Well I can relate to what you’ve written, in some ways but not all. That’s the beauty of diversity, though - isn’t it?

This is what I am talking about, Salisbury. ChatteringMonkey hammered the ideas into a recongnizable shape. "good philosopher", "do away with the bad ones", "decide", "evaluate", "discard". These are actions and judgments and solid, concrete things, even if conceptual. Your writing, Salisbury, did not hammer anything into anything; your perception and your reperesentation what you got out of ideas, how you see ideals, ideas, is not touched by hammering souls.

You see, I am already hammering your style or outlook into shape. That's what you don't do. This is at least one difference.

Another difference I can hammer out, is that you don't seem to NEED to hammer things into shape. That's even stranger than not hammering them into shape. — god must be atheist

I can relate to this distinction - the need for solid, concrete things, as limited as they may be, is a comfortable way for many people to interact with the world. Some of us, so to speak, must collapse the world into particles, while others find ourselves interacting directly with the potentiality wave.

For those who see particles, the world seems more solid and easy to navigate - except that they can be battered or blindsided by change. For those who perceive the wave, it’s more blurry and uncertain, marked by indecision and too many options - except that they’re less surprised by the world when it changes, because for them this change is pervasive. The former despairs at a world that refuses to behave as expected, while the latter despairs at the amorphous uncertainty of how to live in a world without expectations.

What I really want is techniques for how to live, and techniques for how to approach life as it is. That's hard - some inner instinct bucks and shies from that - but what else to do? It feels like the only thing to do is shave off everything that isn't touching on that, and find what works. But the addiction is still there, trying to make things as abstract as possible.

I guess the thrust of the OP is - does anyone else feel this, or have some suggestions? I feel like I'm at least in the airlock, but definitely not ready for outer space. — csalisbury

I think how we approach life will always be relative to where we are in our journey, so any techniques should be considered in that context. It helps to have a tether of some kind - at least at the outset. A concept that inspires your imagination as much as it informs your life, regardless of how the world changes. Then, like Descartes, you can question or dismantle everything else and rebuild a conceptualisation of reality from scratch.

My own tether began as a ‘spiritual’ connection to the world, but has since been distilled many times over. I am now absolutely certain only that something exists, and that something relates to that existence. That’s enough for me, now. Even @god must be atheist’s expression that he cannot relate to your post is a relation in itself, and informs a more accurate understanding of reality that transcends your subjective position within it: that it’s inclusive of both particles and waves, as it were.

I guess what I’m saying is, your inner instinct to buck any established techniques on how to live is a recognition of this pervasiveness of change, but it needn’t stop you from structuring how you approach your life and then continually restructuring as new information comes to light. The idea that we have to be consistent in life is bollocks - we are a work in progress, after all.

If it helps, my own technique for how to approach life is to strive to increase awareness, connection and collaboration, despite the risks, recognising that the majority of the universe (including myself) will act instead to ignore, isolate and exclude.

A think a better metaphor than the headache example is building a sand castle. You put all that time and effort building a thing that eventually just becomes a part of the beach like it never was there. The only real value of it was the entertainment of the process and product while it existed. — runbounder

It appears as if the sandcastle was never there only from your perspective, because to you, every grain of sand looks the same. But your building that sandcastle has moved many grains of sand to new locations, and in contact with water molecules and other grains of sand they may never have had contact with without your interaction. The entertainment of the process and product while it existed was its value to you, but to each grain of sand in that castle, their whole world was changed forever.

I suppose I am coming from a somewhat selfish perspective here. But, I'm also not just concerned about myself. Instead, I'm thinking of all of our selves. In other words, one possible answer is that my individual self does not have any meaning, so why not live a selfless existence? Well, if my self doesn't have meaning, than neither does anyone else's, so that would be a pointless venture. — runbounder

The idea that ‘meaning’ is individual is a misunderstanding. My individual self has negligible meaning on its own, in isolation. All meaning is derived specifically from relations - that’s where the term itself comes from: ‘mean’. The more that one relates to the world, the more meaning is derived from their existence. The more we relate to each other as humans, the more that humanity means something. And the more we try to isolate an individual sense of meaning, the less meaning we appear to have.

Yes, I like panpsychism quite a lot. I think, the issue is that at what point is suffering apparent to a living entity. Like, the hard question restated in regards to consciousness. Not sure if that's clear. — Wallows

In panpsychism, the priority of the human perspective is in question. If all matter has some capacity to interact in relation to an awareness of pain, then why is our perception of pain (ie. suffering, morally ‘evil’) the only one that matters?

Well, I view a deity who instills the sense of cruelty towards his own creation, whilst devoid of experiencing it himself, as somewhat abnormal from a human perspective. — Wallows

This is not how I view ‘God’. The way I see it, ‘cruelty’ is a disregard for the pain and suffering of others, which is either ignorance (a lack of awareness), isolation (a failure to connect) or exclusion (a refusal to collaborate). Your presumption that ‘God’ behaves in this way towards any element of creation is based on your own limited perspective of the situation, and your assumption that there is no more to know about this situation than what you already know.

‘God’’s perspective is not the same as the human perspective. If you want to genuinely understand what ‘God’ is doing here, then you need to imagine a perspective that is aware, connected and collaborating with the potential and possibilities of ALL matter since its ‘creation’. That means getting past our limited anthropocentric perspective of value. For me, ‘God’ is not so much a deity as a concept that enables us to extend our understanding of the universe beyond our own experience.

Yes, so we are in agreement about the utility of pain from a moral perspective. Is there any to begin with? If it's promised that heaven is a place where nobody suffers, then why not just create a universe where everyone is guaranteed access to heaven regardless of their moral "worth"? — Wallows

Yes, but this moral perspective is a limited one, manufactured by a limited understanding of ‘God’ and reality. This ‘promise of heaven’ and our access to it is a man-made conceptualisation intended to increase the perceived value of existence beyond organic life for those who fail to perceive the value of determining and initiating action towards increasing awareness, connection and collaboration in an unfolding universe that is so much more than organic existence.

The way I see it, the extent to which the world we live in continues to increase awareness, connection to and collaboration with who we are beyond our organic or material life, corresponds to the extent to which we access this ‘eternal life’ promised to us. That’s it - no ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’, no St Peter checking if your name’s on the list, no adding up brownie points. That, I believe, is the example of Jesus and Buddha and Einstein and Elvis, etc.

However, realize that god is supposed to be a being who's concerned about our welfare and one of our concerns is good and evil. Granted that we may be ignorant of what good and evil actually are, but surely we have a satisfactory handle on its basic form which is seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. I believe you mentioned happiness somewhere. — TheMadFool

Not ‘supposed’ to be, but perceived to be. The idea here is that ‘God’ is personal: that is, “knows, loves and relates to us all”. We commonly interpret this as ‘a being who’s concerned about our welfare’, but there are two points to be made here.

The first is that this is not the only way to interpret this attribute in relation to ‘God’, although it’s probably the easiest to relate to in return. The more we understand what it means to ‘know’, to ‘love’ and to ‘relate’ beyond the limits of an observable, measurable universe, the less necessary this notion of ‘God’ as a being becomes.

The second point is that being ‘concerned about our welfare’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘God’ is concerned with what we’re concerned with - that is, the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘evil’.

