Comments

  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    Hmm. Sure about that?dimosthenis9

    No, I’m not - so I’m happy to stand corrected on that one...

    Don't know as to be honest what BGE stands for. But I couldn't agree more with the above statement.dimosthenis9

    Nietzsche’s ‘Beyond Good and Evil’
  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    He didn’t see the individual as atomic, like a billiard ball, but as variable in relation to other ‘individuals’.
    — Possibility

    I don't think we disagree on that. We think different in the way Nietzsche suggested of what individuals should do in relation to each other. But it's fine.I might be wrong.
    dimosthenis9

    This is what interests me about your position. You recognise that we are variable entities in relation to others, yet your view is that we should act as if this were not the case - as if we can (and should direct our efforts to) somehow consolidate our value structure, our intentions, against the influence of others. This sense of individualism, based on essentialism, is common in US attitudes towards individual freedom - but it seems to me to undermine, even guard against, what Nietzsche saw as our future potential (beyond the ‘ubermensch’). I do think that, in many respects, Nietzsche’s vision in TSZ went beyond the doors to thinking that he opened - which most rational thinkers (understandably) aren’t game to venture through. The ‘ubermensch’ was a bridge, not a destination: to an awareness of relational structure where language ultimately fails. A logical approach ignores this aspect of experience as irrelevant; Ross’s approach is more affected by it, but with an unpleasant valence.

    From the introduction to BGE:

    If one wants to account for the appeal of his writings, it is perhaps advisable not to look too closely at his actual teachings, but to think of his texts as a kind of mental tonic designed to encourage his readers to continue to confront their doubts and suspicions about the well-foundedness of many of their most fundamental ideas about themselves and their world. This would suggest that Nietzsche’s works may still be captivating because they confront a concern that is not restricted to modern times. They address our uncomfortable feeling that our awareness of ourselves and of the world depends on conceptions that we ultimately do not understand. We conceive of ourselves as subjects trying to live a decent life, guided in our doings by aims that ht the normal expectations of our social and cultural environment; we believe certain things to be true beyond any doubt, and we hold others and ourselves to many moral obligations. Although all this is constitutive of a normal way of life, we have only a vague idea of why we have to deal with things in this way; we do not really know what in the end justifies these practices. In questioning not the normality but the objectivity or truth of such a normal world view, Nietzsche’s writings can have the effect of making us feel less worried about our inability to account for some of our central convictions in an “absolute” way. It is up to each of us to decide whether to be grateful for this reminder or to loathe it. — Rolf-Peter Horstmann

    Well you know how thoughts are. And I get tons of them. Sometimes you question yourself and your attitude also. So thoughts like that have crossed my mind also. But yes, I don't ask for anything that I m not willing to give. I try to take over my own personal responsibility for my actions and beliefs fully! That's why I hate when I see people complaining all the time. And that's why I see compassion and pity in many cases not helpful at all for the one who suffers.dimosthenis9

    Yes - there is comfort in a reciprocal expectation to human relations. It brings a sense of order and predictability to social interactions. But your frustration at those who don’t behave this way reveals an awareness that this is not a true account of reality - it’s an expectation we’re imposing on the world. If reciprocity was a truth, if there really was a clear delineation between me/mine and you/yours, then everyone would interact the way you say they should. But your perspective of any social exchange (in terms of where ‘I’ ends and ‘other’ begins) is just that: your perspective - bolstered in many cases by social structures that entitle you by law, custom or tradition.

    As an example, the culture of Aboriginal people in Australia doesn’t have the same relational structure between individuals, property and objects that we do in Western culture. This difference criminalises the actions of Aboriginal people in incidents of theft, trespassing, property damage, assault and abuse based on intentionality that seems ‘normal’ to us. But this relational structure is not something we can just impose on others as a majority rule, or because our way is better, more civilised/moral, more logical, etc.

    What you may see as ‘complaining’ is expressing a difference of perspective. That your perspective may be ‘normal’ - aligned with a shared/imposed sense of social structure - protects it against the potential variability in your own perspective by relating to this different perspective as ‘other’, and by extension varying your relation to ‘society’. If, as Nietzsche says, there is no society but what we construct through our relations with others, and if we too are variable entities in relation to others, then I wonder: on what grounds do you seek to consolidate your current perspective against this potential variability?

    It seems you’re still looking at individuals as consolidated identities, as if my suffering is mine from birth
    — Possibility

    But it is mine from birth indeed! Despite it might got created in relation with others in society, at the very end I m the only one who will deal with it. Even if all people in the world feeling compassion for me, wouldn't change anything
    dimosthenis9

    ARE you really the only one, though? If you’re suffering, do you think it doesn’t alter your relations with those around you? Do you think your loved ones or co-workers are not impacted by your suffering? They may not understand why, or they might attribute any outbursts to some other cause, but I assure you that you are not the only one who will ‘deal’ with it. People around you adjust to your suffering every day - you just don’t notice, because you’re not recognising these adjustments as ‘compassion’, and you’re not recognising your variability - when you ‘hate’ what others do - as ‘suffering’. From your perspective, the adjustments they make are simply part of who they are, not how they vary in relation to how you vary in relation to them. That you don’t notice can be testament to their compassion, not necessarily to your self-reliance.
  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    But that's exactly what the Buddha said 2000 years before Nietzsche, namely that "suffering is your teacher" . It increases your compassion and understanding. Nietzsche is not original in this idea. I think Nietzsche has in mind Utilitarianism which he hated, which argues that pleasure is the highest good and that pain is to be avoided. I would agree with Nietzsche , Utilitarianism which has been hugely influential is a life denying or running alway from reality . For me Stoicism and Buddhism has far more wisdom. Perhaps Nietzsche doesn't realize that Stoicism has had a huge influence on western thought and culture , not only Christianity. Up until the early 20th century latin and Greek authors were a major part of education, like Cicero, Seneca, and others. Shakespeare was immersed in the classical writers of antiquity and hence the philosophy of Stoicism. Nietzsche seems to think that it's only Christianity that has dominated western thought. But Christianity was imbued with ancient philosophy.Ross Campbell

    You seem intent on discrediting Nietzsche - you’re throwing everything at him, but I have to say that not much is sticking to his philosophical approach, as such. You’re arguing that Nietzsche ‘hated’ or ‘despised’ one thing or another, that he was selective, unoriginal, didn’t realise, etc. That’s highly likely - he’s a human being, and never claimed to be more than that. Your personal preference for Stoicism or Buddhism is fine - but it seems as if you feel threatened by the very fact that someone like Nietzsche - whose thinking you cannot dismiss - questions aspects of these foundations you hold so dear. You appear unwilling to accept it, as if to say “No, there must be something flawed in his attitude”. It’s a natural response when the foundations your thinking depends on are suitably shaken.

    But Nietzsche wasn’t looking for a ready-made philosophy to hang his hat on. He witnessed the fall of Christianity as a foundation for society and philosophical thought, and saw that relying on a tradition of thinking, with all of its assumptions, is a dangerous dependency. There is wisdom in Christianity as well as in Stoicism and Buddhism, sure, but there is no foundation as solid as we once assumed, and we cannot simply discard wisdom that fails to align with a certain tradition. For Nietzsche, this realisation meant that even Buddhism or Stoicism, whose approach to suffering would have made more sense to him than that of Christianity, offered no alternative solid ground on which to set his philosophy.

