referring to the difference between the known physical laws vs something additional, like panpsychism or the cartesian dualist idea of a mind/soul existing metaphysically. My personal belief is that no such extra-physical being is required. — Malcolm Lett

Understood. And FWIW, I currently
agree

can't say that MMT achieves that aim — Malcolm Lett

It's reasonable to me. My concerns about it are directed at myself, and whether I understand the details sufficiently. I read both your first post and the link, and should reread etc. But from my understanding it's persuasive. I believe there are reasonable, plus probably cultural, psychological, bases for "wanting" there to be more than physical, but still I find it strange that we [still?] do. Even how you intuitively knew you'd better clarify "in your opinion no need for extra physical."

For senses that inform us about the outside world, we thus model the outside world. For senses that inform us about ourselves, we thus model ourselves — Malcolm Lett

Very much with you

here I use "causal" in the sense that the individual thinks they're doing the causing, not the ontological sense — Malcolm Lett

:up:

And so you didn't mean the "self" was
this severable thing, "part" of the Body, other than the model. No need to reply unless to clarify.

Thank you

“direct awareness” - the present becoming of experience.. Thrown there, in motion, with it. It immediately presents an object to a subject; but it can also just be seen as just the subjective experiencing…, becoming in the moment - direct awareness. — Fire Ologist

I apologize if I am overbearing. I have found you have insight into matters important to me.

The above quotation is a good place to clarify where we differ slightly. That is, if you think we haven't reached the beating a dead horse phase.

Direct awareness is significant to isolate. And I totally share your apparent enthusiasm about that. But is direct awareness taking place in becoming? Does it involve subject/object? There might be a more direct awareness in becoming. But the one which excites me, and which paradoxically is pointless to discuss, as you suggested earlier, is a "return" to the aware-ing Being, finally just being, liberated from becoming. (Won't elaborate here/now).

also see truth there with the illusion. — Fire Ologist

Ok. And I get that.
Is the truth
1. The now buried source of the illusion, displaced by the illusion but lingering?
2. Is it dissolved in the illusion such that they are indistinguishable?
3. Or, is it literally obliterated by the illusion as implied below?
4. Something else?

see truth dashed to pieces — Fire Ologist

how could something present itself as an illusion to me, if I couldn’t see that it was not real, not truth? — Fire Ologist

Yes. And i understand the logic. But if we stay with N for a minute here, logic (specifically, the requirement of a not that, to reflect a this), is the illusion. So, I submit that our (yours, mine, N.'s and many others) "intuition" about the illusion, though eventually worked out in logic/reason, has its source outside of the illusion, and I submit, that source is in Being (Not enough time/space to elaborate presently). Point being, it is not in logic (in my humble...etc).

knowing anything, be it illusion or not, seems both impossible and already accomplished at the same time. We are dealing in living paradoxes… — Fire Ologist

Agreed. I wonder if the paradox doesn't come from trying to fit Truth within the illusion, i.e. by attempting to access it by logic/reason, and if "emancipation" doesn't come from accessing them separately. The illusion in becoming (our mundane or conventional existence--the existential world N. "chastises" and attempts to remedy via authenticity etc); and the Truth in being (not existentially (narratively involving the constructions of difference and time), but organically (always presently)--again too much to elaborate here and now).

He describes both, and tells us what is true and what is not true about them both. — Fire Ologist

Ok. Did not know. Methodically? Or do we read between the lines?