I’m not sure where I mentioned happiness - it may have been another thread. I think that seeking ‘happiness’ or pleasure and striving to avoid pain, as well as this distinction between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, all point to a limited understanding of ‘God’ - to ignorance. When we can fully grasp the concept of ‘God’, I think we then understand all of these limited value concepts as relative to anthropic experience at best. That doesn’t mean we don’t strive to alleviate pain and suffering or choose what is ‘good’ rather than settle for ‘evil’ in how we determine and initiate action. But when we’re inclined to ignore, isolate or exclude something as ‘evil’, then I think we need to stop and ask ourselves not why an ‘all-good God’ allows such ‘evil’, but why we call it ‘evil’ when, from ‘God’’s perspective, all is ‘good’?

I don't see value in pain and suffering. This sort of ties back into one of my old threads, about the inherent worth of suffering, if there is any. I don't think God suffers along with the burning fawn, or does He? One might even be inclined to agree that God is quite cruel. — Wallows

I think perhaps ‘God’ does ‘suffer with’ the fawn - just not in the way we expect or intuitively understand.

I get what you’re saying, but just because you don’t see value in pain and suffering, doesn’t mean there is no value in pain and suffering. There isn’t value from the fawn’s perspective. There isn’t from your perspective - indeed, from the perspective of much of humanity, there is no value in the pain and suffering of the fawn. I agree with you there.

I have tried to look at the notion of pain and suffering from a broader, universal perspective - and my philosophy tends towards a form of panpsychism, so the idea that all matter has some level of awareness (ie. relation to the world) is a key part of my thinking, as well as the notion that ‘God’ is the most objective relation to the universe and all existence that we can imagine.

The way I see it, pain is an awareness that the system requires more energy, effort or attention allocated to a particular area of its existence than it has predicted, in order to manage change. Pain from exercise, for instance, has value in that it informs the system that additional energy, effort or attention is required here in order to manage change to the structure of the system, including change to predictions of change. When energy resources are limited, the capacity to manage this change is limited.

Pain is not necessarily ‘cruelty’. It’s information about our relation to reality, to which we attribute value or potential according to a collated response of the system. Where the ‘system’ is the present observable or measurable organism, that response or internal affect from pain is more often than not going to be negative. Where the ‘system’ is the relative life or potential of the organism as it changes and interacts across time, then some pain is more valuable than others, long-term. Where the ‘system’ is the community, nation or humanity as a species, reaching beyond a singular lifetime, then the pain of a person or animal might serve the value structures of the system (think punishment or nutrition, for instance) - and our efforts to minimise the extent of this pain or loss of life where we have enough information to do so becomes an important factor.

This is where the notion of God’s supposed omniscience comes into play. An omniscient, all-powerful God as a being would appear to be culpable, for sure. We judge that if someone has sufficient information and capacity to reduce the potential for pain or loss of life in a situation, they are morally obligated to act. But to isolate a fawn in a forest fire is to ignore the rest of the information contributing to that situation - including decisions the fawn and its parents made prior to the incident, the events leading up to the fire, etc - most of which you may not be aware of. It’s also possible that the fawn’s mother had been recently hit by a car, or that the fire had been deliberately lit by an arsonist or a carelessly tossed cigarette. With this information, is God cruel or are we simply ignorant of our own capacity to minimise pain and suffering?

Why would an all good God have created an array of life forms that can only flourish at the expense of each other's suffering, instead of creating an array of life forms that live in perfect cooperative harmony, with no predation or parasitism, no aging, etc? — Pfhorrest

Because God’s omniscience is only possible, not actual. The life forms need to develop an awareness of each other in order to live in perfect cooperative harmony - or at least some of them would need to...

Let's say that a forest is on fire. In it is a fawn who, just like any other animal, lived according to Nature. This fawn had no escape from the fire, and was burned alive. It suffered, just like any other living entity suffers.

Does God's omniscience have any coherent logical explanation for this occurrence of gratuitous pain and suffering?

It seems to me that, with such a simple example one can demolish the omnibenevolence of God in one strike.

The problem here is that it becomes, quite honestly, too simple to deny God's grace with such an evidential claim.

What is your response to the burning fawn scenario with respect to God? — Wallows

Arriving late to the party...

I notice you’re assuming that the pain and suffering of the fawn is an ‘objective’ fact. To the fire, the fawn is fuel. To some trees in the forest, the fire is an opportunity to procreate.

What makes you think that what is ‘good’ according to you is the same as what is ‘good’ according to ‘God’? I think there is much in biblical writings alone to suggest that pain and suffering is NOT considered by ‘God’ to be inherently ‘bad’ or best avoided. Plus, the idea that ‘God’ attributes a value hierarchy to the universe, and places humans at the top, followed closely by cute, helpless deer, with plants and chemical processes far less valuable, sounds to me like human thought masquerading as ‘God’. It seems that you’re judging the ‘goodness of God’ by a limited perception of value structure.

Thanks for your valuable comments. Like you said, ignorance is a very important player in the field. Just think, if evolution is true then we began as ignorants, unaware of the concept of morality and lacking the capacity to process such abstractions in any meaningful way. Slowly, we began to understand, in step with our growing cerebral capabilities and having thus dispelled our ignorance to the best of our abilities, we gained an appreciation of the notion of morality. This seems to be an ongoing process as we have yet to completely comprehend what the nature of the good or the bad is, as amply demonstrated by many mutually inconsistent theories on the subject. — TheMadFool

Agreed. I thought A Seagull’s statement is apt here, too:

If there is no god there is no problem, at least not a philosophical one. — A Seagull

The concept of ‘God’ has been another key player here, providing a relational scope to this ignorance as we strive to overcome our fear of what we don’t yet understand. If there is no ‘God’ then we can still relate to the ‘unknown’ and strive to understand it - we’re just more likely to convince ourselves that any uncertain or ill-conceived relations with the universe don’t matter.

If there IS a ‘God’ (however we understand it), then we’re inspired to relate to these uncertain relations with confidence - but our ignorance comes from those who have attempted to ‘define’ or reduce this notion of ‘God’ to something they can share, and then lost sight of the irreducible relation to a more inclusive potential of humanity (and ultimately all possibility) that it points to.

The omni-benevolence of ‘God’, for me, is not so much that anything ‘evil’ is something other than ‘God’, but that our perception of something as ‘evil’ suggests a limited understanding of ‘God’. So ignorance lies not only with those who do ‘evil’, but with those who call it ‘evil’. That’s the challenge to our understanding of ‘God’, I think.

was thinking about that. So kind of you to bring it to my attention. It does seem that every don't can be rephrased as a do e.g. thou shalt not kill can be expressed with the equivalent thou shalt value life. The intriguing question is why were most of the 10 commandments expressed in the negative, "thou shalt not" rather than in the positive, "thou shalt"? A possible answer is that people were ignoring, most probably out of ignorance, the positive forms of the negative injunctions which had the undesirable effect of what were classified as immoral behavior being common practice. Thus the need to clearly spell out what not to do rather than what to do. For instance, to tell someone not to smoke makes sense only if that person had a smoking habit. Ergo, people were murdering, stealing and coveting like no one's business which translated into the don't, thou shalt not format of the 10 commandments.

It's a good thing you brought up the issue of ignorance and while I accept, given that morality needs an understanding of what has moral value, that ignorance has a role, it's neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for immorality; after all many immoral people have a very sound knowledge of ethics and yet choose to act in violation of moral principles and I haven't heard of people who're mentally challenged, the quintessentially ignorant person, being accused of immorality. — TheMadFool

Personally, I think the key here is potential. Humans evolved with the mental capacity to be aware of abstract concepts such as ‘value’ and ‘life’ - but no initial understanding or knowledge of them, and certainly no words for them (ie. ignorance). We needed to gradually develop an awareness and understanding of this ‘value of life’ in relation to observing others first, before we could apply it to our own behaviour, recognising a potential to interact in a way that values life. But you can’t just tell someone to ‘value life’ when they have no way to relate those concepts to observable behaviour. You have to build these concepts of ‘good’ behaviour out of randomness - show people their potential.

