To be very concise, morality cannot be coerced, and this is what the woke movement seems to most misunderstand. — Leontiskos

These coercive and tyrannical tactics have largely backfired. The common people have rebuffed the woke attempt to forcibly shrink the Overton window and impose a highly idiosyncratic morality on the entire population. — Leontiskos

Yes. Although I think @AmadeusD was right to say we are somewhere in the middle of this struggle. Despite the current rebuke of wokeness, all kinds of tyranny still loom (either from the right, or from the boomerang when the right loses power again).

Meaning, the current rebuke against wokeness shows fairly well what NOT to do (I think), but the anti-woke crowds’ arguments in favor of what TO DO were the reason wokeness arose in the first place - so we are destined to continue further struggle.

If we are seeing the end of wokeness, without something truly new to replace it, we are likely (at least to many) simply back to a place that gave rise to wokeness. Where is the Hegelian synthesis?

We don’t know how to train ourselves to respect (and love) diversity while simultaneously building common ideals that call us all to change.

Wokeness told us that (except for white men) we are all good enough, and all should accept me and my truth. This led to a tyranny - a tyranny of the majority, a headless group-think bubble. But with this rebuked, the bubble burst, must we all think we are all the original sinners, almost hopeless without some leader to carry us to the promised land? Is a rebuke of the relativistic commune of DEI, an automatic promotion of the fascistic absolutism that begs for a king? Are those opposed to DEI really saying they need a Trump-type Hitler-type, Putin-type, Khomeni-type ideal maker, agenda setter, aspiration definer?

I think in a way, the right is more willing to follow a strong leader, but the more rational of these folks realize there is a smaller pool of such leaders to choose from. Nevertheless, wokeness will never cure anything.

Humility needs to be the overlap. That means white supremacists need to be taught to love black people, and lesbian Jews need to love white male patriarchs. Sorry folks. I must humbly accept and include and tolerate those who are just different than me, despite apparent failings and weaknesses, because ultimately, who am I with my own weaknesses to judge anyone else’s failures before my own?; and I must humbly accept that I can do better and must change myself first if I am to build and emulate a truly good ideal for me and for the community. I must seek help forming my ideal. So must we all.

And forgiveness before correction. Seeking mercy before justice.

So in humility, we all respect the others despite their shortcomings while accepting we ourselves are not good enough either, so we can help each other reach some new ideal together. And in humility, we find there is much to love about the differences as well, which we are slowly coming to learn in America (despite what the politicians build power saying, and what the media makes money selling.)

DEI helped some avoid the reality, which is, we all need to promote respect, and humility, and all need to resist identity politics and ideology over actual humanity. And ultimately we need to learn how to love. Respect, humility and love. Imagine trying to have a Chief People Officer teach those. Need a RHL initiative, that has nothing to do with business or the work place, but has to do with opening our mouths to talk to anyone ever.

We need humble leadership.

the body, as part of God’s creation, is redeemed alongside the soul, and that salvation pertains to the entire person, not merely their spirit. He criticized Gnostics who despised matter and the body.

However, as previously noted, by the third century, Origen and others began incorporating Platonic dualism, — Astorre

Interesting theological/philosophical topic.

Mind/body distinction does seem a naively practical way of talking about what a human being is. We need this basic concept to do anything physical that is hard, or seemingly impossible. And it helps us deal with death of a loved one. And it helps explain permanence (idealistic spirit and mind located law) versus change (body), both of which we seem to experience S phenomena.

I’m a Catholic. So theologically, the distinction between mind and body highlights where the important aspect of the human being exists - the mind, the soul, the heart - these are where love exist. But the heart itself overlaps with the passions and emotions, and these are of the body and of “strength”. These passions and strengths are physical, and human, and good as well.

In the end, I would argue that, Christ, in the resurrection, was affirming the goodness of body and a role for the body in human eternity. God has prepared a place for all of us, but this need not merely be metaphor. It is not Christian to despise the body; it is Christian to seize control of it, to master it, to tell the mountain to be thrown into the sea by faith. Death and suffering show how impossible this is without grace, but heaven and grace are not merely for the soul - they are for the whole person which is always individuated in some bodily form.

So the mind/body distinction is a helpful one for the understanding and for discussion, but it does not mean there are human souls that exist without bodies, or that the distinction between mind and body is so distinct that one can rationally deduce that a soul can live without a body. (Eternal life will be a miracle, a gift, not a function.)

To the extent angels or God have no body whatsoever, I don’t think we can conceive of this, and I am not sure God who is Holy Spirit equates to God has no body (it may just be that God’s body is not like our bodies - God’s body may be a word, the Word with him and is him himself - whatever that philosophically means).

I think it has been error to shrug off the body as if it is not necessary. It may be subject to death, and it may be a hindrance to true freedom and knowledge, but that does not mean eternal life and knowledge of truth can only happen without a body. I think when Paul and other saints were so ready for death they embraced it and even seemed to long for it, they were not judging the body as bad, but merely expressing their own limitation in receiving the grace they needed to be even closer to God. If instead of dying, God came to them and perfected their form, they would t have been disappointed. Instead of asking for that, they humbly accepted what God seemed to have planned for all of us and that is an initiation into eternity through birth, life and death on this earth.