We should not seek the truth as if to follow a shepherd, we must make it. — Fire Ologist

Ok, I agree with the first part. But second part suggests we are constructing small t truths in our becoming, in the illusion. Fine. Functional. Necessary. This is his authentic self stuff which I respect, but qualified. It is our truth, and not The Truth, even our authentic-ized self. This is not an attack on N. Just what I think he "really" meant. But I confess I do not know what he meant. I am strictly one who does not think it necessary to abide by authorial intent, but rather, to use History to build History (in the "realm" of becoming). Then why query N's intent? I care about it, just willing to use it creatively. (There's a Daoist parable in the Zhuangzi where the Dao is compared to an old deformed Tree which was deemed useless for lumber and thus allowed to grow. Zhuangzi highlights the folly of restricting its use for lumber, noting how its longevity allowed it to provide optimal shade)

maybe we should avoid the concept, we are smarter to jettison it from discourse… — Fire Ologist

Totally, Real Truth. Avoid it in all philosophical discourse (hypocrisy acknowledged). Not just should we jettison; but, unknown to those of us stuck only in becoming, The Truth isn't even on board the discourse to jettison it from. Only constructed truths, which, because of their becoming, are fleeting and empty, vacuous as you suggest. Even The Truth I am querying about is already only truth.

still, in order to say all that or to tear down any dogma, as I said, Nietzsche had to be as dogmatic about these things as anyone else. — Fire Ologist

Like all philosophers, I suspect, ineluctably trapped between I've said too much/I haven't said enough. Like, you I imagine, after you read my follow ups, knowing you could have addressed these in one swoop, maybe even figure you have, but the questions, in a dimension empty of being, can never settle. So we believe until the new one comes along. Dogma thinks it can circumvent belief by dictating. But even Dogma is in constant motion, only vacuous becoming and only temporarily settled upon. That's how I read N (in my repeatedly confessed modest reading. That is, I am ready to accept that my reading is "heretical" to those who have read N.)

If there is one thing I know, it is that I know nothing — Fire Ologist

My read? Finally one came along and resurrected that first and only philosophical Truth after Plato buried it in the cave. (PS I love Plato. Just saying).

think Heidegger put things in a more classically logical, more metaphysical way, and all of this might be dismissible as facade to Nietzsche. — Fire Ologist

Ok, yes. From Nietzsche's lens, H was working with the vacuous constructing brilliant, but nonetheless, vacuous things. I fully acknowledge you said "might" and also that you have never purported to pinpoint N. but have been gracious enough to share your findings, and within a Ltd space/time.

I wonder what you think of where I see the the truth of it all, how illusion is only illusion in the eyes of something who knows truth, or simultaneously, truth is only truth in the eyes of something seeing illusion; how the presence of either one, brings the presence of both together. — Fire Ologist

In fairness to you, I didn't give you much of a chance to express your own views. You were being courteous in addressing my queries on N., for which I am compelled to repeat my gratitude. It has been enriching. But given what I could read between the lines, and the quotation directly above, I would be interested. I do not think we are crossing the boundaries of "Is knowledge belief."

On the face of it. I think the dichotomy is only relevant In illusion . I think opposites, paradoxes, contradiction, difference, are also constructed fictions existing, bearing meaning, and qualifying as truths, only in becoming. In Reality, Being, there is not only no dichotomy, there is no inquiry, no focus, no concern whatsoever about Truth/No Truth. There is no logos. There is only presence being [that Truth...added here only for our benefit]

Your hypothesis is intriguing, and exceptionally presented.



It seems like the entire "process" described, every level and aspect is the Organic functionings of the Organic brain? All, therefore, autonomously? Is there ever a point in the process--in deliberation, at the end, at decision, intention, or otherwise--where anything resembling a "being" other than the Organic, steps in?

Secondly, is the concept of self a mental model? You differentiate the self from the body, identify it as the Dominant whole of which the body is a part, was that just for the sake of the text, or how do you think of the self, if not just a mental model?

my body is part of my self, — Malcolm Lett

Ugh. Never mind — Metaphyzik

No, that was informative. Thank you. And I get your frustration. Feels impossible sometimes to address such multilayered complexities in a narrow time and space.

You did a nice job, at the very least, illustrating how it is much more multilayered and com0lex than my prompt implied.

It shows that it is not logically complete. — Metaphyzik

And therein lies the "resolution" to your unresolvable paradox, right?

You are judging how it stands up to logic.
If nothing is absolute, neither is logic.