    For Nietzsche, it was no longer about a foundation, but a process. If we were to rebuild our social structures, then simply shifting them to another supposed foundation was not a solution. What rang true in all of these traditions was our relation to each other as human beings. How one human being changed in relation to another. It was a solid place to start.
  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    Imo Nietzsche focused on person as individual and what he personally can do, and not at all in relation to all ready collapsed (in his eyes) societies.dimosthenis9

    You’re missing a key point - I’m not saying in relation to society (I agree that he saw them as already collapsed), but in relation to other people. He didn’t see the individual as atomic, like a billiard ball, but as variable in relation to other ‘individuals’.

    But I think Nietzsche's road to that society transformation comes mostly from personal change and spiritual development. Through that progression you change societies also. You can't change anything to a society if you don't change individuals first. If individuals aren't ready for change, you will never achieve anything.dimosthenis9

    I agree - but the focus shouldn’t be on changing society, but on changing ourselves by how we interact. What makes anyone think they can single-handedly change society? When we perceive ourselves and others as socially variable, and recognise that we construct and reconstruct our notion of ‘society’ through how we relate to each other, then potentially no change to society is beyond us.

    I m not fan at all of that assumptions. I never say that someone deserves suffering (even if some do indeed).dimosthenis9

    That was only one example, and I certainly am not suggesting that you do say it, although your comment implies that you at least think or feel it. I notice you do identify pity - an awareness that John suffers in a way that you do not - without recognising any value, significance or potential in your relation to John more than identifying a difference. It’s a start.

    But that's the thing. Since I don't show much compassion to others (except close friends and family). I expect NO compassion from others either, when I need it most. It's only fair for me. I wouldn't complain about others at all! It's just fine.dimosthenis9

    So why do you feel guilty? I see no issues with this. There are plenty of people who manage fine at this level of awareness, connection and collaboration. That I respond to an awareness of potential and you don’t makes little difference to my capacity to act with compassion towards you, if and when I see that you need it. This is where the religious definition of compassion fails. If I expect you or anyone else to edify my ‘compassionate’ action, then I reveal my intentions as lacking genuine compassion. I’m not doing it to share in an experience of suffering, then, but to relieve my own.

    I agree on that one, but my aspect is that Nietzsche meant people to embrace their own suffering as a part of human nature as you mention . And deal with that.Not so much about helping others with their suffering.dimosthenis9

    I think this is an important point to make: I’m not talking about helping others with their suffering, but sharing in the suffering that makes us human - rather than considering ourselves above that kind of suffering, owing to our particular social position or value. It seems you’re still looking at individuals as consolidated identities, as if my suffering is mine from birth. I don’t agree with this, and I don’t think Nietzsche does either, although a relevant quote escapes me at this late hour.
  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    It's also for some readers (me, anyway), a turgid, often dull book that makes you think of shopping lists, washing the car, clipping the dog's fur - anything to get away from a needy, monomaniacal polemicist. I can take Human, All Too Human and the Gay Science, but not TSZ.Tom Storm

    Yes - it’s not for everyone, and I don’t find it an enjoyable read, myself. Too much like wading through the King James Bible. I prefer ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ - I only mentioned TSZ because it was the source of Ross’s quote.
  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    That's the thing that makes me more skeptical about. It's just potential. When you don't suffer yourself it's always potential...dimosthenis9

    Potential is just the beginning, and it’s a necessary aspect of an intentional act. Perceiving our own potential to suffer, and being aware of the difference between the suffering of another and our present condition, is where compassion starts. How we respond to that awareness is the difference between acts of pity and compassion. To pity is to feel the difference and find ways to justify it, based on social structures or assumptions (‘I/they probably deserve it’). To act with compassion is to feel this difference and find ways that our present condition affords us to share in their suffering - increasing awareness, connection and collaboration.

    Nietzsche believes we act with compassion only because we believe that suffering is bad, and he argues that suffering should be recognised instead as part of the human condition. Experiencing suffering is beneficial, even necessary to some extent in order to live. In my view, this perspective renders an act of compassion ‘bad’ (potentially harmful) only when defined by an intention to eliminate suffering.

    When the notion of ‘compassion’ is returned to its original etymology (‘suffering with’), and understood in terms of a relation between social entities, then we recognise it as motivated by a natural desire to connect and collaborate, to form social structures. We act with compassion because we acknowledge that suffering, as part of the human condition, is to be shared rather than avoided or eliminated.
  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    I wonder would Nietzsche agree with you that he is not presenting a philosophy. He's doing more than just raise questions or proposing new viewpoints. He's propounding various notions such as the Will to power and the Superman. Is he trying to use rational argument and logic or emotional reasoning. Here's a quote from Nietzsche.
    "Is it not better to fall into the hands of a murderer, than into the dreams of a lustful woman?”
    Now that looks like emotional reasoning to me. His clever use of aphorisms and metaphors makes him , in my opinion , no more than a poet, rather than a serious philosopher. Its provocative and sensational nature also makes it very attractive , hence his cult like status amongst many people. Other existentialists like Sartre conveyed their philosophy in novels and plays, but Sartre in Being and Nothingness uses proper rational argument. But I don't find that anywhere in Nietzsche's thought. Kierkegaard employs irony and narrative techniques in his works, but unlike Nietzsche they are deliberately ambiguous. It's clear what his ideas are. Tell me another famous thinker apart from Nietzsche whose philosophy is full of ambiguity.
    Ross Campbell

    Thus Spake Zarathustra is a piece of fiction: a passionate rendering of his philosophical approach, and isn’t written as rational argument, but as expression. As Zarathustra says, “They understand me not. I am not the mouth for these ears.” Its fictional, poetic style is a way around the difficulties of language in relation to logic, and for all its ambiguity, his writing continues to resonate with modern readers in a way that only fiction or religious texts can. It’s an imperfect approach, and unsatisfying for those looking for definitive answers with which to prop up failing social structures. He suggests a way forward, but it isn’t what we’re looking for.

    Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching is another example of philosophical writing whose deliberate ambiguity enables it to stand the test of time. It is in relating to the text in a particular way that we approach an understanding of the reality it presents. In my view, the TTC does a better job of this as a timeless work, mainly because the Chinese language lends itself to a more logical structure of ideas. It is our English translations that muddy the waters, allowing embedded affect to confuse the structure.

    The idea that philosophy must consist of ‘proper rational argument’ is a common myopia that I find surprising, given the ambiguity of human experience. I recognise the merits of logic, but it only gets us so far. Language, at the end of the day, is an abstraction.
  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    I'm afraid I have to disagree that "Jesus and Nietzsche were not against the current culture. Both figures were very radical and they attacked many aspects of their current culture and Jesus was executed for doing so. Nietzsche , and I think I'm correct in this-. attacked the whole edifice and tradition of western thought going back to Socrates. How radical can you get.Ross Campbell

    Both demonstrated that aspects of the current culture had already lost its authority to some extent, and pointed to a new way of framing experience that addressed these inaccuracies. This was interpreted as an attack against the culture as a whole.