What if there is no separate, disembodied soul existing apart from the person? What if the human body is not a cage, not a mortal and base vessel, but a valuable creation destined for glorification? What if humanity is valuable as such, in its inseparable wholeness of spirit, soul, and body, and its resurrection after death is the sole truth about the afterlife, offering hope for a complete existence in a transformed state? — Astorre

I wonder the same things…

I also think no distinction between mind/body jibes better with eastern philosophies. Even reincarnation seems at first to draw a sharp distinction, but it could all be reduced to “carnation” as much as “transmigration of the soul”. There is no life before carnation that is reincarnated. And the end of this process is as much purely spiritual as it could be purely physical - one with the One.

the most intuitive problem is that, generally, the 'woke' claim that morality is rational, but relative. If so, they have absolutely no place to make moral commands of others, even in their own culture. That is to say: one ought not throw stones once one denounces stone-throwing. — AmadeusD

I agree. The relativity that would support valuing diversity, undermines the absolutivity necessary to support equity. To be diverse, inequality must be valued; to be equal, uniformity (not diversity) must be valued.

Wokeness and political correctness have always been full of contradiction.

There are nuances and perspectival particulars that allow one to value both diversity and equity, but to make those arguments you have to defeat relativity. And you can’t value diversity and equality equally. “All things being equal” is an ideal, and a political criteria, not a physical condition. We have to fight all physics to uphold “equal due process” for instance. Diversity is a physical condition, that requires much more humility and respect to value - we can’t force the opinion that all diverse cultures are good and equal.

At root, it is the misunderstanding and misapplication of “equity” that seems to be the problem to me.

It is easy to to understand we should value diversity and inclusion of the diverse. It is hard to do this while recognizing there is an essential human nature that all humans equally must have (essence/ideal), and that equity is only something that comes to bear in relation to the government. All get one vote; all are equally subject to the law and constitution; “all” is adult irrespective of race - these are where equality as an ideal is fought for. There is no equal opportunity or equal productivity or equal pay - these are specific particular, diverse conditions that will never be equalized, and it is to the detriment of all of us to pretend otherwise.

we're still in the middle of all this — AmadeusD

Started around the year 1776 in America.
“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Life - equity - most natural of natural rights, same thing for all living people, most ideal, most absolute;
Liberty - diversity - the particular individual is now the ideal;
Pursuit of happiness - inclusion - all free living people are playing the same game and must play together;

That is all a stretch but yes, we are in the middle of some swell and wave called “what is woke” on the larger ocean of history.

If we didn't live in a causal world, there'd be nothing to experience, sense, or even think. It's so fundamentally important and yet so difficult to even define.

Mind blowing. — flannel jesus

Mind itself is just as difficult to define. And here we wondering about mind to mind causation.

How can we not say more after 3,000 years of trying?

Everything blowing…

I am kinda of the mind that they both suffer with the same underlying problem of how causation is framed. — I like sushi

That’s what I was saying.

So your OP caused the same mental ambiguity in me and J. Or is “cause” the wrong word?

wokeness is not purely ideological-it is affective. It is about the desire to feel seen, safe, included, or conversely, excluded. — Number2018

The ideological / affective distinction is really good to note.

Wokism turns legitimate individual rights concerns of safety, recognition and unjust exclusion, into transitory identity-based ideological fabrications less concerned with individuals than they are with groups and generalizations, and emotional effects.

wokeness is a transitory phenomenon? That given its affective character it will never be more than a bridge between more stable and rational cultural epochs? — Leontiskos

I agree with that. The legitimate concerns underlying the urges of woke political correctness will need to be addressed if any real cultural progress is to become of these urges, but the manner by which the proponents of wokeness have been trying to cause progress has allowed their passions and emotions to over-power rational assessments and discussions. Certain groups are not allowed to challenge other groups about anything, and certain other groups are not allowed to be challenged by anyone when it comes to their own group - this is rationally untenable and will not hold up in time (without a dictator and force, which never seem to hold up in time either).

The internet allows groups to build a solid bubble world that effectively shuns outsiders and creates a flourishing online community of like-minded people. But it’s more like-feeling people and less minded.

We all give group identity too much influence in our arguments and our thinking. Any one single individual has more reality and force to them than any notion of the group we might temporarily assign that individual too for sake of some argument. Individual people are always more than examples of some generalization. People who argue for and against rights for some newly defined group never seem to mind overlooking the particulars of individual human beings that would resist whatever identity political arguments so crassly limit people to.

There are no two conservatives or liberals or gay men or immigrants or Chinese people, alike. We all know this. We give up sound reasoning when we ignore this fact. We need to resist the urge to think individual people fit neatly into the boxes we create for them to make our arguments. Wokism seems to focus more on the boxes, the identities of groups, than it does the individual people in those boxes.

very detailed break down of the number of each gender (as chosen), race, ethnicity, sexual preference, and the percentage equity each had in the company. — Hanover

And it is self-defeating on at least two levels. First, it is incoherent to say that all people are equal (equity inclusion) and then say we need less of this race and more of that gender (diversity) - if all are equal, then it will not matter what race or gender or sexual preference sits and does not sit on the board and owns the company. Period. Second, the company that seeks DEI compliance will inevitably be faced with the decision - do I do what I see is best for the company and hire this particular best candidate, or do I do what is best for DEI goals and not hire the person I think is most competent? Ideal candidates can come from any DEI category, but on your particular list of candidates, the ideal may only be one of them and those DEI categories must be damned if thinking of what is best for the company. The appearance of diversity is shallow and will always be - and those people who look for the appearances first, having a shallow sense of what a good appearance looks like, will be led into bad business decisions over and over.

