I can't defend the religious narrative here, because it is vulnerable to criticism and I am critical of it myself. However I can offer some perspective on the issue, something which I think is hard to see due to it being so engrained in our world.

The main vulnerability in religion is that it has been exploited relentlessly by power brokers and priests who loose the piety it teaches. Although this is understandable if one considers how unpleasant life was in the past, certainly in the northern climbs, for all but the few who managed to get into a position of relative privelidge and comfort. Anyway, an analysis of religion will only ever result in a discovery of aspects of human nature and how promises of heaven or paradise can be exploited.

There is though a thread of insight to be gleaned from the teachings and the history, which like in the spiritual analysis, can give us some perspective and sight of our predicament in this world.

Secondly I would point out a naivety in your reasoning, you criticise the anthropomorphism while then resorting to it to make your case. It is quite reasonable and philosophically astute to recognise our limited intellectual understanding of our predicament in finding ourselves in this world. This would entail a realisation that we cannot make any presumptions in terms of purpose about any purposes that we may be subject to. Indeed it strikes me that an apophatic analysis of what we don't know and can't say would be an appropriate starting point, so as to avoid those very anthropomorphic assumptions.

To address the two points you raise;

The restlessness of humanity, the will, is as I pointed out in the other thread a result of evolutionary pressures in shaping life. It is only the relentless, the resourceful and sometimes the ruthless which survive and outlive the rest. So it's no accident that a restless and resourceful species has come to dominate the ecosystem. This doesn't however say anything about our soul or any purposes we are subject to.

Secondly, that any cosmic purposes may not have any care for, or require the suffering etc of humanity, or that it is out of our control etc. Well this is all based on assumptions as I outlined above. We really can't say what requirements there are in our being here and the reality of our existence may be existentially far more complex and subtle than we can realise. Making any assumptions irrelevant to the truth of it.

So this is of course subjected to the same absurd conclusions- why does this whole training have to occur in the first place? If it is because God wills it, then he must have also been bored to set up this little game. But, if we are here in order to raise the lower worlds to the higher worlds, I don't see how this should make us feel much better. Now we are just pawns in this cosmic game. Of course, this is all based on a fantasy that somehow is more believable than other fantasies due to historical contingencies of conversion.. Odd, how this cosmic game is something that is oddly anthropological. Of course it centers around humans, of course it is some sort of struggle, of course it has aspects of Platonic and Zoroastrian cultural elements. All beliefs picked up by various philosophers from various regions, reified into a nice little fantasy package.

Yes I am inclined to agree with you, however there are answers provided by believers. Let's break it down.

1, why does this training thing have to occur?
Well the answer goes that God being mighty has a mighty purpose and us mere mortals can't understand such mighty matters. But we can be privy in some way through revelation.

2, how come It is necessary for God who is so mighty to have to make us and make our lives so difficult to serve a purpose which he can bypass with a miracle.?
Well this is covered by the fall. We weren't living difficult lives initially, but we fell from grace, by partaking of the tree of knowledge. Thus we learnt how to be evil and it's been downhill from there. However if we can make the path of return we can be reinstated in paradise in the knowledge of evil, while not practicing it.

3, we are pawns in this cosmic game?
This I see as fallacious, all things, beings etc are pawns regardless, even gods.

4, odd how this cosmic game is something that is oddly anthropological?
Again this is a bit fallacious, because our philosophy could not be anything else, due to us not having higher beings telling us the bigger picture. Also we can see the bigger picture to a certain degree, we can see the same issues playing out in the animal and plant kingdom and so see that it is not just us, but life in general who are acting out this charade.

5, all beliefs picked up by various philosophers from various regions, reified into a nice little fantasy package?
Well that's religion for you, you can pick lots of holes in it and point out its failings. The thing about revelation is still there though, I don't think we can conclude it didn't happen. For example it might all be a plan by some aliens to guide is in a constructive direction so us to help us on our way past the first nappy training session, rather than watch us fall beck into the Stone Age again, which has probably happened many times in the past.

If God is somehow incomplete or must go through a process of raising his lower parts to his higher parts by our actions and deeds (what constitutes as legitimately a "good" action or belief versus just an action or belief..must have some sort of magical metaphysical quality of course), then it means that something happened to God. He was complete and now he is not. We need to fix Humpty Dumpty back together again.. Mainlander has a similar story reversed though. Instead of God bursting himself into the physical world in order to get fixed again, he was really bored and wanted us to exhaust ourselves in entropic nothingness so that he could commit suicide. It seems either way, God is a bored fella.. He either is bored to death (Mainlander) or bored with being a complete being and so needs pawns in a game (Judeo-Christian mystical traditions for purpose).