    I'm not anti Nietzsche, I think he was a profound and original thinker and there is a grain of truth in his view of Christianity as a slave morality. But I think his psychological analysis is flawed in certain aspects. He, unlike modern psychologists or even thinkers like Aristotle, did not base his ideas on observation and empirical research, hard evidence. Anyone , in my opinion, who is arguing for or proposing philosophical or psychological ideas without basing them on empirical evidence is not doing proper philosophy. That's why some academics don't regard Nietzsche as a philosopher but as a writer, more akin to a novelist or poet who can express him/herself in an ambiguous way. But in that case then what they're saying is just their opinion. Philosophy in my opinion should not be conducted in this way. It should be based on reasoned argument, evidence and observation.Ross Campbell

    Fair enough - in my opinion, it often takes someone like Nietzsche to speculate and raise the questions that direct philosophical attention and effort towards new, clearer and more accurate reasoning, evidence and observations. In that sense I consider Nietzsche to present a philosophical approach or process, rather than a philosophy as such. Rephrasing key questions or proposing new, radical viewpoints to stimulate philosophical thought in new directions is still part of doing philosophy, even if it isn’t a philosophy.
  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    So you think Nietzsche thought compassion and other virtues, since they can be defined specifically, then shouldn't society follow them? And are useless?dimosthenis9

    Nietzsche thought his contemporary social structures - which defined compassion and other virtues by the Christian notion of self-denial - had lost their foundations, and with them any authority to impose such definitions without question. Without these foundations, ‘compassion’ as defined is no virtue in itself, but a contradiction: an expression of pity toward the suffering of others that merely exploits this negative experience to enhance one’s own social value. His criticism is not against genuine compassion as we understand it now, separate from religious context, but against this Christian notion of pity, derived from the word ‘piety’, which is an obedience that maintains current social structures.

    But is that ever possible? Can you actually suffer when you aren't at the same position with the other person? I hear many people say these things and I wonder if I am a bastard that I could never realize that or feel it? For me always seemed to me that other's problem (except family and close friends of course) is just a bite on your dinner plate. The problem comes as thought, you stop a bit, think "oh what a pity. Poor John", and just go on your bite thinking of your own "problems".
    If you do that I really wish I was like you. And that's not ironically at all. I feel guilty sometimes for not feeling like that.
    dimosthenis9

    Can you imagine yourself in the same position as the other person? I’m not talking about actual, but potential suffering - a simulation of affect. Our dependence on social structures allows us to draw the line at family and close friends, but it’s an arbitrary line that enables us to consolidate a personal and a public concept of ‘self’ in relation to potential, value and significance. Outside of these family and close friends, your sense of value appears to be determined externally by social and cultural structures. In Nietzsche’s experience, those structures included relations to family and close friends - and they were crumbling, insufficient to account for the reality of social experience. He explored this idea of the individual as a socially variable entity in relation to others, rather than an object in relation to society.

    If you look closely at your relations with family and close friends, you may recognise this experience of compassion - of being able to experience potential suffering by imagining yourself in the same position, with a more intimate understanding of this ‘other’ position than you would have with someone outside of your inner circle of ‘me and mine’. The idea of compassion I’m talking about can be accomplished by striving to widen your circle, one person at a time. By questioning your own justification for identifying someone as ‘other’. But eventually this awareness challenges your consolidation of ‘self’ as something you control in relation to ‘society’. Then Nietzsche’s idea - that there is no objective social reality, only socially variable entities who continually construct and reconstruct both ‘self’ and ‘society’ in how they relate to each other at the level of potential, value and significance - starts to make more sense.

    Don’t get me wrong - I’m not always compassionate or kind. It takes time, effort and attention to include others in our circle, and very often we come up short, especially when we’re focused primarily on ourselves. I don’t think it helps us to feel guilty, though. It helps me to remember that the more I am aware, connected and collaborating with others, the greater my capacity to be more aware, connected and collaborative with others, etc. The more we ignore, isolate and exclude, the less opportunities for others to be compassionate and kind to us when we most need it.
  • What is 'evil', and does it exist objectively? The metaphysics of good and evil.
    The one writer I’ve found who seems to share my view of blame is George Kelly.

    Here’s my summary of Kelly’s position on blame:
    Joshs

    Thanks for the link! Kelly’s personal construct theory aligns well with my current philosophy, and your article on hostility is really interesting - particularly with respect to understanding (and ‘preventing’) domestic abuse.

    For me the key to the concept of blame is a belief in the
    arbitrariness , capriciousness and fickleness of the qualitative variations in shifts of perspective.
    Joshs

    This makes sense to me from a psychology perspective. It seems to me there’s an expectation of suffering - momentary experiences of humility, pain and lack or loss from prediction error - that goes with this awareness of indeterminacy. It can be disorienting in a broader sense, though - a kind of existential free-fall, especially in relation to the qualitative variability of quantum physics. As a philosopher (and this may be off-topic, sorry) I’m curious as to the influence this arbitrariness may have on how you would frame reality in any ‘objective’ sense.
  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    Its not so much a question that I misunderstand Nietzsche. I have read leading scholars on Nietzsche who argue that Nietzsche despised compassion and kindness. I think Nietzsche misunderstood Aristotle's Ethics which is not confined to certain social structures and is not eternal, fixed or based on belief in God . Aristotle keeps religion out of his philosophy. Nietzsche was not particularly interested in social issues, he dismissed these in a naive manner as part of a herd mentality. Human beings cannot completely rise above their group or tribe as Nietzsche proposed because we are hardwied to cooperate with one another and follow a common set of values. We don't have absolute freedom as the existentialists thought. In constructing our value systems we have to take into account the society in which we live , our CURRENT social structures , that doesn't mean that we shouldn't work to change them or that we blindly accept all the structures. Jesus was actually a counter cultural figure. He treated women as equals, attacked the hypocrisy of the current religion which used to stone women for adultery.Ross Campbell

    It’s not a question of whether you misunderstood Nietzsche - you seem to have a negative attitude towards Nietzsche based only on other people’s writings about him, rather than what he actually wrote himself. But I do think that many leading scholars on Nietzsche did misunderstand his writings, mainly by trying to define terms he left deliberately ambiguous. I’m just suggesting that reading Nietzsche’s own writings with an open mind (if you can) might give you a slightly different perspective of his approach.

    Social issues are described based on fixed social structures. Nietzsche’s focus was on what relations between social entities look like when you take the structures away. He proposed that we are not ‘hardwired’ to follow an externally imposed set of values, but to relate as social entities in constructing, testing and revising systems and patterns of cooperation. His approach was to look at the relations between people as social entities - rather than the relation between an individual and an imposed social structure - to see how we can develop a more accurate social reality, as these imposed structures are exposed for their hypocrisy and insufficiency.