The anti-DEI pushback has been refreshing and feels like proper comeuppance honestly — Hanover

Prejudice and racism have always been wrong, wasteful of time, and bad for business. Political correction needed to happen to open markets up, but DEI, the new prejudice and racism, has always been doomed by its own incoherence and internal contradiction.

Through the medium of words (physical objects), is this post of yours “causally” linked to your mental state?

And for me, does my mental state cause me to frame my post with certain words, or cause certain words (physical characters) to be printed here?

So there is the question of whether the mental “causes” the physical at all.

But now your question would seem to be more specific: did you, through the physical medium of words, cause my mental state?

I think you can take my words as evidence of my mental state (I’m telling you what I am thinking). And then if you find that my words (evidence of my mental state) are rationally responsive to your post (my evidence of your mental state), then this rational relationship might be called causally related.

In other words (as more evidence of what I am thinking), from your mind, through your words, you communicated your mind to my mind, and now if you see a rational relationship to your mind in MY words, and you see my words as related to a mental state in me, you could see this rational relationship as causal.

You express your mind and I respond to your mind through my own expression and where we are connecting, we have mental to mental causality.

There is the whole “free speech” political debate. Can someone be held accountable for inciting others to riot? The law says yes, which seems to require that words can cause mental states in others (intentional rioting), so as long as the words were caused by the speaker’s mental state in the first place, we have mental to mental causality enforced by courts.

Perhaps causation should be more narrowly and technically construed to describe physical to physical contact. So is those post I Like Sushi’s words banging up against “Fire Ologists” words, or is it two minds banging up against each other through words? Words hitting words seems to have no meaning but metaphor - is mind hitting mind also metaphor? Maybe causation needs to be taken literally. I think if we did we would have to reeducate everyone because naively, people say other people make them think certain things.

How about lying. There is no physics to support me telling you about the spaceship that landed I my backyard yesterday, so if your mental state is believing a spaceship landed, your mental state could only be caused by my lie. Seems like mental to mental causation is a straightforward way to describe a lie.

I don’t have a unique opinion.

We need to be practical. Realistic.

There are guns.

Why would anyone want only one group to have them?

The only gun control that makes sense is to destroy every gun on the earth and never make them again.

I’d talk about that. I’d say that would be great. Also, that is impractical and will never happen.

So we’re back to, there are guns.

‘Cease from evil, learn to do good, and purify the mind.’ — Wayfarer

Cease from - means something was already going on that needs to cease.

Learn. To do. Good. - a life’s work.

Purify the mind.

Love it.

It does present Christians with an allusion to an inconsistent canon, but that inconsistency is not the thrust of the OP. — Leontiskos

So are you saying @Bob Ross basically has no skin in the OT/Biblical revelation game?

Bob has a conception of God.
This conception of God happens to be consistent with maybe the best parts of the NT. (Probably not all of the NT since the NT often upholds and seeks to support the OT.)

But separate and apart from that, in this OP, Bob is asking Christians and theologians, how they can reconcile a NT type conception of God with an OT type conception of God? How is a good God capable of doing what God is said to do in the OT?

The answer need make no reference to any actual scripture - it is a philosophical/theological question about goodness, Gods, and child killing.

(See, all along I thought Bob was a Christian - no wonder my posts meant so little and were off target.)

But @Bob Ross is that the gist?

The Catholic Church teaches that God Almighty came down from heaven to save us...
How does a person make sense of this? — frank

The Christian narrative is a response to a particular human narrative.

Christ is supposed to be God becoming a human being, and supposedly for the sake of human beings, who are all dying by our own hands.

So if we are to interpret the reasonableness of Christ’s response to the human condition (crosses and sacrifices for redemption, and death for eternal life, etc), don’t we need to form some understanding on the narrative describing the human condition, and whether that narrative is reasonable first?

In plain language, do you assume people, much like other animals, are just making their way the best they can in the universe, naturally doing whatever people have evolved to do? Or do you assume people, unlike the other animals, have some ability to work against their own survival interests, capable of “sinning” against each other selfishly to the detriment of themselves individually and to the detriment of the species, doing what is unnatural?

What is your starting point as a person, assumed or at least hypothesized, before you ask what is the deal with Christ and the “bizarre” Christian narrative?

Seems to me Christ will never make sense if you think human beings already make evolutionary sense, on some gradient scale with the other animals, all of them also already making sense.

OR, if you think human beings do not make sense, that we do absurd things to ourselves and our brothers, you might say the Christian narrative, although nonsense metaphysically, serves as a sort of psychological distraction; so although it may be internally incoherent, it is just the opiate the doctor ordered for the absurd patient that is mankind. So this doesn’t answer your question about the absurdity of the narrative, but explains why it has worked for 2000 years - man is nuts and only a nutty God story will suffice to build room in his mind for “hope” we could be better.

But this avoids your central question - how does a rational Christian make sense of the Christian narrative? Some of us are no longer affected by opiates.

My response there is, the best way to start to do so, might be to first make sense of a human narrative - understand who God is dealing with - and only then can we reason our way through a narrative of how Christ is said to have engaged with such a being as a person.