We do what we recognise as effective behaviour in others - that’s how we learn without language. The ‘morality’ of a person who is mentally challenged becomes the responsibility of those who model for them and demonstrate the value of ‘good’ behaviour, as with a child. As for those with a sound knowledge of ethics, it is their capacity to blatantly ignore, isolate or exclude information that they personally don’t value (such as predicting the potential pain of a fellow human being) that enables them to violate moral principles. These are, for me, the three ‘gates’ of the will that determine its freedom. Ignorance/awareness is just the start.

I believe perfection is attainable and there is nothing wrong with striving for it. This discussion shouldn't be really important cause we should not rely on other people's feedback and neither should they rely on ours. We know ourselves quite well. If someone wants to get the noble prize in physics then he better be at the top of his game, otherwise it would be a ridiculous goal. Perfection is actually quite visible in our world, the bridge that won't fall and the building which stands despite the earthquake are perfectly made. Moral perfection on the other hand is a different story... — Wittgenstein

I certainly agree that there is nothing wrong with striving for perfection, and that ‘perfectly achieved’ goals and aims are attainable, when considered within their limited context. A bridge that won’t fall or a building that succeeds in withstanding an earthquake can be considered ‘perfectly made’ for that limited purpose - but any claim that one has made a ‘perfect bridge’ or a ‘perfect building’ is false hubris, generally speaking. Being ‘at the top of one’s game’ sufficient for a Nobel prize in physics can be considered a ‘perfectly achieved’ goal within the context of current contenders, but it isn’t perfection, by any stretch.

I guess what I’m saying is that the concept of ‘perfection’ as you describe it is relative, not absolute. Which is fine - so long as you’re aware of the shortfall.

To begin with, I want bracket off all moral theories other than religious morality in this discussion. Within the realm of religious morality, it is an undeniable fact that goodness is rewarded and evil is punished and it is this that gives us a glimpse of how we've assessed our own nature: a tendency towards evil and a reluctance to be good. If we are good by nature, why would we need positive reinforcement? Had we not the tendency to be bad, why would we put in place deterrents? — TheMadFool

I wouldn’t say it was an ‘undeniable fact’ that any reward or punishment is carried out (by ‘God’) according to ‘goodness’ or ‘evil’, particularly within the realm of religious morality. It is a claim that’s often made in Christian morality (not so much in the OT, though), but it’s a deniable one, surely. Not to mention that it’s openly questioned by biblical writings such as Job and Ecclesiastes. Its uncertainty and deniability is why this kind of religious morality often struggles in modern thinking, but that’s not the point.

The unwritten implication of “or else...hell” was added to religious morality many centuries after the ten ‘commandments’ were written - the Decalogue itself refers to a set of principles expressed in the reduced format of behaviour guidelines in a bid to reduce the perceived potential for ‘evil’ within the community. A series of “or else” deterrents were added in the rest of Deuteronomy - which effectively reduced these recommendations even further to enforceable ‘commandments’ or ‘Law’ as we understand them. But any individual judgement, rewards or punishment pertaining to the Decalogue at this stage were imposed by the people/priests, not by ‘God’.

Given that what we describe as ‘evil’ is mostly ignorance, the idea that we seem more ‘evil’ by nature suggests to me only that we’re acting in ignorance of our potential. To increase a tendency towards ‘good’, we must increase awareness of our potential for ‘good’. The Decalogue refers to an awareness of human potential beyond murder, adultery, theft, deceit and jealousy (behaviour common to most social animals), and towards previously unfamiliar notions of love, loyalty, respect, humility, courage and patience. The idea behind preventing those ‘immoral’ actions we’re familiar with - yet know to be destructive long-term - is to challenge us to increase our awareness of what else we can do instead, without setting an upper limit to our potential.

Let’s say, for instance, that instead of the Decalogue as a set of DON’Ts, we were given a set of DO’s. Would that have increased our potential to interact with the world, or stifled it - given that most people at the time would not have understood what it even meant to act with courage, love or respect?

I think we often take for granted our capacity to understand these concepts of ‘goodness’ as beyond what was once a far more ignorant perception of potential in humanity. I think we have a tendency to be ignorant of our ultimate potential, which translates to an apparent tendency towards ‘evil’.

I don’t see any difference between possible and potential, but in any case unknown event or entity from the future holds no explanation about objects and their properties in the past and present time. — Zelebg

To the extent that the event or entity is unknown, of course it doesn’t. But we aren’t entirely ignorant of potential or possible events in the future, just as we aren’t ignorant of events in the past. I have sufficient information, for instance, to confidently say that my front door ‘is green’, even though right now it’s dark outside and difficult to see, and I’m not looking at it. I’m not referring to an actual property of the door, but to my perception of the potential for this particular ‘object’ to be observed as ‘green’ under most relevant conditions. It’s the information from past and present events that hold an explanation about the uncertain potential or possibility of future or past events, not the other way around.

Even possible future events have to have their potential embedded in the physical state of matter of the past. You can not define anything, not even a potential, with absolutely nothing. Future possibility has to lie in something, and there is no other something but physical and material something, because everything else is nothing by definition. — Zelebg

The apparent ‘embedding’ of potential is just how you conceptualise it. The potential of any future event is a subjective relation of the information you have about events in the past and present to the uncertainty of that event occurring in the future. You cannot define a potential because that would necessarily reduce this potential information to only what is observable/measurable, which would be an inaccurate representation of that potential, in much the same way as a photograph is an inaccurate representation of life.

I would also argue that potential can exist with nothing more than the possibility of existence, and that the entire physical and material universe manifests ultimately from the relation of differentiated potential. But that may be another discussion.

It is an excuse for mediocrity. Most of us want to feel that everyone is like us. In reality, there are countless people in every field that are light years ahead of us and no matter how much we strive, we cannot reach their level. I don't even know if it is worth doing something unless you aim for perfection. — Wittgenstein

Yes, it can be used as an excuse for mediocrity, but recognising that nobody IS perfect can also be helpful as we aim for the possibility of perfection. The ultimate value of an effort is not always known at the outset, and sometimes a reminder that even those who are light years ahead of us are not perfect either is enough incentive to keep striving, and neither settle for mediocrity nor give up, nor for that matter, expect to achieve perfection alone. Each of us is imperfect in our own way - in my view it’s our collaboration that approaches perfection, not our individual efforts.

Fear is extremely important to my point because hell/jail/the gallows serve as threats to prevent people from doing what they want as opposed to heaven, tax breaks, recognition, respect, all rewards to encourage people to do what they don't want. Since it doesn't make sense for god to incentivize something we already want to do and threaten us with dire consequences for something we don't want to do, the concepts of hell and heaven, reward and punishment testify to what our nature is: we're disinclined to do good, thus the reward and we're innately evil, thus the punishment. — TheMadFool

‘Want’ is an unhelpful way to describe it, IMO, because what we want right now doesn’t always correspond to what we want a year from now, or over the course of our lifetime, or what we want for our children or our community. This is the main reason for morality and incentives: that we recognise what we do as connected not just to the present, but also to past and future interactions with the world and with other moral agents. The capacity we have to anticipate or dread, to value the potential of events, actions and experiences in relation to time and in relation to the experiences of others, enables us to predict long-term collaborative benefits in a behaviour whose immediate or short-term value to the individual is negative, for instance, and to then incentivise that behaviour so that it appears more valuable to those whose awareness, connection and collaboration with the world may be more limited. Or alternatively, to predict long-term or widespread harm in a behaviour whose immediate or short-term value to the individual is high, and then to attach a threat to that behaviour so that it is devalued sufficient to deter those whose focus is more limited.