Hence the illusion of a problem that does not arise in a/the Reality where everything isn't relative.

Philosophers (broadly speaking) who read N seem to read into his work philosophy even he didn't necessarily understand or think of while writing — AmadeusD

Interesting. I had that hunch but didn't know it was commonly regarded.

I could have chosen not drink anything at all, or could have drank a cola, but I chose to drink water because I wanted to. — Corvus

How did you settle finally upon the so called decision to drink water? You say you wanted to.

Did your body receive organic triggers driving you to feel what we call thirsty, in turn sending triggers to your mind, which has been conditioned over time so precisely, that the particular organic feeling, triggered in Mind, the exact chain of Signifiers which habitually code the final Signifier, I want water?

Or was there an environmental trigger first, you saw an image of water on the screen, triggering in Mind, the exact sequence of Signifiers which habitually code the final Signifier, I want water?

Or to prove this suggestion wrong, are you now going to get up and spontaneously drink a glass of water? To prove this wrong.

No, you couldn't have. It was not open to you to decide anything but what the preceding history of hte Universe determined you to decide. — AmadeusD

It’s easy to misrepresent Nietzsche, and when you try to briefly summarize what he says you are in danger of leaving so much out. — Fire Ologist

Acknowledged.

we have invented. It’s not that truth is not something. It’s not that we can avoid knowing and seeking the truth. It’s that we have over valued so many truths and then built obscene facades of dogma and institution out of these over-valuations. — Fire Ologist

You gave an excellent explanation given space/time, and the aforementioned caveat. I would assume, an "orthodox" one as well (recognizing there's no such thing, all the more so for one like Nietzsche).

Obviously, like everyone else, my explorations have a "why" of their own. So I'm not pursuing this argumentatively, but also not entirely openmindedly, but rather, with an openly confessed personal path in mind. I've learned it's fair and functional sometimes to unshroud where you're coming from.

Having said all that, there seemed to me in your explanation, a reluctance to go a certain distance as far as truth being an illusion/invention. It is as if you have found there is a lingering of truth for Nietzsche in his assessment in this regard.

Is that because for certain N. hung on to a level of truth even in how we experience, for lack of better terms, our phenomenal or existential?

Or are you reluctant to ascribe to N. a more absolute abandonment of truth in human existential/phenomenal experience because, for e.g. he's so ambiguous and that would be pinpointing him to an extreme; or, it sounds like nihilism, etc.?

I see this as with so much of what he says as an exaggeration to make a complex point — Fire Ologist

Is that for certain? Or, though he wrote with passion, was he, nonetheless, dead serious that all [human] existential truths, I.e. the way we see and interpret the world, is illusion? He wouldn't have been the first, nor the only. But perhaps he was dead serious and any subtle hints to the contrary are there because, 1) his age did not equip him yet with the Narratives to boldly make that claim (he lacked post modernism for e.g., exposed to Buddhism, but not really). 2) we read those subtleties into N to mean he clung to a more traditional metaphysics when really he didn't. ?

instead of being a truth seeker, of following the drive and will to truth, instead he was willing to live without it. — Fire Ologist

Ok, and here, I accept, without need for further query. Because, to clarify, I'm not wondering if N. rejected Truth per se. I know he didn't. He Isn't a nihilist. But I'm seeing a reluctance to say he rejected truth in all things human. And sure, there are truths in the sense of we believe, and truths in the sense of it is functional to believe, but for N. in human existence, these too are ultimately illusions. No?

yes all science is only practical convention and can be over-valued as well — Fire Ologist

Damn right. So if even science is not shielded from illusion...

He ruined all good discussions of what is “knowledge.” Damn Nietzsche. — Fire Ologist

Fair enough. But I think you agree (are there people who don't?) we don't really judge these types of theories for there impact on history. . . wait, or is that exactly what we do but don't like to admit it, so when someone says, "I disagree with N because he ruined discourse," we call them out and remind them to judge the theory on the merits, as in, does it stand to reason?