So, in the words of Pete Townsend, who are you?

If you are another innocent creature, Christ will never make sense.

looking at an artwork "properly" means looking at an artwork as it was intended by the artist — RussellA

I think that is right in the sense that, in order to see what the artist is showing, it often helps to know what the artist intended to show.

But I would add that there are works of art that declare much in themselves, demanding the viewer react - music can do this. Dance can do this. A poem can do this. But any type of art can require more instruction to orient the viewer and deepen the experience with the artwork.

even setting aside "wrath," to say the primary goal is: "to save us from himself," makes it seem like the problem of sin is entirely extrinsic. That is, it suggests that the entire problem with sin is that it has made God mad, not that it is inherently bad and bad for man. This would imply that if God simply chose not to "have a cow" over sin, there would be no issue at all. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Agree. If someone understand sin only from the outside, as an infraction about which some external judge imposes a sentence, they will not understand our blameworthiness for the crucifixion, and they will not recognize God’s mercy despite this blameworthiness, nor forgiveness despite blameworthiness, and ultimately love, redemption and eternal life. Viewing the Bible’s God from the outside, they see wrath in the one who accuses and judges the sinful - sin only leads to hateful judgement, wrath, and punishment and death. They don’t see death as a natural consequence, self-inflicted though warned against, but at best they would see death as a punishment extrinsically imposed. Undeserved if not overly dramatic. And they cannot see the sacrifice of a truly innocent one as a triumph over all weakness and vanity. The crucifixion seems vain itself.

Because they instead see innocence as our true baseline condition and one that need never change or is in any need of redemption, (as if we are all just children - boys will be boys and if God created boys then what did he expect), then why would God blame us for anything we boys do? Now some sort of extrinsic theatre like the crucifixion has no impact on such a basically blameless creature, leaving only the impression of its absurdity and bizarreness without logic. They do not see that we are all the crucifiers, and responsible for sin and therefore all of its effects, and do not see that, without God’s help, the consequences are fixed and permanent. It simply cannot make sense to make sinners out of innocent children as if “sinners” is just a label and not a condition.

I don’t blame people for not getting it - but I do blame them for making fools of their brothers who try to answer their insulting “questions”.

True.

I was imagining being in the whole room with the blue wall. The blue wall is not just a blue wall (or maybe not even a wall) - it is in a corner, highlighted, because the other wall is not blue. It could have been displayed otherwise, but was not.

I am sure a case could be made that I am not looking at things properly. And a case could be made that there is no such thing as looking at these things properly. And a case could be made that I was looking at things properly, (no matter what I said I saw, or because of what I said I saw, namely, a sculpture with a blue wall).

Is that maybe a sculpture about a painting? Since it incorporates the room space to complete its portrayal?

I haven’t responded in a while because I’m trying to shorten this. It seems impossible to make this simple and make it satisfactory.

1. I think it is contradictory to think of God as all good, Jesus as God the Son, and that the God of the Israelites in the OT was not one and the same all good God whom Jesus loved as his Father, and taught us to love as our Father. Jesus spoke of his Father, and Jesus spoke of fulfilling the promises made to Abraham fortold by all of the prophets and worshiped by David and the judges.

God is certainly all good, so the task is to answer how are the things God told Saul to do something an all good God would tell us to do? The task is not to weed out all of the lies and misrepresentations in the Bible. That would contradict what Jesus did, what Jesus died for.

We can reject all of Bible, but we can’t logically accept only the NT and say we are literally doing what God, in the New or the Old testaments. tells us to do.

So I think your whole approach, thinking the depictions in the OT are not God, is doomed to fail and will blind you to any real answer.

You need to trust there is an answer.

2. Who is innocent, of what are they innocent? My interpretation of the law against killing is that it is a sin to commit unlawful, unjustified killing of another person. It is NOT that we can never kill innocent people, but we can kill evil people.

So you need to stop looking for innocent people and guilty people to find who it is justified to kill and who isn’t justifiable to kill.

The law against killing is a law I am to follow regardless of the guilt or innocence of the other person. The question when I am faced with the choice of whether to kill another person is not “do they deserve it?” The question is “am I justified before God in killing that person.” Am I justified before my fellow man and the dead person when I kill them?

So if a person just killed your son on your front lawn and was now breaking down your front door while screaming “I’m going to kill you all!” And you take your shotgun and kill them, can you justify the killing of this person? Sounds like self defense. But what if you and your son just murdered 20 people. Was it still unjust for someone to kill your son and break down your door to kill you? Or let’s say you and your son did nothing wrong, so you killed the maniac in self-defense. Should the maniac take any responsibility for his own death?

And if you are a bomber during war and your bombs kill the enemy’s bomb factory, and bridges and military installations, and some families and children, and hospitals, and some gun factories and tank factories, and some elderly and sick people - will you be justified before God and the enemy?

The answer to your question is not about the innocence of the children - it is always and only about whether God will find your actions justifiable. Or is always about who looks to God to justify their actions and who does not.

According to you, Bob, you know the guilt or innocence of others without God, by your own reason. You know children are innocent, you know killing the innocent is always only wrong, and you know the OT story describes God as killing innocent souls. And from all of these you conclude that either God does evil, or the OT is lying when it talks about God, so therefore the NT is lying when it talks about the OT.

That makes a mess of logic and of faith.