    Jesus was interpreted as counter-cultural, as was Nietzsche. But neither of them were against the current culture as such - rather, they proposed a way for people to relate to each other, regardless of the current culture, which put them at odds in certain respects.
  • What is 'evil', and does it exist objectively? The metaphysics of good and evil.
    Tell me what distinctions you might make, if any , between evil and blame in general.
    I include within the boundaries of blame the following: all feelings and expressions of blame aimed at another (or oneself in self-anger). These include: irritation, annoyance, disapproval, condemnation, feeling insulted, taking umbrage, resentment, exasperation, impatience, hatred, ire, outrage, contempt, righteous indignation, ‘adaptive' anger, perceiving the other as deliberately thoughtless, lazy, culpable, perverse, inconsiderate, disrespectful, disgraceful, greedy, evil, sinful, criminal.
    Joshs

    The way I see it, ‘evil’ is an arbitrarily set limit, at and beyond which any possibility of intentional relation is denied. I hadn’t really considered the term ‘blame’ as the relational quality here - I agree that it describes a moral self-justification to ignore, isolate or exclude relations by attributing unpleasant affect externally as malicious intent.

    My argument is that the concept of evil. particularly in its theological guises, is a more foundationalisr version of blame ,but all of the varieties I mentioned above share central structure features with evil. I’m aware of only one writer who seems to support my view of blame as a failure of understanding. Every other philosophy I know of is essentially a philosophy of blame i. that it relies on a notion of capricious and arbitrariness at the core of human intent. This takes a wide variety of forms, ranging from concepts of social influence on the individual ( Marx, Foucault, etc) to internal sources of bias and influence such as drives and emotions.Joshs

    I have also struggled to find others who see this failure of understanding as a key to human morality. Which writer are you referring to who supports this view?

    My initial thought is that it’s a focus on individualism and/or essentialism that seems to support these philosophies of blame. The ambiguity in language regarding the identity of a disembodied perspective (‘view from nowhere’) conceals a highly variable, qualitative aspect of ‘self/not-self’ which seems to effortlessly shift perspective between interacting systems at the level of intentionality. Does that make any sense?
  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    I am just saying that if you want to give people reasons for acting kind and with compassion you can give them plenty of reasonable reasons for that. Not that you will achieve everyone to act like this, but for me it would convince many more people to act like that even if they don't feel like doing it. For sure more than now, that we try to convince them with religious myths and idealistic fairytale.

    How many times, for example, you acted with kindness even if you weren't feeling to do so, just because you realized that it is the best way for what you wanted to achieve?Well I will speak for myself, I have done it plenty of times. You find it hypocritical? Well yes, for sure it is! But this kind of necessary hypocrisy, is much more useful if you wanna live among others in organized societies and not on your own like monk. And for sure it brings less mess than the hypocrisy from those who blame others for not following their path.
    dimosthenis9

    I’m curious as to how you might articulate these ‘reasonable reasons’ so that more people will act with kindness. The issue I have is that acting in a way that is best for what I want to achieve is not what I would call ‘kindness’. I think this is a misunderstanding of what ‘kindness’ means. Being able to justify your actions purely in terms of it bringing benefit to someone else is not kindness, and arguably just as hypocritical as being motivated to act solely by the prospect of bringing benefit to yourself. It’s not a case of either/or, but both/and.

    It’s possible to interpret these values as limited only by our capacity or willingness to relate to others, regardless of how we define the ‘self’. In this sense, Nietzsche’s approach is relational.
    — Possibility

    I'm not sure I got your point totally here. If you could explain it a little more.
    dimosthenis9

    I’ll try. You make the argument that every act is selfish, but I don’t think this is always judged ‘at the very bottom’. I think we focus on different aspects or definitions of ‘self’ to find that advantage. Is it a ‘selfish act’ to eat that last helping now, to maintain my long-term health, to discard food I don’t need, or to be potentially valued for my generosity? These acts are not all ‘selfish’ in the same way, and each one also denies aspects of the ‘self’ at some level. So to say that one ‘should only save his own self’ is a misunderstanding of the various ways that we define and transcend this ‘self’. To try and describe compassion or kindness in terms of ‘self’ is problematic.

    Nietzsche criticises the religious definitions of compassion and kindness as acts of self-denial, arguing that they are also self-serving at a socio-cultural level. This is not to dismiss them as merely ‘selfish’ acts, but to suggest a broader way to view compassion and kindness in terms of a relational act between social entities. According to Nietzsche, there is no ‘society’ or morality that can define compassion in relation to which all individuals determine or judge themselves and each other.

    Compassion (‘suffering with’) is the relation between two people when one of them experiences suffering - it has nothing to do with how society defines a person or act, but with how one social entity perceives their relation to another. Regardless of my social position, I am compassionate when I relate to another as if their suffering was as much my concern as theirs. And I am kind when I relate to another as if their joy was as much mine as theirs.

    Genuine compassion transcends common definitions of ‘self’ and ‘society’ without denying them, recognising their high degree of variability. It is an awareness of our capacity to alleviate the suffering of others without destroying either ourselves or society in the process. We live so far within our limitations - each of us can afford to suffer far more than we allow ourselves, and can achieve far more than we expect of ourselves, especially when we connect and collaborate with others.
  • Working Women Paradox
    Mainstream feminism conveniently forgets about the realities of socio-economic class, and tries to blame on gender issues things that actually have to do with socio-economic class.baker

    Socio-economic disparity compounds gender disparity - it doesn’t render it a non-issue. I’m aware that the choices available to me in terms of work flexibility are not available to everyone - that’s the point. It’s when they’re not available that women are discriminated against. That doesn’t make this a ‘natural’ condition of socio-economic class, though. It makes it a gender issue.

    For an employer, it makes sense to hire someone for whom there is reason to believe will consistently be available for work. Having to hire and train new people and substitutes is time-consuming and expensive, so employers avoid it as much as possible.baker

    Sure, but an employer may also avoid paying people what their work is worth, or regularly, if they can get away with it. And they’ll avoid paying taxes or super as much as possible, too. All of this needs to go into the contract in order to ensure fairness. Acknowledging that all employees may have parenting commitments, regardless of gender, and stipulating the conditions for taking parental leave, needs to be included as part of that fairness - if we value the role of parenting, as a society.

    I’m not saying it’d be an easy change, and I understand that some job structures don’t lend themselves immediately to the unpredictable nature of parental leave. But until such time as it is no longer assumed in any industry that only women take parental leave, then this disparity remains a gender issue, not a socio-economic one.
  • What is 'evil', and does it exist objectively? The metaphysics of good and evil.
    Hitler was trying to create a master race and trying to get rid of people who he saw as not being pure.Jack Cummins

    To be honest, I don’t think it was all Hitler, it’s just easier to blame (purge) the leader. His ‘leadership’ was symptomatic of much of the thinking in Europe and the sentiment in Germany at the time. He was handed so much power (in his own country and internationally) simply because he had the audacity to embody with confidence - masquerading as a promise of strength - what so many in his country were thinking in their weakest moments. Trump did the same, and they willingly handed him the keys. That tells me humanity has yet to learn from this mistake. Do we understand yet what it means to give full rein to our capacity for ignorance, isolation and exclusion?
  • What is 'evil', and does it exist objectively? The metaphysics of good and evil.
    I believe that the thinking of blame and evil always represent our failure to understand the other’s motives from their pint of view, and never represent an accurate depiction of the other’s thinking. Blame and evil aren’t explanations , they are nothing but question marks nWby on earth did the other want to do something so terrible? Why didn’t they feel strong enough guilt at the prospect of performing those actions so as to prevent them from going through with it? I know that I have been tempted by such things but I was able to resist. This question mark of blame flies by many different labels and accusations. For instance, when we call the other lazy, inconsiderate , selfish, recalcitrant , immoral, criminal.

