing" the "ultimate".

Thank you for that link. 1911! Looking forward to reading it.

:fire: — 180 Proof

I hope to "god" this doesn't offend you. But there seems an underlying humor? Not your thinking; its delivery. I prefer you don't answer. Regardless, it's growing on me. And I appreciate the Dialectic, even though I do not believe we are necessarily in antithesis.

e.g. the difference between being free and not being free — 180 Proof

I get your perspective, even that it is accepted widely. But I happen to think difference is exactly where freedom stops. I'm not sure if you would be interested in having me explain further.

Adam and Eve" were slaves punished with mortality by The Master for learning that they do not have to be slaves by learning to disobey (i.e. how to free themselves). :fire: — 180 Proof

That's a completely understandable read. I'm not humoring. If I wasn't currently settled where I am, I'd prefer that over the traditional misunderstanding.

I'm not sure if you think I'm promoting "religion" as in the institutions we both seem to reject, or if you are of the mind (which I sincerely respect) that religion is unreasonable no matter what its methods or aims.

But I've seen "evidence" that--though an obvious allegory--the Eden story, as expressed in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, expresses a "truth" which philosophy to my knowledge has forgotten. Possibly blame it on, not Socrates, who warned against knowing, but his disciples Plato then Aristotle who went on knowing like madmen, exposing that we "chose" the construction of our own world, one built upon the knowledge of this and that, difference. Rather than accepting God's world, Nature, Life, living.

We are stuck in becoming, religion gives us access, albeit tiny glimpses, into being.

And I realize the story of Eden is fiction, and this sounds like a literary assessment, at best; or at worst, like new age crap. And I understand the resistance.

But that's what I have settled upon. Religion is not harmful, or even useless. Not in its essence. Not if one recognizes its essence is a return to "Eden," to attention to our organic being in being "itself," aware-ing its feelings, and drives, bonding with its group (I wont even say, "grateful;" that's no less imposition thinking), and not our imposition thinking and the Subject it travels by.

After all, the Abrahamic tradition begins with a woman disobeying "the Lord" who forbade her from eating fruit from a "Tree of Knowledge" (truth): Hebrew (JCI) scriptures depict "the original sin" as a woman thinking for herself by "seeking truth".

Your take is of course reasonable and functional.

Here's a "different" take of the same story.

We start off with freedom.

God says, you are living beings, I created you for living. Eat from the tree of life all you want. Being is living.

But you are also free and intelligent beings. There is the tree of knowledge. Don't eat from it, though you have freedom and curiosity. What do you want with knowing? Being is not knowing.

Knowing is (to stick to the OP term)

the imposition thinking — Constance

. And, not only not where you will find the "essence of religion, but precisely where we lost both the essence of religion, that is, living and our freedom in the process.

Where once we were free to our living, now, we are Slaves to the imposition thinking which makes some of us construct "religion" and others of us despise it.

All the while we are ignoring its essence, living, being, without knowing. The truth.

it needs a lot more. — Astrophel

Without a doubt.

truth needs to be understood very differently from what is generally understood in philosophy and its often steely devotion to logic. — Astrophel

Yes, my exact position.

When one "authentically practices" religion, have they, as you suggest, become nothing less than meditating Buddhists? If so, then this needs to be further understood — Astrophel

Not necessarily Buddhist meditation, nor Christian prayer. These were raised to point away from the direction of "imposition thinking." Not sure if OP intended the same, but I am coming from the angle that knowledge is superimposed, displacing truth.

Philosophy (also, theology, myth, dogma, ritual) no matter how clever or eloquent, is messing with superimposed knowledge.

"Authentic" practice (whatever that is, if I define it, I bring it into superimposed) I am proposing (which finds its source in religion) allows a (brief) turning away from superimposed knowledge and, presumably a glimpse at Truth.

Needs more, but defining it brings it into superimposed. It must be practiced in order to be accessed.

Ok, then your use of essence conflicts with mine. I don't deny yours exists. Unless you were being flippant, you don't deny some religious folk seek Truth. Good enough.

As for my erroneous assumption about you being frustrated, I guess that's your standard speech. I won't misread it next time.

I would see the fear of death as the basis for the bastardized version of religion. The one which has you understandably frustrated references to the scriptures.

But the core of religion, is not the denial of death, but its affirmation, along with life: Truth, not imposition thinking (sorry, Constance, or Nietzsche, the term fits).