Hmm.

wisdom shines — Fire Ologist

Agreed. Unlike truth and knowledge. A hazy thing. Im not as comfortable with its ontology (?) true nature (?). It involves some of N's illusion, but also brings in organic feelings and drives in a way which bypasses emotions and sometimes logic and reason. A bit like Kant’s sublime.

I get lumping Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre (along with Camus, Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Goethe, and others. They all use such different vocabularies (absurd, dread, anxiety, nausea) — Fire Ologist

I'm interested in seeing if people who are comfortable with N. would be comfortable saying that from a Nietzschean perspective Heidegger's Dasein, throwness, ready at hand, etc. etc. etc., though brilliant and functional, is also, in the end, illusion, and has not described Truth, but has only described the illusion, because Truth is inscrutable and ineffable and, actually inaccessible by means of the illusion, .

He said many wise things. These refute his exaggerations — Fire Ologist

I'm good with respecting ideas even if the dominant thinking in my locus of history has found reason to refute it. Ideas build ideas, and so on. We don't even always know how and which ones. For sure N has influenced my thinking even though I have read admittedly little N., and, even though my locus might have removed him from the current circle of influence.

As for "exaggerations," I'm not sure I see them that way, which is the "why" of my queries here.

Thanks for the time and edifying discourse.

I

weirdly, reject S-theory and Hedonism...)
6m — AmadeusD

And, yes to the "weirdly" reject Hedonism. S-theory, I will look up.

Ok!
Yes, I agree with you.

Look, I know this won't sound sincere, an inherent dysfunction in forum etc, but this information you've provided has been very helpful to me, augmenting. Thank you.

Very nice! All of it. Thank you

But below especially, intriguing but I am not fully confident I understand: "within a theory"?

Morally, the premise that 'happiness' must be attained within a theory for it to be Plausible is a common refrain from moralists. It's one I find to be pretty question-begging. — AmadeusD

You cannot reason with someone who bases their position on a free miracle at the beginning of their reasoning. — AmadeusD

I'm pretty sure I understand your point, but because I especially like this "free miracle," isolated as the common element, what would this free miracle be for institutions other than Abrahamic religions?

Unlike other sensory modalities, our experience of color is deeply intertwined with linguistic labeling practices from the start. — Matripsa

we may just be experiencing the qualia of what is agreed upon or linguistically coded to be "red" within a particular cultural/linguistic framework. — Matripsa

I agree with this observation, and, for me, the query goes further. Although I acknowledge that my explorations on this topic are not conventional.

I wonder whether or not other examples raised in the "qualia" argument against physicalism might be subjected to the scrutiny, that,
1. our experience of most things (i.e., not just color) are "deeply intertwined with linguistic labeling practices from the start." AND,
2. [For me] the coding is significant, not just within a particular culture, but universally. AND THEREFORE, [here is where I really deviate from both convention, and even your point]
3. Almost all of our sensory "experiences," which i will call perception to differentiate from unobscured sensation, has ineluctably been mediated by such "coding." Red is Red for everyone and any variations of that experience are relatively not significant enough to argue subjects are isolated from one another.


Edit: to clarify further, I'm saying we see "red" because we have made "clor" and "red" signifiers accepted by convention etc. Who knows what these are to organic sensation free of the mediation of perception?

Is there a problem with God of Abraham religions that we might resolve with reason? — Athena

Abrahamic religions are essentially exclusive and intolerant. It's not possible to reason with those who believe they already know — Ciceronianus

I am not disagreeing. However, doesn't this apply, even if to varying degrees to: Communists, Capitalists, Racial Supremacists, Certain groups of Academics and Scholars, etc. Note also that while historically, the same might not have applied to "Hinduism," but the Hinduism of Modi?