Yes it's possible that we are in a Mainlander situation, we can't know from our perspective(putting revelation to one side for now). The trouble is that when considering cosmic purpose, it strikes me that we just can't do it philosophically other than through some intuitive contemplation of nature as I pointed out in the other thread. If there is a cosmic purpose being played out unless we are privy to the mind of the active agencies instigating it, we are entirely in the dark as to what the purpose might be.

Also I would point out that we can't presume that God(or whoever it is) is infallible. This was wishful thinking by the early Roman christians.

Anyway in putting the case for spirituality I would categorise purpose into 3 divisions from our position.

a, divine purpose, or eternity. Something which is way beyond us , so it is pointless to speculate.

b, cosmic purpose, the purposes of the greater beings in our vicinity, the entities upon which we live and which sustain us. Something which is beyond our limited understanding, but which can be intuited a little, or passed to us via revelation.

c, human, or animal and plant, purpose, something which is contingent on categories a, and b, so can only be pragmatic.

So in answer to you on this point, we are blind to the purposes which put us here, so such speculation is fruitless.

This is not necessarily my view, but by acting as a devils advocate I may be able to offer an answer from the perspective of religion, or spirituality, which seems to be what you are questioning.

From the perspective of religion, we are God's children in kindergarten, so need to be nappy trained and this is as good a way as any to do it. From the perspective of spirituality we are fulfilling a role within an eternal cosmos of being. That role is not necessarily something we can know, but will have some relevance to the development of being, or the enterprise we find ourselves involved in.

In both cases as I expect you were expecting the greater purposes are known to God/god, or whoever is in that role.

Because we are constructed to do it, its second nature. We find ourselves doing it as though we have some grand destination. Some of us think and say why are we doing it? as though there must be a destination, but there need not be one for us to be here and doing it.

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

It was only a matter of time.

Quite, we are biological organisms which persist over time simply because we have chemical systems for replication and extending lifespan(to the scale of a human lifespan). Any different, or other kind of configuration of chemicals which doesn't achieve this disappeared, died out eons ago, they failed to persist. Except that is for chemical states which naturally persist through being chemically at rest, such as elemental gases, liquids and solids.

It is survival of the persistent and a purpose can be imagined in this, but there is none as such other than what is chemically built into the systems themselves by some kind of chemical evolution.

Perhaps this is like try to getting your head around infinity. You just end up imagining a very large quantity or size, then you intellectually multiply it in some way to make it seem larger. But then there is a kind of leap from there to some kind of acceptance of a mathematical axiom. The imagined infinity is never realised. A grasping of an infinity always fails, or a mental representation of infinity always fails and the mind has to side track into a belief about mathematical principles and take it on faith from the math that there is such a thing as infinity. Then the mind goes back to where it tried to mentally represent the infinity in the first place and kind of puts a belief there instead of a mental representation. But then pretends that an infinity has been grasped, understood, a kind of conciet.

As I see it purpose is something which cannot be known outside the mind* of the agency which performs the creative act which is completed by acting out its inherent purpose.

So if there is a purpose in the existence of humanity we cannot know it in the absence of the thought process(I have simplified this into thought process so as to continue my point, this could be described as "will") of the agency who put us here. Some religious people think they are privy to this purpose through revelation, let's put them to one side for now, along with the alternative perspective that there is no purpose at all.

Now in my enquiry into the purpose of our existence it has occured to me that there is a principle in the creative act which can be interpreted as a signature of the agent concerned. So effectively the purpose can be read in the creation like the stylistic brush strokes of an artist on their canvas. For example an art specialist can determine a Van Gogh by the form of the brush strokes independent of the subject of the painting. The movement of his arm, the way his brain/mind to hand coordination is somehow evident in the creation, as a signature.

So by analogy the artistic style of the agent responsible for our existence will be evident in us as a signature. If not specifically the signature of that particular agent, then the signature of the agent who created that agent. All that is required to determine the nature and get a hand on the purpose of the agent is to learn to read the signature.

Secondly if we are inquiring into the purpose of the entirety of the existence we find ourselves in, then it may be the case that every subjective and objective form in this world is a signifyer of the purpose if one is able to accurately read it.

Following this approach I have extrapolated that the purpose of our being brought into existence is primarily(this is grossly simplified) to carry on the evolutionary development of living entities to the point at which they become independently existing entities. Independent in the entirety of their world. So they would independently generate and maintain their own physical existence and world. Something which we cannot do and are barely learning to understand through trying to survive on a limited and vulnerable planet.

* by mind, I am referring to one's existential being rather than one's thinking intellectual mind.