But I would say we should never judge the guilt or innocence of other souls (just our own - we can judge other’s actions, make laws, put people in jail, etc, but not condemn them to hell for sin), killing other people can be justified regardless of innocence or guilt, God never once ordered the death of an innocent soul, God does not do evil and Jesus taught us to love the God of the OT.

Basically, killing kids is terrible nasty business, but not per se evil. If you know God’s will but do not follow it (by omission) or resist it (by commission), that is per se evil. I feel it is easier to find all people deserve to be slaughtered for their sins then it is to see some people are innocent. It’s not that babies are innocent, it’s that they are lovable and can be saved. But do you know what God did with the souls of the Amalekite children? If you believe Jesus was God, what do you think Jesus did for the Amalekite children?

One of the lessons of Saul story is that, if we would just listen to God, we can let God work out what is just and good and evil because by always listening to God, we are always good and justified. We have the ability to judge good and evil for sake of judging our selves and so that we can face God honestly and knowingly like men - not for the sake of judging others, and certainly not for judging God.

Maybe all the silent theists and believers, patiently being silent should now come forward and make their presence felt. Otherwise the casual observer might conclude that philosophy has won the debate that the issue of God and divinity in the world we find ourselves in has been put to bed. When in reality, they’ve just been told to be quiet. — Punshhh

It’s hard to have a discussion with a rock.

Especially when the rock carries a slogan on it like:
“Argument is irrelevant”
“Belief is irrational”

Further, the non-theists don’t mind being the ones to characterize what theism is, and then waiting for the theists to answer their questions about their characterization.

Frank and others already seem to understand all there is to understand about Catholicism, and therefore, their conclusion of bizarre absurdity is not really the issue. The issue is how could someone who claims to be rational actually follow such bizarre absurdity.

That is a recipe for a non-conversation. A sparring match here in the coliseum.

is my question: is it more that a bizarre narrative — frank

the lack of logic in the core Christian doctrine — frank

attempts to express that truth result in a convoluted story. — frank

How does a story that makes no sense survive that long? — frank

at best, the story is horrifying, at worst, it just makes zero sense.

What myth is even close to that bizarre? — frank

original sin (which was basically a matter of eating fruit — frank

the core message of Jesus, — frank

The message of Jesus.

Let’s say you don’t speak or write Chinese but you have a question about something written in Chinese. Do you think you will get anywhere stepping into room of non-Chinese speakers and asking them their opinions? Or then going into a room with some Chinese and English speakers and saying “having no alphabet makes no sense and using characters can’t be a precise way of communicating - the Chinese language is bizarre and can’t be logical - but tell me, how do you speak Chinese anyway?”

That’s what you are doing here. Are you looking for any actual information or just a sense of confirmation for your bias?

The physical sciences can describe organisms like ourselves as parts of the objective spatio-temporal order – our structure and behavior in space and time – but they cannot describe the subjective experiences of such organisms or how the world appears to their different particular points of view. — Thomas Nagel

how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all. — Thomas Nagel

since the mental arises through the development of animal organisms, the nature of those organisms cannot be fully understood — Thomas Nagel

So there is something intangible, or non-physical, about the contents of conscious experience, and it is within this intangible something, that purpose exists. Does that jibe?

The exclusion of purpose was never, and in fact could never be, empirically demonstrated; it was simply excluded as a factor in the kind of explanations physics was intended to provide. Meaning was left behind for the sake of predictive accuracy and control in specific conditions. — Wayfarer

I don’t quite follow how meaning was left behind for the sake of predictive accuracy. Are you saying, scientists saw no need to wonder what the bat (for instance) is subjectively experiencing when they could make predictive models about bat behaviors that need not include any such considerations?

the assertion that because physics finds no purpose, the universe therefore has none. This is not science speaking, but metaphysics ventriloquizing through the authority of science. It is a philosophical sleight of hand that confuses methodological silence for ontological negation. — Wayfarer

Although I like the metaphor bolded above, to be sure I follow, could it be restated as: the finding of no purpose in the universe is not something a physical scientist can say, but only something a metaphysician can say, despite the fact that many physicists play metaphysician and say it as if it is physics. Is that the dryer meaning of the bolded?

The question of whether life, the universe, and everything is in any sense meaningful or purposeful is one that entertains many minds in our day. — Wayfarer

It will as long as there are new minds that come to be. Give a mind long enough time (in the modern academy) and maybe purpose can be weeded out of the conversation (straining incredulity). But there is no therapy for questions of meaning, for the mind’s ability to consider itself. There are only answers, or opiates/lies/distractions - like a ventriloquist distracts.

How does a person who hasn't had a lobotomy make sense of this? — frank

How does a person who expects a respectful exchange of information ask a question like this?

How does a person who has survived life beyond childhood think the explanation for all of human history would simply make sense?

We can’t agree if the cat is really on the mat or not. Do you think it will be easy to explain what God is on the cross or not?

Don’t you already know the answer? Lobotomies are fairly easy to obtain. Good explanation. Why are you checking your math?

No one brought themselves into existence. Our lives are a gift. We each take this gift and demand more than we even care to give back, and steal more, and murder and lie about it. Instead of crushing us out root and stem, God marked us down as incurring a debt. Then God paid the debt for us.