How do you not love Nietzsche. Great starting point for these questions. — Fire Ologist

Brilliant.

there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. — Fire Ologist

May I ask what you think:

1. How do you suppose Nietzsche "defines" knowing (besides the quote provided)? That is what (ontology(?) if I am using the word properly) does he "ascribe" to human knowledge? It is clearly not a thing inherent in the universe which our superior brains can uncover? Is it, to N, a fiction, an illusion?

2. How would N. characterize the conclusions about Being (as ontology(?)) made by Heidegger and Sartre, for e.g.? As "arrogant and mendacious"? Or meaningfully nonetheless, and if meaningful, then how?

Thank you for your response. Fair enough, very convincing within the context in which you framed it (properly).

they haven't yet achieved intersubjective agreement as other things have — Astrophel

I was reading some of your other responses to posts and this came up to illustrate a prior query.

I'd say the antipathy to infanticide needn't acquire intersubjective agreement because, unlike most of what we think of as morality, and I submit, Morality proper (whatever that might turn out to be), said antipathy is already universal in that it is natural.

In all respects, I'm finding your two cents valuable.

But when the value-essence is abstracted from these complexities, we discover a dimension to ethics that cannot be undone. We expect this kind of apodicticity in logic, of course. But certainly not existentially! — Astrophel

That was, firstly, an excellent explanation. And secondly, to my surprise, persuasive in changing my thinking.

There remains an overhanging question which might seem a nuisance, but which you might also be equipped to nip right off.

True, killing the child is bad, no way around it. Brilliant. But could it be that that does not illustrate that the Ethical/Moral isn't entirely a human construction(s), nor that there is an inherent to the Universe, and absolute Ethical/Moral? But rather, the universal antipathy to killing a child is seated in our organic natures. Sure, our morality was constructed on the Foundations of the first dozen times we began re-presenting that organic drive/anti-drive against infanticide. But the universal and absolute--which, you sold me, I totally agree--antipathy is Nature in this particular case, not Ethics.

Gotta have a lot of respect for a person who insisted on going to the front lines in WWI because he wanted to know what it meant to face death. — Astrophel

Totally. Based upon that info above, and how you interpreted "whereof one cannot speak..." I'm going to read some W. Sounds like he has (without "my" knowing it) already infiltrated my Narrative and configured my thoughts.

These are poetic expressions and I don't see any relevance to what we are considering here. — Janus

Fair enough.

Also, I agreed with your differentiation between know and aware that.

If I want to know about Christianity, I want to know what Christ - the sage - had to say. — Tzeentch

If you eliminate the redacted bits,

Love your enemies
Turn the other cheek
It is not what goes into a person that defiles them, but what comes out of their speech
The sabbath was made for humans, not humans made for the sabbath
If you want to follow me, renounce even your families
Don't point to the sliver in your brothers eye ignoring the log in your own
My God why have you forgotten me

That's what I think.

And yet...

I argue that our ethics is grounded in the absolute, and is already part and parcel of divinity. As Witt himself put it (in Culture and Value), the good is divinity — Astrophel

Maybe I did misinterpret

He knew the reason one could not speak of these is because they have a dimension to their existence which has no place in the facts or state of affairs of the world, and are hence unspeakable. It is not that he wanted to draw the line so as to preserve the dignity of logic. He rather wanted to preserve the profundity of the world, not to have it trivialized by some reduction to mere fact. — Astrophel

"to preserve the profundity of the world" by "world" you don't mean..

"which has no place in the facts or state of affairs of the world" you don't mean that world do you?

You mean the "they" and the "these" in "reason one could not speak of these is because they have a dimension to their existence which has no place"

So you mean W told us not to "speak" of these things, not to preserve the dignity of logic, but to preserve the profundity of these things which are before/beyond both speaking and logic. Right?

... I agree.

Locating it pre-fab in memory' is a bit facile, though — Wayfarer

Fair enough. Me again being foolish with my choice of words. Not self deprecating; acknowledging how frustrating that must be for people who make it their vocation to trade words with artful precision.

innate abilities - which is not to say 'innate ideas' - and we also have archetypes — Wayfarer

...and what are these abilities/archetypes if not the evolution of a system of Language etc.? Innate, but whence? I submit, part of that dynamic system of images input into memory over time, and structured and restructured to best fit that individual's Narrative.