So I don’t think it’s a matter of being ‘disinclined to do good’ or being ‘innately evil’, but rather that these values of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are at the very least relative to the variable 4D relations between events.

Yeah, well, I did ask for that didn’t I? It’s obviously still raw for you.

Did you just want validation here, or a philosophical discussion? It wasn’t clear, sorry. This is a philosophical forum.

I agree with you that it’s inappropriate and insensitive to dismiss someone’s expression of negative experiences with phrases such as ‘nobody’s perfect’. I agree with you that when someone is clearly looking for validation, then the appropriate response would be to give it as required. I would have thought that was obvious, and doesn’t require discussion. I doubt you’ll have any argument on these points.

But your claim was also that the phrase was “useless and irrelevant to ANY discussion” - I disagree with this. There are situations where it could be useful, and where it might also be a response (albeit insensitive) by someone with no direct malice towards you, and no intention to dismiss your feelings. Sometimes their insensitivity with a phrase such as ‘nobody’s perfect’ is a clear warning that they have their own shit going on, and just as you would want them to be sensitive to your shit, you can also be sensitive to theirs, and their emotional capacity to deal with your shit at the time - which has priority only for you.

My intention was not to offend you further, but to contribute to a discussion.

At the risk of playing the devil’s advocate...

If everyone else is dutifully offering the ‘validation’ so eagerly sought, then sometimes a little perspective may be called for. The question is why it upsets us so much to hear this consideration of the offender as a human being, as deserving of compassion as we are.

Would it make you feel better if the response was to denigrate this family member, label them as ‘evil’ and resolve hatred towards them?

When you express an interpersonal interaction, you cannot always expect people to immediately relate to your position. In this case, they may relate initially to the family member instead, and may be responding defensively to your pain and anger for their own reasons that have nothing to do with you. Your taking offence at a lack of validation is based on an assumption that yours is the only position in the encounter worth consideration: either in the situation of abuse or in the telling of it to others. Sorry to burst your bubble.

If I respond instead by telling you how my family member physically abused me, is it because I’m expressing compassion for your situation, or because I want to position myself as more deserving of validation than you are? Being conscious of our limited perspective can be a lesson in humility.

What is happiness? — TheMadFool

The way I see it, ‘happiness’ refers to an interoception of positive affect in the organism. What we do with that and how we conceptualise these instances in our subjective experience is continually up for debate. We like to think of ourselves as an essence that doesn’t change over time, and we prefer ‘happy’ as a more permanent state for that essence, so we attempt to attribute this positive affect to more observable/measurable concepts or ‘causes’, like wealth and property, friendships and family, work-life or pleasure-pain balance. ‘Happiness’ may be relative to all of these (or none), depending on the unique combination of value systems we subscribe to. The problem is that nothing is permanent, and so we spend all our energy trying to conceptualise a sustained state of ‘perfection’ that doesn’t correspond to reality.

What do we fear? Do we fear to be unhappy, whatever that means? In my book, we seem to fear suffering, itself and its cause, generally identified as evil. If so, do you think fear is conducive to free will? Can we fear and still be free? What about the problem of evil? If our motivation is based entirely on fear of evil (suffering & its cause) does it make sense to claim god allows evil so that we may be free? — TheMadFool

I think our fear of ‘suffering’ or ‘being unhappy’ and therefore associating these instances with ‘evil’ is where we create a distorted perspective of reality. Like ‘happiness’, we also attempt to attribute the negative affect from ‘suffering’ (pain, humility, loss or lack) to more observable/measurable concepts or ‘causes’ that we are motivated to ignore, isolate or exclude from our conceptualisation of the world. When we label something as ‘evil’, we’re no longer trying to increase awareness, connection or collaboration with it, are we? In fact, we even value an ignorance of evil as innocence, or a hatred of evil as righteousness. This is fear talking.

Experiences of pain, humility, loss and lack point to the reality of our relationship with the universe in contrast with our conceptualised predictions. If we fear these experiences, then we are motivated to ignore reality in favour of retaining the concepts we construct, and we limit our capacity to interact with the world. This where our will is free only insofar as we are aware of our capacity to interact with whatever it is that we fear.

In my view, we cannot exclude ‘evil’ from our understanding of ‘God’ and still claim to be free. But I think we also need to recognise that ‘evil’ is a category of our own making, not of ‘God’’s. We won’t eliminate ‘evil’ from reality by excluding it from our concepts. I think the hardest part about understanding ‘evil’ is realising that the only ‘evil’ in the world from ‘God’’s point of view is in humanity’s fearful interaction with the world.

This is very enlightened. I just prefer the theistic bias as opposed to the atheistic or other bias. I think there is something in us that continues on after our bodies die. I have no proof of this in a scientific sense, but what would that proof even look like? I have my reasons which are sufficient for me. — Noah Te Stroete

That’s fair enough - I have a problem with ignorance in preferring either bias, but otherwise I think it’s possible for a both/and approach to this question of existence. I guess it depends on what you mean by ‘something in us’. Personally, I think it’s our perceived potentiality that continues on in the minds of those with whom we’ve connected in life, which enables ‘who we are’ to interact with the world after our bodies die. So, for me, it’s not something in us, but the immaterial and irreducible qualities of our relations with others that we should be maximising while we’re alive.

:up:

Could you be more specific with what part you don't agree? Because to me it seems like we're mostly in agreement.

Maybe I would add that fear and happiness are closely related, in the sense that fear almost always directly interferes without our desire to be happy. — Tzeentch

It certainly seems that way, doesn’t it? But our desire to always ‘be happy’ (whatever we understand that to be at the time) invariably results in ignorance - we suppress, isolate or exclude information, and even feel justified to attack or hate potential interaction with the world that threatens our ‘happiness’. When we do this, we perpetuate and contribute to evil, but because we have excluded this information, we ignorantly believe ourselves to ‘be happy’. It is our fear of not being ‘happy’, and our relentless pursuit of this temporary interoception of positive affect at all cost, that most contributes to evil.

Increasing awareness, connection and collaboration enables us to face specific fears, but not to eliminate fear altogether. Joy comes and goes - we will always find it where we are so long as we’re not afraid of experiencing pain, humility, loss or lack. But ‘happiness’ is not a permanent state to strive for - there is no permanent state except non-existence, and success in achieving a state of ‘happiness’ entails an ignorance of the inevitability of change.

That is true. Yet the possibility of future existence is not equivalent to existence unless it actualizes. After his physical death Bill does not exist as a physical entity, even if the possibility of future physical existence is real. He may have a non-physical existence but not a physical existence. — CommonSense

The possibility of ‘future physical existence’ for Bill is dependent upon a sufficient consensus of perceived potential for ‘reincarnation’ (ie. future physical existence) by those who continue to interact with his potential existence. They simply relate his potential to another physical existence, in the same way that we recognise the child we knew years ago in the physical existence of the adult.

When someone named Bill is born he exists. If there is no non-physical life after physical death, after the physical death of Bill he does not exist. After his physical death those who are alive can search the entire physical universe, but they will never find Bill. Bill has no present and no future, simply because Bill does not exist. What is usually missed is that in addition to no future, Bill has no past because Bill does not exist. — CommonSense

Bill exists potentially, before his physical life, during and after it, so long as those who interacted with Bill during his physical life can still relate to his existence. Bill therefore has a potential past existence, as well as a potential present existence (insofar as those who remember him continue to interact with their relation to him), and a possible future existence - even though he no longer has an actual or physical existence.