    In sum, we blame the other for our failure to understand them. Perhaps this failure on our part is the true basis of ‘evil’ and all of the violence that emanates from it
    Joshs

    I’m curious as to why you thought this would not be a popular view. I agree wholeheartedly with this description, and I think you’re being quite cautious in how you express it. The way I see it, to describe something as ‘evil’ is to admit ignorance, isolation or exclusion of some aspect to our experience. It identifies a limitation in our understanding.

    Probably, my own way of thinking about evil is based on atrocities, such as the way people were killed by Nazis in concentration camps or, the potential destruction of humanity through warfare or ecological devastation. For me, they seem to be the most extreme forms of evil possible. But, obviously, events in our own lives do matter and I think that these include loss of others through death, homelessness, severe injuries or blindness, but of course, we may see so many aspects of experience as devastating.Jack Cummins

    But, I definitely believe that we need to face up to evil within ourselves, rather than blaming others, as Joshs points out. But, I am not thinking as that involving beating oneself up over things because that most certainly doesn't help at all. I believe that the best ideal is to be able to process the 'evil' aspects of life, in order to become the most positive we can be for our wellbeing and others.Jack Cummins

    I think it’s important for us to at least strive to understand how atrocities such as Nazi concentration camps can happen - it’s part of facing up to this aspect of our own capacity as human beings. When we isolate this kind of behaviour as ‘evil’ or ‘inhuman’, I think we fail to acknowledge the full scope of human potential. Watching Brexit and Trump from the outside demonstrated for me how this kind of ignorance still has the ability to blindside us to a certain extent.

    More personally, one of my most profound moments of self-reflection was the realisation that those aspects I hated or feared most in the world reflected what I had refused to accept about my own capacity...the remnants of catholic guilt.

    No wonder it didn't ring a bell. It's not one of the texts I'm familiar with.Ying

    Most English translations of Huainanzi are piecemeal, often only translating one chapter or even one story, so I’m not surprised. I vaguely recalled the story, but I had to search ‘Taoist farmer’ to find the original source.
  • What is 'evil', and does it exist objectively? The metaphysics of good and evil.
    The early realisation that negative events in my life - life in general - was not all about me, gave me a whole new perspective. 'Bad' things, as we know, happen to 'good' people and v.v.
    But not all is what it seems.
    There's a story out there - I think in taoism - which demonstrates this very well.
    Perhaps someone knows it and can share, I've forgotten
    Amity

    The story of the Taoist farmer I think you’re referring to is from the Huainanzi. It goes something like this:

    There was once a farmer in ancient China who owned a horse. “You are so lucky!” his neighbours told him, “to have a horse to pull the cart for you!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

    One day he didn’t latch the gate properly and the horse ran off. “Oh no! What a disaster!” his neighbours cried. “Such terrible misfortune!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

    A few days later the horse returned, bringing with it six wild horses. “How fantastic! You are so lucky,” his neighbours told him. “Now you are rich!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

    The following week the farmer’s son was breaking-in one of the wild horses when it kicked out and broke his leg. “Oh no!” the neighbours cried, “such bad luck, all over again!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

    The next day soldiers came and took away all the young men to fight in the war. The farmer’s son was left behind. “You are so lucky!” his neighbours cried. “Maybe,” the farmer replied.
  • The Mathematical/Physical Act-Concept Dichotomy
    To compute is to enact, which aims ultimately to destroy the concept as its opposite. In our day by day reality we polarize computation (act) and concept (theory), such that there are institutions devoted to research and those that create consumer products.kudos

    This is a linear perspective of what is a multi-dimensional relation, polarised as abstraction. Computation as act refers to minimal variability and Concept as theory to maximal variability - the qualitative limitations beyond which a ‘concept’ cannot be defined.

    In our day to day reality, the act of creating consumer products must be informed by the research, or risk creating a product without a consumer. In this sense, computation can refer to minimal adjustments only, through to redefining properties of the product or the consumer - ie. the range of qualitative variability in the concept/theory.

    Conversely, it is in the act of creating products intended for consumers that continually ‘enriches and supports’ theoretical research, as describes. To create a consumer product is not to destroy the research, but to challenge its accuracy.
  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    The issue with FN is he is subject to as much exegetical interpretation as any scripture.Tom Storm

    I agree. It’s the open-ended possibility in his approach that unsettles people. Interpretation gives definition where he didn’t feel the need to limit the meaning of our relation, let alone name it.
  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    I will disagree on this and say that there is indeed pure logical reason acting with these virtues when you live in a society. Being kind for example can make your life easier in many ways (saves you from conflicts, people like you more, yourself even grows bigger, in many practical situations you gain much more etc). The problem with these virtues is the way people react to them. When someone acts with compassion he should do it cause he truly feels it.Cause he just can't do otherwise! He needs to do that as to feel better.Even Nietzsche mentions "the one who gives is the one who gains the most"!

    Showing compassion as to point the finger to others and blame them for not acting like you (which is what most people do) is the most hypocritical thing.You shouldn't give a fuck about what others do or else is better not doing it at all. In general I mean that if someone acts with compassion he should do it only for selfish reasons as to feel better! And he has no right to blame others who don't! And if someone doesn't want to act with compassion it's also fine! He shouldn't be characterized as "bad" or "cruel" or whatever stupidity. The other side of the "compassion coin" isn't cruelty!

    For me at least, that's what Nietzsche was trying to do with all these virtues. Redefine them and break the chains that someone must do that and this as to be considered "good" person . I don't think Nietzsche imagined that there can be a world ever, actually, without all these virtues. Asking from people to act like angels on earth is beyond their powers and stupid. You can't ask from anyone to be hero and save the world. He should and can only save his own self! And through saving yourself you actually contribute more in saving the world also.
    dimosthenis9

    It isn’t purely logical to act only as you feel. That doesn’t make sense. It sounds like you’re trying to justify emotionally motivated behaviour as ‘logical’. The many exclamation marks in your writing suggest you are strongly affected by this discussion.

    But I agree that it isn’t possible to act with compassion unless we feel it. And I want to be clear that, like Nietzsche, I don’t agree with a static morality. But compassion is not a selfish act - it’s a relational one. What you’re describing in terms of putting on a display to elicit guilt in others is not compassion, and Jesus was very clear on this distinction (Christianity, not so much). Rather than directing anger at those ‘trying to make us feel guilty’, Nietzsche asks why we are moved to guilt by perceiving someone else’s actions. Why are we defining these actions as ‘compassion’, and therefore ‘good’?