Make of this second chance what you will. That’s the story. All makes perfect sense to me.

allowing Himself to be tortured to death. And apparently this strategy worked in spite of the fact that he didn't actually die — frank

You could do the autopsy 20 feet away from the body. The cause of death had something to do with all the blood loss from the beating and whipping and spikes and spear in the gut. There was a burial. As far as walking around afterwards, that’s up to you to trust, but you would need a lobotomy to say he wasn’t dead.

What is it that makes a painting appear as a painting? — Moliere

Doesn’t it matter why we are asking? What purpose will the answer serve?

If you are tallying the number of paintings, drawings and sculptures owned by the museum for purposes of a security audit, wouldn’t the right answer have its own criteria that might even insult one of the artists? In such case, there has to be one specific answer, boiled down to a number, or there will be no way to insure or protect the museum.

So you set the criteria and draw the lines. And that is that.

Likely, with artists being artists, the auditor will be forced to throw certain works into a fourth miscellaneous category because painting, drawing and sculpture are not going to capture all that artists can do with paints, pencils and solids. At least not to an auditor type person.

But, a painting is an art form where an artist uses paint applied to what is usually a flat surface (such as a rectangular canvas) to create a visual experience.

So now, what is art?
What is an artist?
What counts as paint?
How flat is flat?
Why “usually”?
What does “visual experience” mean?
Are colors essential, or can white paint on a white surface make a painting?
Is there anything else? What else?

I googled Moliere - he was a playwrite described as a “literary painter” because of how vividly he painted his characters.

I guess we’ll never know now. Thanks Moliere. And Moliere.

Personally I know that what I say is in the face of an absurd world -- so it will only matter locally. — Moliere

How locally? Just for you, in your own head so to speak, or how wide can the local go, and why do you think that? (Aren’t all humans on earth throughout all of human history just a local blip? - where do you found your local boundaries if they extend beyond your own head at all?)

I don’t agree that it is necessary that what matters locally couldn’t matter universally. I know you didn’t say that expressly, but you said it will “only matter locally.” It will have to matter locally for sure, but only? Are you certain about that? I know you said “personally” but is that part of the substance of the rest of your assertion?

"I can't think otherwise" is usually a hint at a kind of transcendental argument going on, if it be articulated. — Moliere

Is that a red flag or something? Banno liked it, so I must have stepped into some forlorn corner. (You are focusing on “how” I am making my arguments, not “what” the arguments are saying. I usually try to let the how emerge from a focus on the what.)

Before characterizing the argument or doing the work to articulate it, can you think you are not thinking? Or can you think you both exist and do not exist in the same sense of “you” and “exist” at the same time in the same manner?

I’m more interested in what those experiences might be, or conducting one of those exercises, described in whatever ugly terms you could muster. I mean, maybe you can show me how not to think I’m thinking when I’m thinking. I can’t do it. That’s what I described as an example of something absolutely all who speak can always say. If you can undo that, I might find more credence on “only locally” in the notion that “I know that what I say is in the face of an absurd world -- so it will only matter locally.”

knowing, understanding, thinking, seeing, being just, but they all have (specific) ways we judge them and philosophy is the way we talk about what is essential to us about them. There is no fact that ensures those discussions even will be resolved, but that doesn’t annihilate the ability or process to do so, nor make it a matter of individual “opinion” (or a sociological matter). — Antony Nickles

:up:

It’s like wanting to agree on the terms of discussion before you can start a conversation. We may not come to an agreement on criteria, but there is at least some substance to talk about. — Antony Nickles

However, this desire for terms beforehand only arises after the conversation has already started (something Banno always points out). So it seems to me that when we want to start a conversation, we need to treat the start as actually a middle and move backwards from the middle of the discussion looking to clarify the criteria, while moving forwards in the discussion to develop some substance to talk about. And each step in either direction informs each step in the other direction (criteria informs what substance is identified, and substance identified begs clearer criteria in support thereof) - so we need to juggle both directions at once to soundly and validly move at all.

This thread has been better — Banno

Sure. I agree. I won’t speak for you, but I tried and failed. That makes me one of the others I guess, who agree with your application of ‘better’ to something other than this part of the thread.

But do you think there are still others who could reasonably argue against us? Showing how this was the best part of the whole thread? Is that reasonably possible? (You know you can’t answer no and be consistent.) And if so, don’t you see how that just won’t do? How is that a rigorous use of “better”, one that is reasonably disagreeing with you and me about how this part of the thread stinks in comparison to other parts?

Maybe the best part of this thread is yet to come, making those other better roasts pale. Maybe if we shoot for the absolute best, meaning full agreement from all parties about undeniable validity and soundness, clear and concise truth about the world, captured for all time, maybe we might actually make a little progress, actually say something better, that is worth saying.

Naaa. Let’s just be content to cut our losses. As usual. (At least this time we aren’t cursing each other - that’s something better maybe? :hearts: )

Science is not trying to give an account of what the universe would be like were there no observers. It is trying to give an account of what the universe is like for any observer. — Banno

If something can be seenby any observer
— Fire Ologist
Nuh — Banno

?? How nuh? You have to really want to disagree with me to find these disagree.

You are talking about a view from nowhere in particular. A view from anywhere is a view from nowhere in particular. What’s wrong with that? It doesn’t refute what you said.

Folks can be too stupid to see science. That’s a non sequitor.

Science looks for the common. We agree on that.