If so, then why are religions not founded on public impersonal objective truths and are not daily practices (celebrations) of rigorous public error-correction? — 180 Proof

Well, after prefacing my answer with the admission that I'm no authority, because as I said, individuals can experience the essence of religion in authentic practice.

As for its failings in the public square, as I said, once that core seeking of Truth became identified, say, as God, it got swept away by "imposition thinking."

What you are (seemingly) frustrated with is not religion, at its core, but a bastardized version.

The same can be said of democracy at its core. Somewhere there might be an elected official practicing authentic democracy. The fact that it is not so in the public square is not the fault of democracy.

I would agree with Nietzsche (here, but in few other places) that a great deal of what we fuss over issues from errors conceived out of the imposition thinking has itself created. — Constance

And religion is necessarily not that. At its core it is refuge from that. Religion is turning attention away from our imposition thinking, our knowing, including, God forbid, our Philosophies, and returning it to Truth.

That we identify that Truth as God or Spirit is only a reflection of our intuition that it is something utterly other than our imposition thinking, the place we seem to be ineluctably trapped. Though, so calling it ended up naturally getting carried off by the rapids of imposition thinking, and mythology, ritual, law and dogma surfaced.

But at its core seek Truth, all else is talk.

I think Religion is the victim of prejudice. Its like hating hockey if the NHL has serious issues. That core seeking of Truth exists in many if not all religions. And cannot by definition exist in (Western) philosophy.

When religion is authentically practiced by an individual, they express that core. They loosen, if not abandon, attachment to ego, the Subject to which imposition thinking falsely attaches. And often, they spend a lot of time in meditation or deep prayer. In these states, they are either loosening attachment to imposition thinking all together, or at least, focusing on a single imposition thought, leaving much more "space" for the Truth to naturally become the focus of one's organic aware-ing.

The essence of religion is seek truth; and it holds true in its authentic practice.

Easier said than done, though. — Janus

Totally

That is more like the Sōtō Zen attitude of ‘ordinary mind’. — Wayfarer

If enlightenment is possible, then it must be experienced directly — Janus

Just sitting in Zazen is Enlightenment. "Ordinary mind," is bodily aware-ing "freed" from the displacement of projecting mind.

That's what I took Janus to mean. And that's why Schopenhauer "failed" when he misapplied some of the projections to the Will (given that the Will, for him, is ultimate reality)

yet I think the idea of the radically transcendent is of great import and meaning in human life, precisely as "the great indeterminable" — Janus

No disagreement from me, to that whole paragraph.

If enlightenment is possible, then it must be experienced directly and could mean nothing to those who have not experienced it — Janus

Might even be, as in Kierkegaard's knight of faith, imperceptible to those who have not.

I'm saying the things in themselves are thought as real, but of course that for us they are noumenal, that is they are not real but merely thought. — Janus

Yes. Understood

I think it would apply to all noumena, that, if they are real, they are not merely thought, even though they may not be able to be anything but thought for us. — Janus

Ok, and I see this position commonly in various forms. I respect it and desire it. But why? Why is it that "object" referenced as noumena necessarily (if that's what you're
saying) exist beyond thought? And they must, you already accept we cannot know their form. So we are speculating about both their existence and form. We might as well resign ourselves to the fact that idea is as far as we go. If there is a reality it is utterly other than any idea we have.

sorry, last of the choppy replies.

I.e., is Kant not saying noumena, the "idea" of "things" not accessible to the senses, is as far as we go. Anything beyond noumena, any "thing" as it is "in itself" so to speak, independent of our ideas and perceptions, is inaccessible, be that a so called "apple" from the phenomenal "view" or so called God from the noumenal point of view. The limit of knowledge in its pursuit of Truth is idea (of Truth) ?

I'm just interested in your take on this. Same with my second "reply". I agree with you, insofar as the word fits; more like, you're enlightening me to more perspectives

Of course I hope you read what I said under the caveat "for Schopenhauer". I was basically asserting it to be a logical concomitant — Janus

Yes, I was agreeing, and hinting that this necessary conclusion is my problem with Schopenhauer, whether he meant it or not. But I can't believe he fully meant it. Not judging his genius. Obviously. More his context, historical, and otherwise.

not the (unknowable, unthinkable) real things in themselves as such — Janus

I understand. What are the real things in themselves? Are they just that? Real? Is it plural, as you suggested?

If we "designate" the idea of God as noumenal because we cannot know God, is then God, independent of our knowing, Real? And would that apply to all so called noumena?