You toss these phrases out very casually, as if they're slogans, — Wayfarer

Guilty. Ditto above. I do not mean that the hypotheses I am entertaining relating to Mind is in any way definable as the original Sanskrit terms. There is an unorthodox method to my recklessness, and I acknowledge its flaws and dangers. No need to elaborate. Suffice it to say, just as Nietzsche has found its way into the hypotheses, so, strangely enough, have Vedanta, Mahayana, and Zazen specifically. Any word I text was already written differently by a mind before or around me. But I am too reckless in my expressions.

we are no longer simply biological beings — Wayfarer

Ok. Me too. But I say the beyond biological is ultimately empty, leaving the biological as Real.

to discern', means 'to know what is essence and what is not essence — Wayfarer

Hmm. Do you think then, Advaita too, assumes this discernment is an ability inherent in us? But, for advaita there is ultimately only essence (warning: I am taking liberties with "essence". For advaita there is only Brahman which is Existence Consciousness Bliss, "ecb" and thats what im relating to essence). And discerning is ultimately only discerning that. And discerning that would require turning away from the illusions of Maya (or what I am liberally referring to as the constructions of Mind) and being "awakened" to that Truth as Atman, I.e. that you are that "ecb"--you know, sat cit ananda-- and nothing but. So...that sounds a lot like the human animal unburdened by attachment to minds constructions. One can still relish in the Fiction, just know that you are not that Fiction. You are ecb.

That's Nietszche, isn't it? "Twilight of the Idols". He outlines the history of the idea of the "ideal world" and declares its final dissolution into mere fable. He posits that the notion of an ultimate, ideal, or "true" world beyond our physical reality is not only fictitious but also detrimental to our appreciation and understanding of lived reality. But I don't think it's the only way of seeing it. (Besides, I've never quite understood the idolisation of Neitszche in modern culture. It seems ironic to me.) — Wayfarer

Oh wow! Thanks. Truth is, I've read Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil more than anything. But I appreciate that reference. No doubt exactly that has contributed to the hypotheses I'm considering.

It was Descartes' philosophy that gives rise to the 'ghost in the machine' which typified the modern period. — Wayfarer

That's what I'd say.

That is why I often refer to the non-dualism characteristic of Indian and Chinese cultures. — Wayfarer

I'm with you. For me Advaita and particularly Cha'an out of the Mahayana.

That is Plato's 'idea of the Good' among other examples. We are able to discern it, but it takes certain qualities of character and intellect to be able to do that. — Wayfarer

And here, God, I want to just stop so we continue on the same page. But I have a question. Then, where do we find that Good in our process of discerning if not 1) by ultimately constructing it, or 2) locating it prefab in memory, or 3) a combination of 1 and 2, I.e. revising what has already been input prefab from history?

Is it by anamnesis? Noumena? Does matter (I.e. the universe) really have these "ideas" which we glorify as x y z imbued/embedded/enmeshed/entangled/endowed in it? How? Isn't it way simpler to think that as Language evolved, so did an autonomous system of signifiers coding experience but not of it is real. As in Maya and Samsara unreal. All that is Real is Brahman or Buddha Nature, and ironically we tap into that by being a human being, that animal which shares its nature with the rest of Nature.

I would be very interested in hearing otherwise. I respect your reasoning, know even that there is a way I can be persuaded, but until then I'm fixated on this Narrative among Narratives.

Entire history', eh? — Wayfarer

Ok, I guess I was being dismissive. Why specifically do you question that statement. Maybe you take issue with "entire" history. Clearly I should be more careful. But let's say you accept the folly of my choice of words and treat it as hyperbole, do you not think a lot of metaphysics/religion have focused upon "Spirit" at the expense of the Body?