Physical is what is observable / measurable in principle, in a sense that if ghost or souls can be observed / measured they too would automatically then fall into physical category. Existing and being physical / material is one and same thing, i.e. there is no such thing as immaterial existence by definition. I consider chemistry / biology to be physical / material assuming we can at least in principle or even just indirectly measure or observe everything about it. — Zelebg

This is where you and I differ, because I consider potential and possible existence as two types of ‘immaterial’ existence, and what is observable/measurable as a reduction of these aspects of reality. The uncertainty or relativity with which we must consider this ‘immaterial’ existence, and its irreducibility to the apparent certainty or ‘objectivity’ of the physical/material does not preclude its existence. I’m not saying that ghosts or souls are real as such, but that the subjective experiences expressed as ‘ghost’ or ‘soul’ have a potential or at least possible existence that matters to a comprehensive understanding of reality.

Can you say is color a property of something, is it a substance of some kind, maybe entity or object, or whatever the most general category colors belong to? — Zelebg

I get that you like to still think of the world as consisting of ‘things’, objects, entities or substances, but in my opinion this is a limited - and limiting - perspective of reality. I’m under the impression that most physicists now can at least appreciate the world as consisting of interrelated events, rather than ‘objects in time’ (which is necessarily relative).

Colour can be considered a property of a certain event, in which a moving ‘object’ in spacetime (event) is observed/measured by a moving ‘object’ in spacetime (event). It is neither a property of the observed object nor of the observer - rather a property of the immaterial or potential relation between them, relative to the changing properties of the two relating ‘events’.

I believe humans are motivated primarily by a desire to be happy. When a person's actions do not contribute to or even undermine their happiness, I consider those actions ignorant. — Tzeentch

Well, I don’t agree with this part. We think we want to be happy, but for the most part we don’t even know what it IS to be happy. I think our strongest motivation is fear, but I believe there is an underlying impetus to increase awareness, connection and collaboration, which can operate at its fullest capacity in humanity - although it rarely does.

Ignorance, for me, is refraining from interaction with new information as it becomes available, on the grounds that we might not like what we find. The various ways that we do that, we refer to as ‘evil’: hatred, oppression, violence, destruction, aggression, force, abuse, etc.

So if evil is in our nature and we have "tendencies" then doesn't that mean, since "tendencies" sounds like we have no or little control in the matter, we lack free will? If we don't have free will and can't make choices against our "tendencies" which you say can be both good and bad, then how does that weigh in on the free will defense argument for the problem of evil? We're simply being led by the nose by our "tendencies". — TheMadFool

Tendency is not a lack of control - I’d say it’s more like a movement that occurs when we let go of the steering wheel, so to speak. I think like most animals, we’re genetically disposed to a certain level of awareness, connection and collaboration without conscious effort. Beyond that, we have a capacity to increase our awareness, but a tendency towards fear: avoiding interaction with any new information that may cause experiences of pain, humility, loss or lack.

Evil recognizes no boundaries in my humble opinion: parents have slain children so we can forget about strangers shooting you in a random act of violence. Evil is not restricted to only the ignorant.

If you don't mind me asking, what do you think comes naturally to us, good or evil or both, and why?

Thinking a bit more on the issue, I feel we need free will in order to own up to our actions whatever they may be.

If we're good by nature - programmed to be so - then the notion of a good person is at stake: we can't be good if we didn't choose to be good. Free will would be necessary in such cases but then we'd have to deal with problematic people who choose evil. Such a world would have good and evil

On the other hand if we're programmed to be evil then giving us free will makes sense only as a means to allow us some goodness i.e. the choice then is not to do evil and do good. Such a world would have good and evil.

The difference between the two worlds is that in one free will enables goodness and in the other it enables evil.

Perhaps our natural tendencies are balanced between good and evil and we're morally ambiguous creatures. In such a world free will would certainly assure responsibility for both our good deeds and bad deeds. Such a world would have good and evil.

Which of the three possible moral worlds do we live in? — TheMadFool

I think we are morally ambiguous, and that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are relative. We are therefore responsible for both our good and bad deeds, but I don’t think they’re ever evenly balanced - depending on the personal value system you subscribe to.

I agree with @Tzeentch in that most of what we refer to as ‘evil’ comes down to ignorance: a stranger shooting you in a ‘random act of violence’ is expressing a generalised hate and is ignorant in their actions of your individual humanity. A parent slaying their child is often expressing self-hatred and is ignorant in their actions of the potential of that child as a uniquely developing human being.

I think for the most part we are ignorantly contributing to evil in pursuit of a limited perception of potential in the world - although we are comparatively more aware, connected and collaborative than most other animals. It is vastly more common in the universe to ignore, isolate and exclude what we don’t understand, but in our best interests long term and collectively speaking to instead increase awareness, connection and collaboration whenever those opportunities arise and despite the risks.

As long as we determine and initiate our actions according to what is most frequent, most popular, and most convenient, then we will continue to tend towards ‘evil’ - ignoring, isolating and excluding opportunities to relate to the universe, until there is nothing left for us but fear and non-existence. I think it’s our capacity to determine and initiate our own actions that is free insofar as we are aware of the choices available and our collaborative potential to make them.

Those who continue to do ‘evil’ despite their apparent awareness of alternative actions are arguably deliberate in their ignorance, isolation or exclusion. The most frequent, most popular and most convenient methods of preventing or stopping this ‘evil’ is by employing exclusion, isolation or ignorance ourselves. But despite the best efforts of law enforcement and war, evil cannot cancel itself out. The most effective solution IMHO, long term and collectively speaking, is to strive to increase awareness, connection and collaboration whenever the opportunity arises and despite the risk. Easier said than done, but still...

Well, for there to be a relation there has to be things, here mind and its environment, that can be related. In other words, we must know and define mind before we can study its relations. — TheMadFool

Well, no. For there to be a relation in the mind there has to be concepts, and the definition of those concepts is an expression of the extent to which they are related to other concepts, or to which their potential is limited.

But why limit the scope of our understanding of ‘mind’ so narrowly, given that any understanding of it must be inclusive of ALL thoughts and concepts? Is it for the sake of certainty? Mind refers to a relative structure of relations, so any definition or ‘knowledge’ of mind is a reduction of information relative to the experience of the subject expressing the definition. We understand that there are other minds of enormous diversity, whose structural relations we cannot predict with certainty.

If you’re aiming for a comprehensive understanding of the universe that lends itself to panpsychism, then I think it’s necessary to do away with the notions of dualism and the universe consisting of ‘things’. Otherwise I think you’ll keep running into walls...

And if so, would it have inhibitions, like humans? In social psychology, groups tend to act more strongly with fewer inhibitions than individuals. When a large group of cells get together all hell could break loose. As in the growth and spread of cancer.
— jgill

Right on the money I believe. I know my opinion doesn't count as truth but have you noticed that, according to Agent Smith of Matrix fame, the way humanity has populated the earth looks very much like a virus spreading across the planet - consuming everything in its path as it were. So, though I believe in the idea of a super-organism I'm not yet convinced that humanity's head or heart is in the right place, at least not yet. — TheMadFool

Super-organisms have much greater perceived potential and courage to act than individuals. That can be a good or a bad thing, depending on what potential is perceived or communicated. So far, I think we’ve been largely limiting our perceived potential to the Darwinian system of survival, domination and proliferation. I wonder what it would take to change that to increasing awareness, connection and collaboration, and how that would impact on our relation with the planet.