Is the real not utterly inaccessible to knowledge, and that's why Kant was "right" to keep his distance?

then being must be equated/ confated with Will. — Janus

Confounded, if you ask me. But that's weirdly my limit reached with Schopenhauer. Everything "before" this Will, (that he on some levels "maligns") is Ultimate Reality or Being (because at least K had the decency to bow out), I cam stand behind, albeit with minor modifications. But not that.

If there was no free will, our bodies would run off like criminals and try to take us for a ride. — Barkon

I think, we falsely accuse our Bodies, when it is Mind which both constructed and projects gluttony.

As for running off if there was no free will, again, I think the opposite. Thank god Mind moves on a dynamic incessantly in pursuit of the most functional projection. Gluttons to the extent of criminals are an aberration in the conventional narrative. Thank god there's no free will or Mind would have gone extinct eaons ago.

yes, K. and you wouldn't say my read, though worded idiosyncratically, is inaccurate?

Your post is fascinating and compelled me. I am inspired by it to read Locke, beyond my stumbling through Anthologies. Thanks for that.

My comments are likely unorthodox and perhaps of no interest. I don't need to pursue them. But I reiterate my interest in reading on.

Yet surely leaves are an "innate property of oaks," no? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Is it not more simple to recognize this is a problem which only exists in our constructions and applications of the meaning we're trying to discern? Leaves are innate to oaks. That seems to be nothing but innate. However, innate could mean something like the extremely habituated construction, so habituated it seems innate.


See directly below,

we might say that even babies show they understand some seemingly "innate" ideas. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Here's a place where we can see that what seems innate is just what fits the pre-fab construction. Babies may show they are aware-ing their natural environment. A smile triggers a smile naturally. That response is innate. There is no understanding using concept/idea. There is no idea. But as for once babies start understanding idea, my guess would be they have already assimilated very basic constructions. That is understanding.

If the type of enviornment that allows a human being to survive (or perhaps "develop normally") is of the type that it always produces certain ideas, then it would seem fair to call those ideas innate. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I am not learned on Locke. But you have definitely inspired me. So far, I agree with Locke.

In our current environment we cannot escape ideas, aware-ing has been displaced by Mind and its constructions. So you might as well call it innate.

But homo sapiens had to exist in our organic condition in evolution but before Mind had "overtaken" it with ideas. There, the truly innate would have been front and center. No preoccupation with idea: everything innate.

Now it's ideas all the way down. But I say Locke is right. They're ideas; thus not innate.

And I don't know if my understanding of innate, as in aware-ing independent of Mind, is reflected as Aristotle's "potency" and his stages of "actuality" being the constructions-then-projections of Mind, but that too is fascinating.

read the paragraphs beginning here. — Wayfarer

Why does it sound to me like K is saying, like the Body is an idea uniquely arising to the Subject, so to is the will; both ultimately, "explanations" a Subject must necessarily construct to make "sense of itself".

That object which was initially unknown became “apple”, hence to say that object is unknowable, is a contradiction. The thing-in-itself, on the other hand, never becomes anything at all, so can be said to be, and remain, unknowable. — Mww

Yes, and I meant "unknowable" as to the "in itself". Though, as you said, Apple "becomes" knowable. It is only in its construction/projection.

The thing-in-itself is not mediated, — Mww

Yes. I'm mixing terminology. It is not mediated. Hence "in itself." What I mean to say is even the noumenal, though they seem to have an existence before or independently of our constructions, are constructions.

because logic cannot be independent of our constructions, — Mww

Yes

This seems to mistreat appearance as “what it looks like” when it should be “when it makes its presence felt”. — Mww

Yes, understood.

key to the 'noumena' issue is Kant's criticism of the rationalists including Liebniz and Descartes, both of whom believed the existence of God could be proven by rational principles. — Wayfarer

Ok. Good to know that context. Makes even more sense.

Viewed in that light, and resisting the urge to 'peek behind', I think it's quite a reasonable idea. — Wayfarer

Yes, I see and agree it is reasonable.

Thank you

If noumena are mediated reality, why do we have phenomena? — Mww

First, this is currently where I'm settled. And it goes without saying, I speak without authority.

We shouldn't have noumena. Noumena, only seemed to Kant et. al. to be unknowable. But their "thing in itself" is as unknowable as that of an apple. Both are known already mediated, and there is no inherent difference in what they are in our experience. Yes, noumena are not apparent to our five (conventional to western) senses, but they are no less representations to our 6th/7th senses, image-ing/inner feeling. Though I will be corrected, loosely, I note, Vedanta based philosophies recognize these.