Ha! Whatever

beliefs are justified if they're true and unjustified if they're false. — flannel jesus

Sorry, I know you are paraphrasing another post

I think beliefs are justified if they are--after a complex but often lightning speed process of dialectic--most fitting for survival. I.e., including but not limited to, does the belief allow for a functional outcome? But also, does it correspond with a fantasy already believed? And, do logic and reason justify the surfacing of the belief into the world or Narrative, and so on. But ultimately beliefs, like all knowable truths, are settled upon when it is most functional to so settle.

Morality is always an act of either interpreting or creating what we believe to be right. — Tom Storm

:up:

And that difference is not only biological, it is also existential. — Wayfarer

I submit it is not biological, but only exisistential. Does that change anything?

viewing existence purely through the lens of Darwinian theory is inevitably reductionist, which is one of the unfortunate characteristics of today's culture. — Wayfarer

I presume you have read my various related posts to be claiming that all we really are is a set of feelings and drives. Hence, biological reductionism.

You would be correct, except that, you have either missed, or--and this I admit, is more likely--I have failed to communicate a seemingly subtle, but actually significant variation. I'll do my best (note Real=ultimate truth or reality, universal shared irrespective of species, and not just, as i submit, that reality constructed by that anamolous species, us--I know you are already straining, indulge me):

1. Yes, the Real human organism is the Body with its drives and feelings, plus whatever is our organic aware-ing of that. The reason, "whatever is," is because that's the very "problem" we face as humans. That Real and organic consciousness is displaced so we cannot access it via the mediator/displacer.
2. Call that reductionism if that's what it is. I'm not sure labeling ideas is always helpful but I respect that it can be. But note,
a) I am not suggesting a lump of flesh in any derogatory way, not even dumb flesh. For all we know, that organic aware-ing is, especially for us super sophisticated humans, an ecstatic state of bliss, etc.
b) accept that (only maybe, until recently) the entire history of metaphysics and religion has been our desperate effort to do the opposite: to suppress the flesh and silence Real organic being, for the sake of glorifying the very thing displacing it.
3. My personal query (of course I do not know) is, what am I really? Not the I who is asking, nor the I that I want it to be. I am that Organic body (Descartes confusion was remaining with the I that wants). That is the consciousness I share with the rest of Nature. So what is all this other stuff? This stuff unique to the I who (thinks) hopes it is (real) Real. It is not some Reality occupying the Spiritual realm. Why would it be? Does that not reek of wishful thinking? Ockhams razor. How are our dualistic explanations not overly complex fantasy?
4. Yet there truly seems to be a dualism. What is Mind? Yes, there seems to be one, because there is. Mind is something other than the organism, unique to humans. It exists, but only in the billions of images stored in our memories. And here's where I've already occupied more than my fair share and must end. But though those images exist, they are empty representations. Reality for us, like all beings, is in our magnificent and cherish able nature: matter. Not the Fiction we write. Final note: lest I further confuse into "nihilism". Yes human existence beyond its Organic Truth, is constructed. But so what? It, like the beehive and beaver dam, serves many great (and harmful) functions. Let it be.

As a lame courtesy to this overall post, this ties in because I am suggesting that a "sick" spirit is just maladjusted Narrative which can be corrected narratively. No need to fret. Find your True Spirit by breathing presently. By the self inhabiting Being, and not becoming. Not new age. Philosophy.

But these entanglements conceal the nature of ethics itself for the question is not raised here if there is anything indefeasible about these affairs. — Astrophel

But the Real the underpins ethical entanglements and makes ethics what it IS, is value, and by value I mean the good and the bad that generates obligation outside of, logically prior to, the language constructs we use. — Astrophel

Asking you authentically, not to set up some argument (sorry, I have learned that some think queries are concealed gotchas):

1. Are you saying there is an ontological "Real" for Morals/Ethics, and that that "Real" is good vs bad? That these are what is indefeasible, or, absolute?