The same applies to the body and its cells which form a kind of mini eco-system kept stable by means of the immune system that detects and eliminates rogue cells but every now and then some of them break through our best defenses and become cancer. — TheMadFool

Cancer cells are a demonstration of the capacity of all our cells to act alternative to expectations, to change and perform a different role. It shouldn’t be a surprise that, as an organism, we’re becoming more inclusive of ‘rogue cells’ and ‘counter-cultural’ movements within the system.

To me mind is the sum total of all thoughts - the immaterial or so it seems and the apparent physical origin of mental activity (thoughts) the brain - the material. As far as the OP is concerned, both the immaterial - the plans and policies of a community as a super-organism correspond to thoughts and the people, as physical bodies can be taken as the brain. There is a remarkable similarity between societies and individual humans; for instance take racism in which we have one community against another and the actions and reactions of these communities is comprehensible in terms of individual human feelings of hate, outrage, respect, contempt, etc.

I don't know how this pattern manifests at the cellular level but if a cell eats, grows, shits, senses, then maybe, just maybe, it can think too. — TheMadFool

I don’t believe these ‘material/immaterial’ and ‘physical/mental’ dichotomies are helpful in understanding ‘mind’. The plans and policies of a community can be understood as material/immaterial as well as physical/mental, and so can the people.

‘Mind’ can be understood more broadly as a structure of relations between one system (the organism, inclusive of the brain) and another (its environment) that work to dissolve or maintain the distinction. A single cell structure, for instance, consists of chemical and spatial relations that collaboratively maintain a relative equilibrium between relation with, and distinction from, what lies beyond the structure. Relating too much with the environment risks the existing relational structure itself, but relating too little limits the potential energy available to the system. ‘Mind’ in this primitive sense refers to the extent to which the cell’s relational structure also relates beyond the system, as well as the extent to which it limits the system’s potential energy or capacity.

I was hoping you to say something about why those differences / changes / relations, whatever they physically are, why they feel like they feel, where do “warm / cold”, “sweet / sour”, “bright / dark” come from, are they arbitrary, why “bright / dark“ instead of “abc / xyz”, something along those lines. — Zelebg

When you say ‘physically’, do you mean in relation to what is observable/measurable or in relation to physics/chemistry/biology?

What you’re referring to is how we conceptualise each interoception of affect in the body: ‘sweet/sour’ refers to a relative distinction in patterns of chemical relations between the different types of ‘taste’ receptors on the tongue. The words are how we have come to signify these distinctions within the linguistic value system we share, in relation to the instances of relative sensory input (including internal affect) that share each distinction. So the sight of a fruit that is ‘green’ in colour is most likely understood to produce a ‘sour’ taste and possibly relates to predictions of negative affect from the digestive system - so we understand that eating it would likely be ‘bad’. But we also understand that not all green fruit is ‘sour’ or ‘bad’ to eat, so other distinctions such as skin texture, shape and size contribute to the value system by which we understand the relation of ‘colour’ to ‘fruit’ to the distinction of ‘sweet/sour’, before taste receptors are even required.

Words that signify the distinction between a ‘melon’, ‘kiwifruit’ or ‘mango’ that is ‘green’, for instance, enable us to share far more complex information with present sensory input than one taste-receptor’s chemical response to a ‘sweet/sour’ taste. But conversely, describing a ‘fruit’ as ‘sour’ offers little information unless one is aware of the relative sensory information: if it’s ‘round/oblong’, ‘small/large’, the colour and texture of its skin and flesh, etc. All of these are also linguistic values that relate to relative distinctions in the chemical and/or spatio-temporal relations of visual and tactile sensory systems.

These complex 5D value relations, as irreducible relational structures of the mind, enable us to make predictions about potential interactions in the world, and also to make predictions about the probability of those potential interactions beyond the value of present sensory input. This enables us to determine and initiate actions that not only anticipate these predictions, but can also interact with their potential or probability of occurring. In this way, we have the capacity to patiently value a green fruit for its potential to develop into a sweet, reddened mango with time, or to sprinkle sugar on a lime to benefit from its nutrients without being deterred by the sour taste - understanding that time will not improve the colour or taste values of the green ‘lime’, nor will a sprinkling of sugar improve the nutritional value of a green ‘mango’. We learn these value systems and structures by developing relations with other experiencing subjects with whom our past interactions enable a prediction of value to the system (we don’t care how much you know until we know how much you care).

I think it is safe to say we arrived at an equilibrium of sorts, where there might be a balance between the need to change and the need to say the same. This could be considered a planting-of-the-seed toward heathier growth viz a type of self Love or self esteem, not sure. But it seems that learning to Love oneself, in a healthy way, as well as Loving others for who they are, indeed has its virtues. Ideally, I would like to think that through Love itself, awareness of both good and bad can be discovered and/or uncovered. — 3017amen

I think there is a kind of dynamic balance to be achieved, recognising that there is always change as we interact with the world, but that increasing awareness, connection and collaboration enables us to negotiate that change. We don’t always get to choose what stays the same - it’s all very well saying to Einstein ‘don’t change’, but he’s dead. The idea is that in striving to understand all the little contributions that helped to nurture and realise his potential along the way, as uncertain as it may have been at the time, we learn to be aware of, connect to and collaborate with this uncertain potential in ourselves and others, and to correct instances where that potential has been ignored, isolated or excluded. We can look at Hitler’s potential in the same way - recognising that ignoring, isolating or excluding the uncertain potential in ourselves and in current or future leaders to orchestrate mass genocide, for instance, would be as detrimental to our future as ignoring, isolating and excluding an equally uncertain potential for impressive collaborative achievements. That your potential and mine is essentially as adaptable as Hitler, Mozart or Einstein is something I think we struggle to get our heads around.

I think an important part of Love is coming to terms with the uncertainty of potential as an irreducible aspect of reality. When we focus on trying to reduce that uncertainty - rather than on our capacity to increase awareness, connection and collaboration with the irreducibility of that uncertainty - then we ignore, isolate and exclude information, limiting our capacity to Love: to relate without fear to the possibilities (‘good’ or ‘bad’) in ourselves, each other and the universe.

Fractals are objects that are self-similar which I understand as the preservation of a pattern at different levels of organization.

We have minds and the superorganism that we're part of - communities, cities, states, nations - behave remarkably like individuals.

If this pattern - having a mind - is part of the fractal structure then organs, cells, atoms, electrons, quarks, in fact everything, should have a mind.

Panpsychism, both in upwards, towards greater complexity and downwards, towards greater simplicity.

I think the universe is thinking about the quark and the quark about the universe. — TheMadFool

How would you define ‘mind’?

The capacity to relate - to be aware, to connect and collaborate - seems to me to be essential to all matter, including cells, atoms, electrons and quarks, all the way up to communities, cities, states and nations.

The ‘fractal’ structure, in my view, is one that preserves a pattern of this developing capacity at each level of dimensional relation: from a relation between fields manifesting quantum particles, which distinguish and relate to manifest atomic structures, which distinguish and relate to manifest chemical structures, which distinguish and relate to manifest reactions or cellular structures, which distinguish and relate to manifest organisms or event structures, which distinguish and relate to manifest associations or value structures, which distinguish and relate to manifest meaning.

Sounds good, but I don't know what to do with it. — Zelebg

What is it you were expecting to be able do with it?