Is your body YOU? Or, is your body a package which is discardable without loss of “YOU”? Is a kind of intellectual disembodiment a sin against others?
Are you your body, or are you something apart from your body?

I would say that your body is your home, for now, until you move house. Whether you are your body, or something else, I would say that you are your body, but the surface of the body, in the sense of the physical matter, is like a suit, a sheath, as in Joseph's coat of many colour's. So in a sense you are not the matter of your body, but the body minus the matter.

Faerie nuff...but remember it is believed to be a resurrection of body, soul and spirit; all perfected. Personally, I have no clear idea, but just a vague intuition, of what that might mean.

Transfiguration.
One way of looking at this process is that energy* flows through the body like water down a river. For our body and soul to be transfigured is by analogy to manage a greater flow, which requires removal of the impediments, or blockages. Otherwise disorder, disease and death would result, a flood in the analogy.

*just what this energy is and how to describe and discuss it is more complicated.

Also, I suspect that most people, in dreaming of some scenario that would constitute "the best possible life imaginable", are envisioning a life without suffering, death, struggle, poverty, limitation, and so on. It seems to me implicit in the question that such a life would be one in which each person has limitless power, resources, access to aesthetic experiences, fine surroundings and possessions, and so on. In my view, such a life would be pure fluff, like living in a kitsch painting, empty of real and substantial life, completely hollow and superficial. It would be strictly masturbatory. Despite all appearances, a deep desolation would permeate everything. By far the greatest impoverishment in such a life would be the absence of other subjects with whom one might enter into the Ich-Du. This "life" would be always strictly in the mode of Ich-Es.

This is not necessarily the case. For example the experience of Charles Manson would be quite different to the experience of Jesus. So provided the person was of the right mind, it would be ok.

If a scientist examines a concert hall, say the Albert Hall, during a concert. They might come away with a map of the auditorium, the sheets of music, descriptions of the instruments. Recordings and vibrational readings in different places in the room. The anthropology of the people in the room. Etc etc.

However they would probably be lacking in data to convey the experience of being a member of the audience. So there is a dimension of personal experience, which is personal, within people and people are not well understood by science.

Yes, metaphysics is always a means of limiting the mind, the imagination. There is an implication that we, humanity, have the capacity to both determine and understand the nature of existence, or something. I know that some folk would say that they build in an acknowledgement of our limitations. But this itself would lead to the realisation that we don't know anything, apart from what we find before us. So limiting again.

For me an understanding of the nature of existence is much more a living and intuitive experience, in which thought, thinking is nothing more than one of a number of tools in my tool kit.

Quite.

Accept the consistency of solipsism and sufficient doubt is introduced for the OP.
Regarding the issue of other minds, in some sense we are all one mind(all the biosphere on Earth). So it may not be an issue atall.

Not exactly; when I say that I don't think that either idealism or materialism, per se are more conducive to spirituality I mean that to hold one or the other metaphysical view makes no difference.

Yes, likewise. Actually for me both metaphysical views dovetail nicely into one whole, absent the rhetoric in either which denies something in the other. In fact all this argument about metaphysics we see here is largely irrelevant to me because I have developed my own metaphysic a while ago, which neither comes close to.

One of the principle difficulties of philosophy is arriving at an understanding of the nature of spirit. It is not 'nothing', that is simply an indication of the inadequacy of the mind for the nature of the question. It is also not something. My approach is, it can't be understood through the exercise of thought and reason, so my approach is negative, 'not this, not that'. It is something that has to be realised on a deeper level. (I'm sure you of all people on this board would undersatnd that ;) ).

Yes I agree, infact I don't often mention spirit because it is so volatile that it can't be addressed without failing to address it. Rather like God, both terms and concepts became essentially irrelevant to me in my contemplation a long time ago. I simply house them in place referred to as eternity, or for God, perhaps, the one about whom naught may be said.

Refering to material though my position is such that I rarely ever see it mentioned on forums like this. That material as a philosophical concept is all forms of extension, division, differentiation. Or everything which is not "the one about whom naught may be said". So to me the soul, mind, concepts, being, even spirit are all material. And all material behaves according to natural law. So to me the immaterial is a scarce thing indeed, like hens teeth. But vital nevertheless.

I agree, I have looked at all the arguments for doubt on a philosophy guide website and none of seem relevant to me. They merely discuss differences between the reality of a dream and the reality of waking experience, which for me are irrelevant and don't seem to address Descarte's doubt about sitting in front of the fire.

My perspective is in reference to being and the fact that due to some unknown process beings find themselves either in a dream, or in waking life, or perhaps in some other place such as as a ghost, or in some kind of heaven, or another world. Beings with minds just find themselves somewhere and be there.