2. Why aren't "good" and "bad" also just "features of a society's entanglements"? Granted, I see that good and bad speak to the pith and substance of ethics. But why isn't Ethics itself, right down to its pith and substance, a functional construct?

Addendum: simplified illustration. In prehistory/prelanguage/preconstruction, X 's mate is killed by Y, X feels the negative feelings which arise from the lost bond. Y might feel the satisfaction of protecting her offspring. Y feels the positive feelings of that. Where is the prehistoric, ontological value? Where does it fall? I say, post history, good and bad were constructed to displace those natural feelings. Only they are ontologically real and prehistoric, because they are organic.

The Brothers Karamazov a character asks: “But what will become of men then?” I asked him, “without God and immortal life? All things are permitted then, they can do what they like?” — Tom Storm

I am a little bewildered at how often I've heard versions of this in response to submissions that God either doesn't exist, or if It does, is beyond good and bad, right and wrong, (and all other dualisms arising only to a species like us who have constructed difference.)

Why do we need God to cooperate (which is ultimately the drive behind morality)? Do people not see that ultimately matters such as these fall only to their "functionality"?

If we, not God, permit murder, people will die. If we steal, there would be chaos. Etc etc etc.

I choose to confess because I feel it is more personal. It is like a redemption with myself — javi2541997

Sure! And why not? If it works, it works. I just say, that "it works," is the workings of Mind.

But, ultimately, who am I?

not until you showed up — Astrophel

While it's likely there was deliberately no logic. If there was, I'd wager this:

While sequestered he was not alone, but with his Body, and thus one with everything.

The reporter reminded him of his Subject (because Subject requires Other) and thus the seeming utter isolation/alienation.

But ultimately, we are utterly not alone; neither in Body where we are one with Nature/Reality, nor in Mind where we are one with History/Maya.

not until you showed up. — Astrophel

:up: :up: :up:

Paraphrased to illustrate:

Jesus: nothing beats belief. Belief will move mountains. If you have belief the size of a mustard seed you will say to that mountain move, and it will move.

Hui neng: came across two of his disciples debating over whether the wind was moving the flag or the flag was moving. "It is neither wind nor flag," said the 6th patriarch of Cha'an. "It is your mind moving."

if there is no access to "reality," then presumably there is no reason to set up a knowledge/belief, reality/appearance distinction in the first place. But claims that beliefs are "merely appearance," presuppose such a distinction. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But there is a reason. That is how IT functions, this anomalous human existence. We built sky scrapers and rockets out of belief.

But in reality, in the Timeless Reality before/beyond/outside of our constructions, we have only constructed belief to stand in for Truth (knowledge), having no access therefrom to Real Truth

It would better be put “there is only belief.” Or “there is no knowledge.” — Fire Ologist

Totally. There is only belief, ultimately. Knowledge is the sneaky tool we've evolved to hide that fact. Or...so I believe.

I think there is a valid distinction between knowledge and belief, — Janus

Does not all knowledge require a final movement to ordain it? And isn't that step belief? I would define knowledge as that "information," input into Mind(s) which, following a dialectical process, ends at a settlement which is believed by said Mind(s).

Now we must be careful not to miss a step. One might say, I know some say the earth is flat but I don't believe it. My knowledge did not require belief. But actually you must believe that some say the earth is flat. If you don't, your statement is that you don't have knowledge that some say the earth is flat. Rumors? I [believe] there are rumblings about the earth being flat. And I don't believe them. But I do believe there are mumblings. Or, I hear there are rumors and I don't believe them.

All knowledge requires belief.

if the idea is simply to live a less stressful life, then fine. But this is not what Gautama Siddhartha had in mind so long ago. — Astrophel

Totally agree. This is not what Buddha had in mind; i.e. the relief from stress. But he did have in mind that the root of all stress, suffering, is the attachment to this profane, including the Ethical (the universal) etc. But while one might argue that Buddha was calling for the annihilation of this "self" who is so attached, I believe he was calling more for its "recognition," as its annihilation is likely impossible.