    I agree that Nietzsche was trying to free our ideas of compassion, kindness, etc from their religious definitions. Our capacity for compassion or kindness isn’t limited by external judgements of ‘good and evil’ - whether according to Law, Christianity or a secular, individualist ‘society’. According to Nietzsche, there IS no society determining our judgements - we construct it in our perceived relation to others. And I don’t think he believed that ‘saving yourself’ was any more than an observation of where we might be motivated to draw the line on ‘self’. Nietzsche’s values of will to power (potential), affirmation (of life), art (beautification), and autonomy (self-determination) were often interpreted as selfish, with only truthfulness (honesty) as outwardly directed - but I think this is just another attempt to define limitations. It’s possible to interpret these values as limited only by our capacity or willingness to relate to others, regardless of how we define the ‘self’. In this sense, Nietzsche’s approach is relational.
  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    Most cultures and religions seem to end up with some variation of The Golden Rule it seems to me. It's sheer ubiquity suggests that self-interested altruism (if that's what it is) is hard wired. Did humans evolve to cooperate and coexist respectfully for the most part? Do we really need something as substantial and potentially transcendent as a 'foundation'.

    What seems radical about Christianity is the extension from self-interested altruism into loving your enemy and helping that most loathed of all people e.g., the Samaritan. This is much harder to justify than being 'good' in your own tribe. This seems to echo the Roman poet Terence - "Nothing that is human is alien to me." By extension, all humans are sacred.

    It's interesting that Nietzsche singled out this 'compassion' because is seems to me that Christianity did a bloody good job of eviscerating this from their practice all by themselves, even with a putative foundation.
    Tom Storm

    It isn’t so much the need for a substantial foundation as a structure, a methodology for navigating and understanding reality beyond our direct experiences.

    The Neo-Darwinian or humanist notion of self-interested altruism seems insufficient, to me. While humans clearly did evolve this capacity, any inclination to act on it cannot be assumed simply on account of being human. There is more to the Golden Rule than evolutionary capacity in terms of behaviour. There’s a shift in dimensional awareness that often gets overlooked in the search for a ‘foundation’. The Samaritan’s role in the parable is that of the helper, not the helped - Jesus’ challenge is to be aware of (and help realise) this neighbourly potential in those who you are supposedly justified to hate or exclude, and in doing so increase awareness of your own potential for compassion and kindness ‘beyond good and evil’ as defined by Law.

    Jesus set an example of extension beyond foundations that no longer prove adequate - the Law, traditions and rituals of Judaism - and recognising or aspiring instead to open-ended values such as potential, affirmation (of life), self-deprecating honesty, beautification and self-determination, focusing on ‘God’ as an infinite and personal relation. It was Paul who began to define limits for Christianity, where humanity ends and divinity begins, in much the same way as Moses defined limits and set the foundations for Hebrew culture - which Jesus would then transcend.

    I think Nietzsche describes a similar shift - beyond these insufficient doctrines, traditional meanings and interpretations that promote ignorance, isolation and exclusion in the name of Christianity. His criticism, like Jesus’ criticism of Jewish adherence to Law, was not to eviscerate the practice of compassion, but its limitations of meaning - increasing an awareness of values more in line with a broader understanding. Compassion can be viewed as an act of self-interest at minimum, or as a capacity to collaborate in the struggle to realise our shared potential (will to power).

    What’s more, compassion and kindness are not confined to human-to-human interactions. Once we reach the threshold of Terence’s statement, and look beyond it, we should realise that the line we draw here between ourselves and animals (even aliens) is experiential, too. By extension, all life is sacred...
  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    People need more logical reasons and things that are doable indeed. Not idealistic nonsense that people can never follow and achieve!dimosthenis9

    But that’s the issue - there IS no purely logical reason to act with compassion or kindness. To understand their significance, we need to recognise that as humans we don’t act on purely logical reasoning, but on affected methodologies. Hence the word ‘better’.

    You have to give people to realize that living in a society and act with compassion is for their very own benefit at the end!dimosthenis9

    And to do that, you need to recognise that your understanding of ‘their very own benefit’ is not only culturally assumed but limited by your own affected perspective. Which takes us back to Nietzsche.
  • Nietzsche's condemnation of the virtues of kindness, Pity and compassion
    I think virtue ethics based on Aristotles ethics is a far better system. However I do think that Nietzsche is mistaken in attacking the virtues of compassion and virtue. Modern psychology would disagree with Nietzsche on this point. It is well documented that when people show compassion and kindness (and pity is an emotion associated with these) they feel happier in themselves and indeed they spread happiness around them whereas the contrary is the case that when people behave selfisly , without compassion they feel unhappy and damage their relationships with others.
    The fundamental problem with Nietzsche , as with some other existentialists is that they are too individualistic in their thinking. Aristotle said, "Man is a social animal". It does not make sense to talk about morals and values, in relation to the individual as an separate entity but only in the context of him/her as a SOCIAL being, a part of a community. That's why Aristotle's ethics and his politics are one big interlinked system, not separated from one another. Compassion and kindness are fundamental ways in which humans interact positively with one another. Values and morals are not private issues , as Nietzsche would have it, merely of concern to the individual and chosen or discarded at the whim of an individual, they are social concerns , part of the fabric of society. Compassion is rather like a glue that bonds a community together and creates a more humane and happier society without which it would be a very cold place.
    Ross Campbell

    I think there is plenty of misunderstanding about Nietzsche’s writings, because he doesn’t approach ‘man is a social animal’ in the same way as Aristotle. He explores man in relation to man within a broader context that includes but is not confined to current social structures, morality, etc as if they were eternal, fixed. The point is to explore the variability of social structure, as determined by how we relate to each other. He follows from Schopenhauer, who effectively imagined a system in which individuals moved in relation to a fixed ‘fabric of society’, and explored the inaccuracies of this, like the movement of heavenly bodies in a geocentric system. Nietzsche then described the system as social entities responding in relation to each other. It’s similar to Rovelli’s restructuring of the universe as consisting of interrelated events, rather than objects moving in spacetime. There is no ‘society’ to which we all move in relation - rather we continually construct and reconstruct it in how we respond to each other.

    Pity comes from ‘piety’: a respect for and obedience to the natural order. Pity is a negative affect in our relation to the natural order of suffering in others, and compassion is the response. But Nietzsche challenges us to question why we are compelled to respond, and in what way. Out of guilt? Because suffering is inherently bad? It isn’t. When we remove the assumption that there is an eternal moral fabric - there is only socially potential entities in relation to each other - then we need to be honest about how we feel in perceiving our own potential to act (or not act) in relation to the suffering of others. Should we eliminate any suffering we see, or simply feel bad that our own suffering is less?

    Where our relation to the example of Jesus fails to move us to compassion today is why Nietzsche’s approach has merit. The differences between my own socio-cultural context and those of Jesus are vast. It wasn’t his relation to a sky father or his identity as heir to a kingdom that motivated him towards compassion - it was something else. Something his own cultural context proved insufficient to describe.

    Why are compassion and kindness understood as fundamentally ‘positive’ human interactions? It isn’t because God told us, or because it earns us ‘brownie points’, because we just agree, or because it’s what our laws are founded on, and it isn’t because they can eliminate suffering as an apparent ‘evil’. There’s no longer any foundation here. If we’re going to call on each other to act with compassion and kindness, then we need to give them better reasons than this. Part of this is understanding what we mean when we use these words, rather than assuming we’re talking about ‘something good’. We need to unpack the value we attribute here.
  • Depression and Individualism
    There is a connection between individualism and non-clinical depression. The idea that we’re supposed to be a self-sufficient or complete individual is a myth that motivates us away from increasing awareness, connection and collaboration.