The pattern, were you agree with the critique of your position, only to snap back of a sudden to were you started, is repeating. — Banno

I see what you are saying. That’s where we agree.

But I see more than that. And I don’t see it as contradictory. This is what I can’t get you to see.

What is odd to me is not that you don’t agree with me, but that you see your own position as coherent.

You can’t say “better” in any meaningful way. I agree we could all agree something is better, but who really gives a shit what we think? Certainly nobody in 100 years.

I’m trying to say something, anything, one thing, that someone might give a shit about in 1,000 years, or if they were an alien race of persons 10,000 years advanced, or a god.

I think they would all agree the LNC will always help clarify reasoning.

I am going for it, anyway, despite stepping out too far over the precipice.

And I see you doing the same but you won’t admit it.

Science is not trying to give an account of what the universe would be like were there no observers. It is trying to give an account of what the universe is like for any observer. — Banno

See, I like that. That rings. Truth found must be the same truth for any seeker, or there may be nothing there to be found.

Science seeks to give an account that works for any of us. — Banno

Yes. Not my truth. Nor the truth absent all of us. But the same truth for any of us.

That "perspectiveless abstraction, stripped of embodiment, situatedness, or any first-person particularity" is a philosopher's invention. — Banno

Now hold on. If something can be seen by any observer, and each observer has their unique situatedness, embodiment and particularity, but that same science can be seen by any observer, then doesn’t it follow that the observer’s particularity is not part of the scientific observation? Like if the view from anywhere shows the same science, science remains nowhere in particular?

Although I would agree science only rests in an observer. It’s just that any observer from anywhere will do. This is like saying the view from nowhere is still a view (still has an observer). So it is really ‘a view from nowhere in particular’, but a view nonetheless.

Something to hang the door from. — Banno

Stipulations are functional, temporary versions of absolutes.

But if we never seek to convert one of these stipulations into something that just is, then you are right - “this conversation is too suppositional to be useful.”

What is a stipulation but a form of supposition?

Stipulations work really well when hanging doors. But nothing is forever, and all stipulations can be undercut, dissected, or shown to have been il-constructed and so serving no purpose at all.

Absolutes are suppositions. But suppositions we expect to remain as if fixed and permanent despite our desire to say we doubt they are absolute.

The LNC is an absolute. Maybe someday we’ll find we can use reason while contradicting reason, but probably not, so I see no need to say the LNC is merely stipulated and temporary and provisional awaiting its revision. It’s absolute - I can’t think otherwise and be thinking.
“I exist” is true absolutely. Again, I can’t think otherwise and be thinking.
Therefore, ‘absolutes exist’ is absolute. I can’t think otherwise and know I exist and know that while I exist I cannot simultaneously not exist.

I wouldn’t continue doing philosophy if I concluded absolutely that all we say is based solely on temporary stipulation. If there was no truth despite any and all stipulations, why would I care what anyone else think. I’m willing to stipulate that none of you are any better at life than me, so why should I stipulate things with you. I’d rather focus on less profound problems of there was nothing profound but a profound stipulation.

These are still assertions, but ones I can’t deny meaningfully, or without guile and misrepresentation. I can’t tell you what I see, but I just showed you how I see it, so maybe you can find it yourself. Such is the nature of the absolute - there whether we are looking or not, and not known until we see for ourselves.

I’m waiting for something to click in you, because I am sure you would be better equipped to argue it.

What kind of line would separate being in the middle with being anywhere else (like a start)? There is an absolute difference between middle and start.

Starts make a line.
Middles need no lines or distinctions.

must start instead from where we are.

Hence the relevance of Ramsey, who shows us a way to start from indifference. — Banno

Where we are, is already in the middle - neither starting nor at an end. But instead, already using language and reasoning and willing and wondering…

We can stay here.

Or we can do philosophy - which, inevitably remains already in the middle, but ALSO adds a new “start”. We construct it. And to do so, introduce the fixed “start”. We identify an absolute and stand on it or aim for it.

we find ourselves already doing philosophy — Banno

How is that universe you’ve just thrown me into any clearer a picture than what I am trying to acknowledge and talk about.

If you want to further clarify “finding ourselves already doing philosophy”, in my experience, at least one of not many absolutes will appear (also vaguely, but not with me in the middle but with me conceptually so I can call something a “start”).

There is no way to be perfectly clear about “that which lies outside of analysis”.

But if there was nothing to it, we would never build any agreement whatsoever. And we build agreement all of the time.

I can't really "disagree" with something that is so unclear. — Banno

First, I bet you could.
But more to the point, I bet you can agree to something unclear. I think agreeing on the unclear is part of your point about indifference. Careful, rigorous, moves, but ultimately in the middle with unknown beginnings and ends.

Did it just click? — Banno

Well, no. I’m still trying to figure out why you disagree with me.

To "lie beyond analysis" in this sense doesn't relieve us of the responsibility of making sense. — J

Yes. I’d rather call the two anspects 1) analysis of analyzing (logic, language), and 2) analysis of the world (what language is about, why we speak, agreement itself).

So nothing need be outside of analysis.

whether we find ourselves already doing philosophy, and must start instead from where we are. — Banno

I started a post titled “Being in the Middle”.

Why do you think what we are doing should be called “philosophy”. Are the ends so remote here in the middle that we may as well call this “making cookies”?