It's too general, can you narrow down "development" thing - developed via what elements, what value / property is that preduction error relative to? — Zelebg

All of them. We have the capacity to distinguish between relative colour values by comparing instances of certain chemical, spatial and temporal relations of sensory input in relation to chemical changes in light cone receptors. But we’re motivated to learn through interaction with other humans to associate those patterns with certain sounds/words and other conceptual relations, and then refine these distinctions in how we predict interactions with the world.

A toddler who points to a rose and says ‘red’ will experience prediction error when his mother’s response is ‘no, that’s pink’. His brain, at this stage relatively flexible, will include this instance of perceived colour value (including other relative sensory input) in his developing conceptualisation of ‘pink’, and exclude it from his conceptualisation of ‘red’, while also relating ‘pink’ to his conceptualisation of ‘rose’. An adult who encounters the same situation is less likely to respond to this prediction error by changing his prediction, and will filter or ignore the new information so his experience is consistent with his prediction. Of course, he could also realise his own error when he removes his sunglasses (and perhaps even confirm or test this new prediction by replacing and removing his sunglasses several times, just to be sure). In this way, we learn to more accurately recognise colours in dim or unusual lighting, at different times of the day, underwater, from a distance, etc.

This is an important topic in the Love equation. Personally, I know of too many people divorcing over homeostasis (both men/women who can't and won't change, fortunately/unfortunately). Indeed it is true, there are many things we can correct by first having awareness of a [the] problem, then by overcoming our fears to break through and effect change.

But, you seem to be denying inborn gifts, natural talents and even to some degree wants and needs. We have both core or intrinsic ways of Being ( that you seem to be denying), as well as discoverable truth's about the world and ourselves in it, through volition. Life then, is indeed both a discovery and uncovery of Being, from which choice plays an obvious role. But, not a mutually exclusive role, as you are suggesting.

Accordingly, we are back to trying to explain why there are only a few Einstein's, Picasso's, Hitler's, etc. in this world. Are they that way exclusively by choice? Using your theory, they chose to be that. Your theory also suggests all people can be musical geniuses. — 3017amen

I don’t see it as denying them - I’m arguing against the consistency we tend to attribute to them. The idea that ‘this is who I am in my core, and you have to accept that’ is a misunderstanding that leads to us limiting our capacity to relate to the world. I’m not saying that’s wrong - only that it is a limitation we’re not always aware of. When we are aware of it, then we still don’t have to change, but it then becomes a choice that we make.

Life, as I see it, is increasing awareness of, connection to and collaboration with potential - our capacity to relate to the world. ‘Being’ is a limited, temporal awareness of that capacity. Beyond this concept of ‘Being’ is an awareness of infinite potential, and our capacity to relate to it. It’s beyond the awareness of most people, for whom Being is a universal condition. But this awareness that we have vastly different ways of Being broadens our capacity not just to discover or uncover our own unique way of Being, but to uncover the relational structure between various ways of Being. In doing so, we recognise that what we once saw as an intrinsic way of Being is in fact relative to our unique relations with the world, all the way to the quantum level - to how we perceive or relate to potential.

I’m certainly not saying that Einstein, Picasso or Hitler were aware of the choices they made at all - only that the intrinsic capacity was there to choose otherwise, despite their level of awareness. I don’t believe Hitler was ‘born’ to commit mass genocide or even to go into politics, but neither do I believe his path (or Einstein’s) was entirely nurture. I just don’t think our potential is as limited as we seem to think. It was a particular awareness of their potential and the choices available that ‘made’ them who they were.

Yes, I do believe that all humans can potentially become musical geniuses - but by the time most of us are aware of what it would take for us in particular to become a musical genius, our focus is elsewhere. Do you think if Mozart wasn’t thoroughly immersed in music and nurtured in his interest and ability from such a young age (when children can still firmly believe in their capacity to become a dog, for instance) he would have become the composer he was? I’m not saying he wouldn’t have yearned to make music, but if he’d never heard music until his twenties, I’m not sure he would have automatically given up a banking career, for instance, to become a composer.

But that’s all speculation. That there is more uncertainty, potential or relativity in our way of Being than we’re often aware of is my point - not that we have no particular way of Being.

But back to Love: if someone is driven-in their professional life-by their desire to practice science, and their love partner abhors such activity, why should they change if they have the potential for great discoveries ( the theory of relativity, as Einstein did)? — 3017amen

It’s a two way street: love is not an individual action, but more of a dance. It’s about making allowances that maximise a collaborative potential, not about changing to please someone. To love someone and abhor what is their passion doesn’t make sense to me. To abhor the practise of science is to limit your perception of human potential - to relate to someone only within that limitation is a reduction of Love, and to accept that limited relation as Love without challenging it is a choice you make to limit your potential as well as theirs.

I’ll offer another personal example: I am currently working part time and raising two teens, while I am driven to practice philosophy: a motivation that I have been aware of only in the last few years, although I realise it has always been there. But in a marriage with children at school, it’s not only about my potential. Love is sometimes recognising that what I want will take time, money and attention away right now from maximising our collaborative potential in the long run, and that it can wait a few years. I’m not changing who I am, and I’m not sacrificing my potential - my family are aware that a career change is on the cards, and are gradually adjusting and contributing to enabling this eventual opportunity for me as much as they appreciate my contributions to their potential.

I think it’s when we don’t share and acknowledge the allowances we make for each other that we lose sight of the capacity for Love in a relationship that must constantly change and evolve relative to each other. When we assume a level of consistency in a relationship, we limit its potential.

Maybe what I'm going for is: All is an infinite, complete whole; All acts as an infinite complete, whole, thus acting as one. So it is in our nature, our inherent calling to act as a whole both internally within ourselves and externally with the world. — DanielP

This is the confusion we need to be aware of, though - because ‘acting as a whole’ externally (interacting) with the world is very different to ‘acting as a whole’ internally within ourselves. Where they differ, we experience prediction error or ‘suffering’: pain, humility and loss/lack. It is how we reconcile these situations that makes the difference.

That is true, many people have a narrow world perspective. But that doesn't mean it is the true world perspective. — DanielP

Agreed - but it’s true for them, and who are we to tell them it isn’t?

Sounds true enough. Why five dimensions? — Zelebg

‘Colour value’ refers to differences in frequency (hue) and amplitude (intensity/brightness) of quantum wave functions (photons) moving at the speed of light on a particular trajectory between a fixed point and a fixed observer or measuring apparatus.

When we experience colour, however, we’re continually making adjustments to the relative four-dimensional information between the observer and the point of observation - so this value is always relative to 4D relativity.

I can’t disagree, and you definitely said something, but it feels kind of empty. Can you elaborate on ‘reduction of information’ thing with some examples if possible? — Zelebg

The ‘reduction of information’ just refers to the zeroing of variables as described above. We can calculate these colour values only in relation to fixed 4D relations between two points.

Is that different than how colors exist in the brain / mind? — Zelebg

In the computer program, the information for colour value is relative to fixed relations between the screen and viewer, and has been reduced to a set of numerical values and then reduced again to binary relations.

Colour exists potentially in the brain as conceptual or five-dimensional relations, developed through prediction error to be relatively accurate in relation to our experiences so far. The information we refer to as ‘colour’ is irreducible in this sense.

Professionally: How do you reconcile the person born to be a doctor, musician, lawyer, etc. from some other profession?

Interpersonally: How do you reconcile the person who is intrinsically affectionate, and searches for a partner who is also affectionate, rather than someone who is not affectionate?