    We look at other people who appear to ‘have it all together’, and fail to recognise that this perspective of our relation to them is the piece we assume our own lives must be missing by comparison - it is this relation they cannot perceive which renders them ‘complete’. There exists a part of ourselves we can never perceive, existing (at this level of awareness) in the opportunity we provide for others to relate to us, person-to-person.

    We spend so much of our modern lives perceiving other people from behind a screen - we relate to them individually, but they relate to us only collectively or impersonally, if at all. In discussions on this forum, for instance, I could assume you are a complete human being, but I’m unconvinced that you perceive me with the same completeness, because I know there’s so much information about me you cannot possibly know. Yet you’re doing the same thing with me that I am with you: completing your picture of me with cultural assumptions, most of them relatively, qualitatively, ideal - good/bad, dark/pale, big/small, loud/soft, etc - rather than accurate.

    The more complex we realise other people are, the less convinced we are that the idea others have of us is complete. And we recognise the inaccuracy in various cultural assumptions about ourselves. As an individual, to myself, I appear to be missing something that I can no longer trust cultural assumptions to fill in, while you appear complete, whole. To you, however, I appear as whole - consolidated with the help of cultural assumptions - while you perceive yourself as incomplete.

    There things make us feel bad: loneliness; prolonged anger (expressed or not); fear; hunger and fatigue; serious debt; too many frustrations and interferences; too much alcohol and recreational drugs (sometimes prescribed drugs can cause depression); physical pain; chronic illness; lack of sleep; a failure to fulfill perfection. (Perfectionism is the opposite side of low self-esteem.)Bitter Crank

    I think it is this sense of incompleteness that we attribute as loneliness, prolonged anger, fear, hunger, fatigue, serious debt, etc. Perfectionism seems to be this assumption that we should be a complete, whole individual when viewed from our own perspective; low self-esteem is the negative affect - attributed to ourselves - which results from perceiving failure to achieve this. Prolonged anger is this same negative affect attributed outward, and loneliness is the vague sense that it is not in our relation to others, but in enabling others to relate to us, person-to-person, that we draw closer to this sense of completeness.

    We need each other - not in a broad societal or cultural way, but in a more personal, one-on-one sense. No man is an island. We just want someone else to recognise the ‘I’ that we perceive, but we keep working to ‘fix’ the cultural construct for them instead.
  • Working Women Paradox
    For an employer, it makes sense to hire someone for whom there is reason to believe will consistently be available for work. Having to hire and train new people and substitutes is time-consuming and expensive, so employers avoid it as much as possible.baker

    If that’s the case, then it makes sense to share the load. But this ‘cultural assumption’ - that women are consistently unavailable for work - certainly works in a man’s favour, doesn’t it?

    Sure, this is a possibility sometimes, but not something to count on.baker

    No, but it’s something to work towards. That’s the point.

    So, again, it's about socio-economic class. You could afford such an arrangment, Most people can't.baker

    Afford what? A home computer and email? Childcare would have cost half my pay check - it was never an efficient option. My employer simply valued my work, and made allowances for me to continue working.
  • Desire leads to suffering??
    In Buddhism, attachment leads to suffering, not desire. If the Buddha had no desire he wouldn’t get out of bed.khaled

    Yes - I’d agree that it’s attachment, not desire, which leads to suffering. Desire is part and parcel of our living existence. To avoid it is to avoid existence. The ascetic follows the example of the Buddha towards non-existence, but I think the point was not necessarily to follow but to understand through this example that the limit to our existence, the limits of our capacity to desire without attachment, is much further than we think.

    I’d suggest there’s something amiss in your approach or perspective, if that’s all you appear to get out of it in the hands of women...:brow:
  • If nothing can be known, is existing any different to not existing?
    You don't have to be able to define knowledge in order to possess knowledge. Everyone on the planet knows a lot of things (which usually correlates to the ability to act successfully in various contexts).Pantagruel

    Access or reconstruct knowledge, not possess it. But otherwise, yes.

    This is a difference between asleep and awake. The knowledge we can access or reconstruct while asleep is different to what we can access or reconstruct while awake. That counts for something.
  • Working Women Paradox
    Many people probably hate working in lowly positions in a capitalist system, where they are pushed to work at the edge of exhaustion for very little pay and always under the threat of losing their job.baker

    This is what I was arguing before - it’s not about wanting to work, but the relative value and conditions of employed work that isn’t wanted. People hate working more for less - their aim is always to work less for more. We naturally desire to improve efficiency and effectiveness in what we do, but this is rarely recognised by employers, who are usually more attentive to the squeaky wheel.
  • Working Women Paradox
    Generally, men are in this regard more reliable than women, for men don't typically take maternity leave, nor do they miss work because they need to attend to the children, such as missing time from work when the children are sick. This is why men are payed more for what seems like the same work: they are payed for their prospective availability. Of course, this is not specified on a person's employment contract or paycheck, it's a cultural assumption.baker

    And this is what the issue is: the unwritten cultural assumption. It’s actually a load of crap that men are paid more for their ‘prospective availability’ - that’s a flimsy excuse. If you write this clearly into the contract without discrimination, then you would see this.

    This is what ‘parental leave’ and ‘family leave’ is all about - then either parent can take time off to care for babies and sick children. And they do. As Tiff said, the younger generation males are recognising these opportunities to genuinely share in the parenting responsibility, and both women and men are equally prepared to say “I’ll take this one” or “You stay home this time - I have a deadline to meet.”

    If you are good at what you do and are loyal, you would be surprised how accommodating people can be.ArguingWAristotleTiff

    Agreed. I set up with my office to work remotely from home a few weeks before our first child was born, and I continued to work in this fashion as required until our youngest started school. We never needed external child care.
  • How do we understand the idea of the 'self'?
    But, what is 'self' exactly? Does it exist in it's own right, or as a construct? Even if we only see it as a construct, most of us do feel a sense of self, and how do we make sense of this at all in a way which is useful and meaningful for us in life?Jack Cummins

    ‘Self’ is a tricky notion. I think it’s a construct in the same way that everything is a construct, and that we feel a ‘sense of self’ in this desire to consolidate interaction - to make it useful and meaningful.

    It is what does the consolidating, though - and how - which proves confusing. This is the role of awareness, as @PoeticUniverse suggested in the image he posted, or self-organisation, as @Pop suggested - not just awareness, though, but also connection and collaboration: qualitative interaction.

    ‘Self’ as an object (3D) is consolidated by interaction as an event (4D), an act of observation/measurement.

    ‘Self’ as an event/process (4D) is consolidating through interaction as experience (5D), evaluation of intentionality/will.

    ‘Self’ as experience (5D) is open to consolidation with interaction as relation (6D), feeling potentiality/possibility.

    ‘Self’ as relation needs no consolidation - it is an awareness of unity or oneness with all of existence, of no-self.

    It is in this interchangeability between ‘self’ and ‘interaction’ across dimensional levels that we can navigate an understanding of reality enabling us to observe, experience, relate, and then feel, evaluate and act more clearly, accurately and efficiently.