Another way of saying this is that if solipsism is logically consistent (which I think it is), then a solipsist is in the same condition as this being I describe. They find themselves in a place, or state, through some unknown process and at some point will find themselves in another place and be there.

But no Christian believes the soul is material

Does anyone believe that anything is immaterial? I mean material in its broadest sense, so the soul, while not constituted of physical matter, is constituted, has a constitution, of some kind of subtle material, or ethereal substance. Even God must surely have a constitution of some kind. By constitution I mean structure, body, matrices. How can a mind operate in a void? An absolute void?

I thought we'd see more defenders of the argument (or some variation of it). Ah well.

Perhaps I can help. It occurs to me that if one looks at the issue in terms of the occurrence of being, rather than the experience of that being, there is equivalence. So in a dream, a being finds herself in a dream. Likewise upon birth a being finds herself in a world. Irrespective of whether there are circumstances in experience to suggest that a being in a dream is caused by something in experience, empirical( a birth might likewise have a full complement of causes, which we are not aware of).These two instances of a being finding themselves somewhere are the same. Like a process of waking up, a being arrives somewhere through an unknown process, one ocassion a dream and another a birth into a world.

So it seems to me that in both cases, we are simply describing the physical conditions which appear to result in these two examples of beings finding themselves somewhere and then deciding that one, being born, is more real than the other. In the ignorance of the basis of being and how beings come into being.

An aside, I have on ocassion woken from a dream with a strong sense that I am awake, only to find subsequently that I am still asleep and in a dream, a dream in which I am convinced I am awake. Then I wake up again and have to concentrate really hard on where I am and we're I was before I fell asleep, to establish that I am indeed awake.

When I first started posting on these forums, I was surprised to encounter this school of thought called idealism. I was expecting that my spiritual perspective was going to be viewed as outlandishly immaterial and that the accepted ontology would be some kind of materialism or physicalism. When suddenly I was confronted with these notions like solipsism and radical forms of idealism. I thought such ideas would have been discarded long ago, as I had done myself. Although I did understand the rationale and had gone through the intellectual ramifications etc myself and seen it for what it is.

Suddenly I found myself thrust more on the side of the materialists in this dialectic. This is not to say that I don't consider the reality of idealism playing some fundamental role in the processes of our existence. Or that I don't consider transcendental idealism to be fundamental. But rather that it is pointless exercise in itself, other than as a contemplative tool to be used on ocassion, like solipsim.

I can only agree, within the field of philosophy, from what I know. Otherwise I see no trouble in saying what it means, although discursive communication may be in the form exercised in religious and mystical traditions. There is a tradition of allegory, or analogy and oral traditions. So two people who see what it means can discuss it. I have been a member of a group on more than one ocassion in which such discussion was commonplace. Although the interlocutors would require the appropriate intellectual articulation for affective communication to occur, I expect.

Ok, but the many may only be an extension of the one, so still one.

I agree, its pointless, other than as an academic exercise. I'm curious though if you say that substance monism is unintelligible. Is there a monism which is intelligible?

What is there if there is not the real?

Drivel.

You said it.

Seriously though I think you should have been born in Italy during the Renaissance, you would have fitted right in in the world of the Medici's, you could have been Niccolò Machiavelli himself!

Well John has said pretty much what I was going to say. I will add though that the Mona Lisa is not very well painted and only gained notoriety due to someone at sometime in the distant past pointing out that in the way her lips are painted it is debatable whether she is actually smiling, or straight faced.
I'm sure if I had been around just before the wheel was invented, I would have come up with the idea first. Surely a person who invented the wheel can be labelled a genius, what an amazing invention.

That's wrong, there are large numbers of geniuses and many more who if they were put back in time to the renaissance would be equivalent to geniuses. The difference is that standards and levels of achievement are so so much higher now. Let's take the example of art. There are many thousands of artists around who are skilled enough to paint the the standard of Leonardo da Vinci. But such abilities are not regarded as genius now, because many people can do it and the standard of what constitutes artistic genius has moved on to an intellectually exalted state.

Well if one puts aside the problematic consequences of pressing the button and accept it simply as you describe it. Then a true physicalist would press the button immediately, provided they were able to overcome the distaste of the idea of the inauthenticity of being in a vat.

If they (the physicalist) came up with any other reason not to press it they are being disingenuous.

However I suspect there are other candidates for pressing it, some religious people, people who have a strong distaste for suffering, those with suicidal tendencies.

I'm very happy for you, that you're not suffering to the extent that you would push the button for your personal position. Many people who do suffer would beg to you push it for their sakes, it's amazing how suffering can clarify the mind.