In both cases, mitigating fears for the sake of changing would not be germane or appropriate, unless they themselves want change. In other words, using your explanation, change for the sake of change is virtuous or good? — 3017amen

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. Both the examples you give seem too simplified or conceptual to answer. I don’t believe anyone is necessarily ‘born’ for a particular career - there are a lot more factors that go into choosing a profession than genetics, and I think looking for dichotomous traits such as affectionate/not affectionate isn’t an effective way to determine a life partner.

We like to think there is an actual essence to who we are - something intrinsically unique about us that nothing in the world can change or take away, that no amount of terrible parenting or circumstances in life can spoil. I think in psychology there is often a sense that we can get back to that essence and start over, rather than recognise these ‘good’ and ‘bad’ influences as intrinsic to who we are at any one time. I tend more towards a process philosophy: that the structured relations between the unique circumstances of our birth, each of our past interactions with the world and our current experience are continually negotiable, but that ignoring, isolating or excluding them from our perception of reality limits our potential in the world.

I don’t think change for the sake of change is virtuous, but that the world effectively consists of change, or potential for change, depending on how you look at it.

Ugghhh. Let me try. Imagine a metaphor with a computer, it is running a program that paints the whole screen yellow. We turn off the monitor and ask does color yellow exist in the computer?

That is how I understand the question, and my answer is no. Colors do not really exist in the brain where light waves are encoded from sensory input into a signal or whatever electrochemical type of abstract information. So color signals to become real or to exist per se as colors, an agent or “self” is necessary to decode, understand or perceive those signals as colors, while in reality colors might as well look like a monochrome waterfall of Matrix symbols.

One more thing. If you say colors do actually exist, then I think you in fact must be proposing a separate realm of existence for their being, some kind of parallel dimension, otherwise I don’t see how color properties can be justified as ‘actual’ rather than ‘virtual/abstract’. — Zelebg

Colours are five-dimensional conceptual structures of chemical and energy relations. They exist potentially as values - any reference to the ‘actuality’ of a colour is a reduction of information using particular value structures: light wave frequencies, chemical ‘signatures’, computer ‘code’, etc.

So in the above metaphor, I would say that the colour yellow exists potentially in the program, not actually in the computer.

I understand where you’re coming from, but I stand by my position. I think there is more to motivation and emotion than these basic theories suggest, and that Feldman-Barrett’s theory of constructed emotions is worth reading on this topic. I also see plenty of experiences in the world to demonstrate that, despite our apparent ‘needs’ and motivations, humans have the capacity to reject homeostasis and safety, to freely risk harm or seek life-threatening situations in pursuit of information, awareness, connection, love and collaborative achievement.

Maslow’s pyramid, for instance, is a perception of value structure, not a set of ‘natural’ limitations. The more we understand how we construct this perception, how we evaluate experiences that don’t fit the pyramid, as well as alternative ways to structure these values that motivate similar behaviour, the better positioned we are to critically evaluate the accuracy of the conceptual structure itself. I have argued elsewhere on this forum that Maslow’s theory is individualistic and built on an assumption of abundance. An isolated community suffering from widespread famine, for instance, whose individuals subscribe to Maslow’s theory will destroy itself. It is only when they invert the pyramid - when they’re prepared to risk what little security and comfort they have in increasing awareness, connection and collaboration beyond the reach of famine that they gain the capacity to escape it (although those who give assistance too often take self-actualisation credit for the result).

I think these clues you mention point out not that there is ‘wholeness’ existing in the observable universe but that there isn’t - that wholeness is ONLY achievable AS this possible imagination of an infinite All.
— Possibility

I agree that it isn't possible to prove that everything/universe/cosmos is absolutely whole. It really is a matter of "faith." In the back of my mind, I feel that there is something unreasonable with a universe that excludes anything from existing. I believe anything - to the point of infinity - exists in the universe. But on top of that, I think that belief implies that our reason for existence is to be whole. The infinite oneness/wholeness that we are a part of has an automatic switch for everything in it to strive towards being whole. If the world is truly one/whole/infinite, we would sense that oneness/wholeness/infinite nature, and at the same time strive to whole and one with things around us. And being whole has a relative perspective for different parts of All, I think different parts of the All - like you are me - have different objectives when striving for wholeness. For one, it might be adventure in nature, or good relationships with people, or lots of money etc. But I think in general striving towards being whole means having an infinite or oneness connection with the world around you. Infinite as in unbounded - you have merged, passed the boundary, and become one with many things that you care about in the world around you. By that I mean, you have a oneness with your passions, whether it be studying something, friendships, career, etc. The more you become one with the world around you (and the world in you, let's face it, our minds are in essence a complex world), the more whole you are. — DanielP

I don’t think it makes sense to induce that ‘our reason for existence is to be whole’ from the belief that ‘anything exists in the universe’. You’re referring to ‘wholeness’ as if this universal ‘wholeness’ and my ‘being whole’ were the same thing.

The problem with your focus on ‘wholeness’ is these different objectives, and how they relate to each other. The implication is that we each strive for our own sense of ‘wholeness’, as if my objective would have nothing whatsoever to do with yours. But this isn’t the case, because this ‘wholeness’ we are striving for is inclusive not just of the things that you care about, but also the things that you don’t care about, and the things that I care about as well as those I don’t. So if I’m striving for adventure in nature and you’re striving for lots of money, then how do you and I relate to each other in achieving a ‘wholeness’ inclusive of each other and our ‘different’ objectives?

What most commonly occurs is that we strive to ignore, isolate and exclude those with ‘different objectives’ so that we can achieve this sense of ‘being whole’. In this way, we limit the ‘whole’ that we then strive towards, so that it appears more achievable.

This is just one type of info. This is not a complete definition of information. Moreover, nothing new about this idea. Seems to be just one type of information where there are cross-correlations or causal dependencies between things. — Sir Philo Sophia

Actually, you will find that all ‘types’ of information work along the same lines - this is only the most drastically simplified illustration of the process. Information in ‘reality’ is a diverse and multi-dimensional complexity of cross-correlations, manifestation and integration, but the same basic principles apply.

Here is an example where uncertainty might increase: assume you believed all apples were red and anything spherical and greenish is a Lime. You go to bite what you thought was a greenish lime, but you discover and confirm it was a green apple. This new info that apples can be other colors now makes you uncertain as to whether other properties you believed apples have are true, and you even question what does it mean to be an apple, let alone the red type. Not a great example, but I hope you get the gist of what I mean that new info on something can also make you more uncertain (lest confident or trusting) in your truth or knowledge of that something.

Again, I'm still looking for your explanation of how you believe "Information is the resolution of uncertainty" — Sir Philo Sophia

I think I see where the confusion is now: by ‘uncertainty’, I don’t mean an awareness of your own uncertainty, but an objective state of uncertainty or missing information in the system.

This objective uncertainty with respect to what apples can be was always there - you were just unaware of it. The new info that apples can be other colours makes you aware of this uncertainty as to what it means to be an apple. This is called prediction error, and is felt as pain, humility and loss/lack. As a child (or an adult in prehistoric times) we would experience this with almost every interaction with the world around us as we developed and adjusted our conceptual structures, but as adults these days we try to avoid it.

The thing about becoming aware of this uncertainty is that it creates an opportunity (one that wasn’t previously available) to then resolve this uncertainty by interacting with this green apple, and possibly inspiring you to be more curious about what apples can be, and seek out further information. Of course, you could just throw it away as a ‘false lime’ or a ‘false apple’, and ignore, isolate or exclude this new information in order to resolve any threat of uncertainty with regard to limes and apples.