No. We call it “philosophy” whatever philosophy absolutely turns out to be, whether we ever get there, however it may ever be known, but still, we don’t call it “automotive engineering”. We call it philosophy.

How is that?

There is something absolute involved, though I haven’t and maybe can’t define it.

But if we don’t aim for it, your next reply might be anything at all and neither could know of it was or wasn’t doing more philosophy.

I'm suggesting that it's more accurate to talk about a type of philosophy -- Nagel's, perhaps -- which avails itself when necessary of all the rigorous, analytic tools, but is aiming to discuss topics that lie beyond analysis as such. — J

I love it. That’s philosophy to me. Analysis, but not just analysis of analysis, but also analysis of living in the world or “topics that lie beyond analysis as such”. I’m good with that.

None — Banno

Maybe none?

So… that’s it then.

What a mess.

Ok, what you assert is true.

Then there's not much point in continuing this conversation, is there. — Banno

I could be wrong.

What a mess? You seem to have more to say…

I think the Williamson essay is itself a good example, though I suppose some would dispute its rigor.

Or for a broader example, Thomas Nagel's work is my ideal of how philosophy can be remain rigorous and also ask questions that go beyond clarifying what is consistent or coherent within a given model. There are certainly others. — J

I agree with that. Williamson himself didn’t think his essay got any significant philosophic work done and lacked rigor, but I agree - it’s a work for philosophers exclusively and gets some work done.

Nagel keeps the questions alive.

One thing to notice: The requirement to "completely forego the devotion to . . . " is surely too rigid, and also tendentious. By putting it in terms of "devotion," you're already building a rhetorical case against it, aren't you? Couldn't we just talk about "a type of philosophy that doesn't primarily concern itself with . . ." ? — J

You said “though it need not” and so I asked if you were saying “completely forego” since it need not.

You changed “relegated” to “devoted”.

I am not building the case as much as confirming your case.

You ask, “Couldn't we just talk about "a type of philosophy that doesn't primarily concern itself with . . ." ?”

Well yes, but two points in the context of this thread. Isn’t this thread about more precision, so “doesn’t primarily concern” doesn’t seem rigorous and begs further details about what is the primary concern and how secondary or tertiary is the less concerning.
Also, I think this contradicts you saying “though it need not.” (Which is why you sensed a case against it.)

Bottom line to me, philosophy must concern itself with consistency and coherence of language and argument - that is logical validity. But philosophy must also concern itself with the world and the persons in it and their existential/metaphysical questions - that is where soundness of arguments is measured.

If you seek validity with no concern for soundness, you live in a hypothetical world at best, and further, like math, we all must think the exact same thing about what is valid. If you seek soundness but no concern for validity, no one will ever be able to follow your reasoning and logic and understand you, and we all may think totally different things. But if you can communicate both validity AND soundness, well maybe there is something truly interesting to talk about.

This isn’t an argument. It’s just why I bother to seek something valuable by talking with other people.

The sound experience conveyed validly.

I'll help. I think your intuition is along these lines:

1. Making any comparison requires a standard.
2. That standard must be fixed
3. That fixed standard must be independent on the things being compared
4. to be both fixed and independent is to be absolute
5. hence any comparison requires an absolute standard

Something like that?

Can you see why this is incorrect? — Banno

That is the intuition. I think I see that it is not valid. Something about 2 and 4 seems tautological so nothing new can be concluded.

But…

Mere assertion. — Banno

How is ANY use of “better” anything more than mere assertion?

I AM merely making an assertion.

I’m basically asserting that language doesn’t work unless it refers to absolutes.

To call something misleading is to say it leads somewhere—but crucially, somewhere we didn’t intend, or that doesn’t fulfill the function we took ourselves to be engaging in. That’s not the same as saying there is a metaphysical end-point we ought to be led to; rather, it’s to say that a particular use diverts us from how the practice normally works or what it aims at internally. — Banno

That looks full of absolutes to me.
Absolute “misleading”.
Absolute “function we took ourselves to be engaging in.”
An absolute “normally”
Etc.

These are your assertions. I’m okay with assertions, depending on what follows from them. I think what follows from the assertion “we don’t need absolutes” is “we cannot communicate”.

I think the way you intuitively talk demonstrates my intuition about the reliance on absolutes essential to meaningful, useful language in the world of rational speakers.

The argument I could use help with is that two rational agents cannot communicate absent a medium separate from the both that lies between them and is fixed with absolutes; language is that medium, full of references to items named, relations rationalized, and absolute concepts binding these to the two rational agents at once.

Something must be fixed in this mix, or nothing like a communication would ever occur. And it already has occurred. I agree, it’s not much of an argument, but I think it is more than an adequate demonstration. We both need help with our assertions.

Better entails worst and best, in itself, by definition, in every appropriate use. We need that to be the case, to use “better” at all.
— Fire Ologist
I'm interested in the limitation. Can you give me an example of an inappropriate use? Do you mean that in the inappropriate uses, better does not entail worst and best? — Ludwig V

Everyone seems to be comfortable using the word “better” and understanding what it is intended to add to a conversation. I am saying, by saying and using “better” appropriately, one not only must understand what better means and how to use “better”, one must also know what “best” means and how to use it as well. Better is defined by best. The better tends towards the best, while the worse tends towards the worst. You don’t know one of these, you don’t use one of these appropriately, without knowing the others.