And regardless, any concept, including logic and reason itself, I think are part of the world mediated/represented (I like constructed/projected). "We" as in the particular form human Mind took, constructed logic no more or less than it constructed apple. And what these two are independent of our constructions are equally not knowable.

This should not reflect the hypothesis, but the best and quickest way to illustrate here is, if it arises in thought or our form of "conscious experience", it is a representation even if there is no corresponding object. So God, Souls, and Meno's triangle, are not unmediated realities that exist independently of our representations. They are "learned" constructions.

Another way to illustrate would be to turn to what is not projected, the "really real," so called because real is already a projection (as is really real, but...). It is necessarily unspeakable. I think whether you're an apple, a soul, or a human, what you really are is meaningless to ask because meaning too is projection. What you are remains in being it; not knowing it. We ask because it enhances the experience of constructing knowledge; not because it brings us anywhere close to uncovering real being.

Really real in Kant is the affect of things on our senses. — Mww

Is that a settlement he necessarily reaches given his empirical approach? That is, is he saying, What things are, I cannot know, so I can only express positions on them as appearances, and for those representations based upon other than appearance, I will infer only from observing their effects?

Or, is he saying reality is its effects? I.e., even if I could access Truth as knowledge unmediated, I'd say reality was the affecting. If it is this, it sounds more like Schopenhauer's Will being that which drives all activity of being. And perhaps Kant just stayed clear of that (at least in his critique of pure reason).

I could be wrong but, I don’t think Schop makes the distinction between Thing in Itself and noumenal. For schop Will is Thing itself is Noumena… — schopenhauer1

I agree. That was me extrapolating.

How do we distinguish between the unknowable and the really unknowable? — Mww

Fair question. Deliberately, yet recklessly, I created the category "really" unknowable.

My thinking emerges from these very categories I have been grappling with, in some "points" intersecting across philosophers, in other places, divergent only superficially, in still others, clearly divergent.

Currently (admittedly, possibly plain only to me), I see "across the board" the phenomenal/representational as mediated reality; the noumenal as still mediated reality; though posited as unknowable because its constructed source is ambiguous; that which remained unspoken of by Kant, and referred to as The Will by Schopenhauer, as really real (though neither philosopher made compelling arguments for how they described/why they "ignored" it.)

we understand that thing still remains as it is in itself. — Mww

Noumena is a speculative notion that are the "objects-themselves" or the "things-in-themselves" - a reference to the "entity" non-cognized, but as it is "in itself". — schopenhauer1

Does anyone know the historical first instance of this "need" for an "in itself?" Assume it is not intuitive. Was it Plato's forms and/or this anamnesis? Was it pre-socratic? If so, what form did it first take.

It seems to me that this "in itself" is a hinge by which opposing views cannot reconcile which way it closes.


ADDENDUM: I.E., why can't "concept" which have no objective appearance be habituated constructions shared and reconstructed such that initiation into Culture/ Language means input with that data.

the only realism is empirically conditioned, as opposed to that pseudo-realism which is technically only logical validity, — Mww

Direct reality”, then, reduces to a metaphysical non-starter. — Mww

a universal, from which follows that this form of the real, first, belongs to reason rather than sensibility, and second, is real only insofar as without it all a priori cognitions become impossible. — Mww

Ok. Makes sense for Kant. But seems either extremely honest or extremely convenient. I tend to think the former. I.e., noumena is unknowable enough; he won't even touch that which really is unknowable.

Fascinating on a few levels. Thank you!

and yes, I meant parable. But it felt like W. thought he was being Zen "koany"

:up: Much comfort in the Simpsons. A refuge against suffering.

but it's by a great deal more than just 'language', it runs a lot deeper than that. — Wayfarer

Ok, I can see that in his "misuse" of the koan.

Wow. That bad eh? It is funny that I bypassed him. Hah! Maybe there was a reason. Too funny. Anyway dont worry. I'll be grappling with Schopenhauer for centuries!

Witt had it right and we now have to dance around figuring out the right interpretation of the great Prophet" seems to be what's being criticized here.. Or part of it is that... — schopenhauer1

Right. No I was honestly admiring W.s statements, but would never go so far as to stop at W. I was being ironic.

Having said that, ironically, am now inspired to look further into W. I don't know why I very quickly bypassed him in my recent pursuit.

It's an exact parallel — Wayfarer

Do you know if W was being deliberate; as a matter of fact? As "homage"? As a deliberately confusing inside joke?