    Just some initial thoughts.
  • Working Women Paradox
    The paradox is clear as clear can be. Nobody (men & women) wants to work but, now that I think of it, women want to work. Women have an agenda (equality) over and above the real reason why people work (survival) and that makes them want to work. Women perceive work as part of the feminist struggle. That makes them blind to the fact work is not some kind of privilege or mark of superiority that men possess; instead it's actually a heavy burden, such a heavy burden that men would like nothing better than to get rid of it asap.TheMadFool

    You’re not getting it. The ‘feminist struggle’ has nothing to do with obtaining some value, potential or significance that work offers in itself - it’s about the value, potential or significance of work that women do.

    2. Women want to work (to close the gender gap)TheMadFool

    This is a ridiculous misinterpretation. Women want equal pay for equal work, and they want to NOT be discouraged or bullied out of career choices because they’re female. But they work for the same variety of reasons that men do. That a gender gap (in some industries and positions) still needs to be closed has nothing to do with why women enter the workforce. I don’t get why you feel the need to make this distinction.

    If you’re talking about the workforce level gender gap - the fact that fewer women are working overall than men - then this isn’t about wanting to work. It’s about overcoming disincentives.

    It’s about the notion that women ‘aren’t working’ when they don’t have employment outside the home - the work they do is devalued, a ‘life of leisure’. Yet if they do go to work, they have to factor inflated childcare and housekeeping costs into that decision, sometimes to work for lower pay than if they were male in the same position. It’s about the unspoken reluctance to hire a woman over a man because she either has children or ‘will probably be pregnant soon’. It’s about the notion that when a child is sick the mother stays home with them. Or that if a woman returns to work soon after childbirth (probably because her job does pay better than his), she’s abandoning her baby, but her house-husband is a saint. Or that shift work is the ideal job for women, so she can take care of the kids, get all the daily household chores done and still work (while everyone else gets to sleep). Or maybe a service role - but not a career that might raise her profile or bring her personal or professional satisfaction in itself....

    All of this conceals a general disparity: the physical and mental activity of women is socio-culturally worth less than men. This is because the value, potential and significance of work is determined relative to the perceived capacity of the average male. Let me break down the ridiculousness of this for you.

    “Men should earn more because they are physically stronger on average.” This is a common argument for physically demanding work, and on the surface it makes sense because yes, men typically are physically stronger. But this results in the stronger men earning what they’re worth, and the stronger women earning less than men they could out-work any day of the week. Less pay because of their gender, not their capacity. Hmm.

    This doesn’t work the other way, though. Skills and capacities where women perform better than men on average don’t warrant the same kind of pay disparity. In fact, service, teaching and healthcare industries, where women are typically considered more capable than men, pay less even for physically or mentally demanding work compared with male-dominated industries. The value of work here is determined relative to the perceived capacity not even of men who choose to work in these industries, but of the average or typical male.

    So, work where the average male achieves more pays more, no matter what the work is or who is doing it. It seems like equality, but it isn’t.
  • Working Women Paradox
    Nobody wants work! Ask anybody you know. Also, children literally hate school, their abhorrence of homework being stuff of legend.TheMadFool

    Anyone who does work will tell you that they would choose NOT to work - IF they could still achieve the results that their work enables them to achieve.

    Have you ever had to prove your worth? Have you ever been told to just stand back - that you can’t help - and known that you can? Have you ever heard that educating you would be a waste?

    This is not a case of ‘nobody wants to work’. We have a natural tendency to improve efficiency and effectiveness - to achieve more with less effort and attention. Society, humanity, evolution - everything that works has this tendency. We’re not preferring to not work - this is misunderstanding - we’re preferring to work less for the same result. We want our effort and attention to have more potential, more value, more significance.

    A student who hates homework fails to recognise the value of their effort. Children who hate school have lost sight of the potential it affords. Show me someone who has been refused an education, and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t hate school.

    First world problems.
  • Working Women Paradox
    First of all, the premise that ‘nobody wants to work’ is false.

    To work:
    - to be engaged in physical or mental activity in order to achieve a result;
    - to be employed in a specified occupation or field.

    To be employed:
    - to be kept occupied or rendered useful, and be paid for it.

    What nobody wants is to perceive reduced potential/value/significance with regards to work.

    Nobody wants to be prevented from engaging in certain physical or mental activity to achieve a result, particularly based on unfounded assumptions.
  • Taking from the infinite.
    I would make clear that 'infinity' and 'infinite' are not be be conflatedTonesInDeepFreeze

    Yep.

    Well, this is all fascinating on a mathematical level :yawn:, but the question in the OP was:

    If someone took a single drop of water of finite size from an infinite ocean would it actually be taking from the ocean? Would the ocean replace that exact drop immediately upon it being taken or would it simply never matter?TiredThinker

    1. You can’t actually take from an infinite ocean, because there isn’t actually an infinite ocean to begin with. An ocean might appear infinite, but given that you are not an aspect of the ocean (and that you can remove a drop) renders any ocean you can speak of potentially finite (ie. at the very least it ends where you begin).

    2. An ocean is not a static, measurable object but an event - an ongoing process of evaporation and precipitation - and so is indeterminately quantifiable in terms of finite drops of water. Once you remove a single drop and recount, the quantity of finite drops of water in said ocean will have changed anyway, so there’s no way you could tell if you’d made any difference at all, even if you could immediately count all the drops. This is quantum physics.

    3. It could matter to the organisms living inside the drop that was removed, though. I couldn’t really say.

    There. You can go back to talking about infinities now...
  • What is Philosophy
    I’ve been watching a TV series on whales, and their level of intelligence seems pretty high to me. They appear to have quite complex language use and evidence of learned cultural norms. Not enough to compare with humans, but I think they’d hold their own against most other mammals.

    I do think size is only part of the story. Computers started out with their complexity correlating with size, and then at some point this correlation seemed to reverse.
  • Working Women Paradox
    You’re gonna need to clarify that one. You’re not making any sense at all.
  • What is Philosophy
    The question is, why aren't blue whales with their humongous brains more intelligent than humans?TheMadFool

    Because it’s not about size - it’s about what you do with it...
  • Taking from the infinite.
    Infinite is a quality, not a quantity.
    — Possibility

    Tell that to a mathematician.
    Banno

    OK, I will...

    ...Yep, I stand by my statement.
  • Taking from the infinite.
    If someone took a single drop of water of finite size from an infinite ocean would it actually be taking from the ocean? Would the ocean replace that exact drop immediately upon it being taken or would it simply never matter? I assume there could be no butterfly effect and nothing could really be changed by it? Is the drop a free gift?TiredThinker

    Infinite is a quality, not a quantity. It has to do with our limits of perception in relation to the ocean.
  • Is agnosticism a better position than atheism?
    They might relate to that aspect of god but they would have more definitive qualities, more qualifiers, than that for god. “Existence beyond knowledge” is generic and unspecific enough to apply to more than just a god concept and so if you are using only that as your criterion for “god” then you aren’t qualifying a theistic definition of god, you aren’t reaching minimum requirements for a theistic god despite having this generic trait “existence beyond knowledge” in common.DingoJones

    Agreed. Perhaps I just continue to use ‘God’ because it keeps me connected to the overall journey - to my journey, in particular. I think that’s important, too. Thanks for your thoughts.