Anyway why not, is it a love, or sentimentality for this life the way it is? (I would consider pressing it to eleiviate the suffering of people in Syria with no medical facilities regardless of my own feelings). Or is it because you think we are doing something constructive and beneficial in the long run?(like Augustinio's perspective). Or is there another reason?

Yes, I visited the Abstract Expressionist exhibition at th Royal Academy a couple of weeks ago. There were lots of nice Pollocks there, not to mention Rothko's, also Barnett Newman who I was particularly taken by.

As you say art explores and exploits these ideas.

The reason why I posted my photo is that it is unusual in that it has a number of clear two and three dimensional imaginary beings in it. Along with that peculiar phenomena of not being able to see it and them when you do, not being able to not see it, as a way of examining the human psyche. I will draw a couple of the faces, which might draw them out of the picture.

It's just a thought experiment to try to see what your ethical and ontological commitments are. Think of it another way; if you could push a button and everyone would instantly be in Nirvana; no effort needed and no questions asked; would you do it? You might say that would have to be a fake, unearned Nirvana, but could there be any difference between absolutely believing you were in Nirvana and actually being in Nirvana? If so, what could the difference be?

Ok, I find it interesting in that it is like holding up a mirror to yourself, that you, or someone else, can view your ethical and ontological commitments objectively.

These are my initial thoughts;

That if I did press the button. The people, myself included, would not be themselves anymore, indeed they would be so removed from themselves, that the thought experiment becomes meaningless. This is why in mysticism (as I see it) the soul develops from , I, to , I am, to, I am that, to the point where it realises, I am that I am. In the final level of development the being would remain the same being when the button is pressed. Prior to "I am that I am", the being would loose their personal identity in the switch. in this prior state beings are formed, held up, propped up by tangible realities in this world as they are, take this away and they (their being) collapse, disappear. If they(their being) are thrust into "I am that I am", again they would be in a fractured, or collapsed state.

Secondly the idea of being in a vat and not knowing it is incoherent as we don't know if we aren't already in that state, that there is any other possibility to this state etc. I know that this is not the point of the experiment. But it does illuminate the issue which you may be enquiring into of the ontological basis of our reality. The implication being that if the button is pressed the beings will be in an exalted state, but it would be in some way false, a a lie, a fabrication. There are two problems with this, firstly as I say, we might already be in that state, life might not be possible without it being fabricated in some way. Secondly if the button were pressed the fact of there being a brain in a vat might become meaningless irrelevant, because we are phenomelogically our being and our experiences and the vat is simply an inconsequential artefact of material processes etc., or might simply disappear.

Third, the ways in which our current way of life would change. Provided there is no vital purpose being served in our living this way of life, then whilst bearing the first two thoughts in mind, I would have no problem with pressing the button. However if there is a vital purpose in us living this life, then I might in pressing the button, pass the buck and that purpose would have to be carried out by some other unsuspecting bunch of beings at a later time. So I would be bottling on my purpose.

Fourth, We might be here performing a service for some other lives, or purpose. What about for example the other animals and plants we share our lives with, or the planet, or the material of this universe? We might be fulfilling a vital custodial role within the wider system and so fulfilling our personal desires and wants in an instant might be a cowardly act of refusal to perform our natural role in nature, a role we might have actually chosen, or offered to perform. In this light, the thought experiment comes across as a conceited flight of fancy.

Yes I think I see it now, I think I couldn't see it, because I had already seen that as a cat. Right on the bottom two tenths in from the left.

Yes, I have noticed that some people don't see them so easily. I might have to draw one, zooming in is just to blurred.

What colour's the flames eye, I can't quite make it out?
It's getting late here, I need to crash now. Feel I'm going to have some vivid dreams;)

The white bit is just to the right of his long nose, like a dogs nose and two slightly darker bits are his ears sticking up above his head. Yes I know the super obvious looking one, but to me it's a pixie face, on the end of that branch which goes up to the right corner. Have you noticed ther a re a few ghoulish faces to the right of him?

Well I don't know if my imagination is to optimistic, but that being the case we are God and humanity is a distant memory.

Whoops wrong thread. The trouble with late night messages.

No but I just saw a bat face there.
He is if you go by the grid reference I mentioned above. He is second square in from the left(if the photo is ten squares wide and a fraction over half way up. He is the darke green area and is looking out at you, but slightly down and to your right. The dark area is his chest and just above and slightly to the right is his face.

Good start, any in 3D. Have you seen the wolf man yet?

I was once in a state where I saw faces everywhere, I was in an emotionally unstable condition at the time. But I have retained the propensity to do it.