Whether the experience of an apple is a hallucination, dream or lucid and conscious does not really make the experience anything other than that of an apple.
— I like sushi

Well no, if it's not real then it's not really an experience of an apple but just what looks like an apple. A dream wouldn't really be much of an experience either, especially since a dream doesn't quite feel like reality and nothing in there truly can affect you. So it's not an experience in the sense that it can impact you in any meaningful way. — Darkneos

We use terms such as ‘really’ and ‘truly’ to make distinctions in a discussion between what we experience and what we accept. Have a go at rephrasing your argument without using these qualifiers. Dismissing what looks like an apple, or even a dream as ‘not an experience’ is an attempt to ignore/isolate/exclude aspects of what is based on how we define ‘reality’.

I have to agree with I like sushi here - it’s not solipsism at all. An experience exists whether or not it’s deemed ‘real’, and absolutely CAN impact in a meaningful way. What looks like an apple is still the experience of an apple, even if it’s an hallucination, or a prediction error. We make mistakes all the time - we jump to conclusions, we react too soon, we dismiss ideas prematurely - all based on a consensus understanding of what is real, tangible, evident, etc.

It's by Jan Westerhoff who subscribes to Irrealism, but as someone who can't really read philosophy without going to sleep I was wondering if folks could tell me what he's saying. I could only make out virtual world but I don't really know what he means by it or what he's exactly arguing here. — Darkneos

From what I’ve read, he seems to be saying that the mind’s functional existence is virtual: we employ an interface of sorts which enables us to interact at a level of understanding beyond what this interface defines as ‘real’.

A basic three-dimensional system is required to recognise a two-dimensional object, such as a square, which is then rendered in linear or one-dimensional form. Recognising three dimensional objects as such requires a four-dimensional system, and this understanding is rendered in two-dimensional form. A still-life painting of a vase is not the vase, no matter how accurate a rendition it may seem.

What Westerhoff seems to be referring to is a five-dimensional system, by which we understand four-dimensional experience, and describe this with reference to three-dimensional ‘reality’. Information is always transferred from one system to another in this way, utilising three different dimensional structures.

This is how it makes sense to me, anyway.

The binary logic is just part of the process of negation. If I say "love is not attachment" then that would mean "love is detachment". I evaluated both in my previous post and came to the conclusion that love is neither attachment nor detachment. Perphaps it's somewhere in the middle or, even more intriguingly, nowhere. — Agent Smith

I’m inclined to say nowhere. I didn’t say ‘love is not attachment’, rather that it wasn’t the same. Love can manifest as both attachment and detachment, or neither.

If love is neither attachment nor detachment, as you state, then this binary logic is insufficient. I would argue that it’s always insufficient in relation to reality, as a third point always exists, ‘somewhere in the middle or, more intriguingly, nowhere’. At minimum, that third point is us.

When I mentioned attachment, I wasn’t referring to a maximal value for which ‘detachment’ is its negation, but rather the qualitative idea, inclusive of negation. Love has a much more expansive meaning. As an event, love is realising the fullness of potential in any relation. As a value it is this fullness of potential in any relation. As a qualitative idea, love is the quality of any relation, but as meaning, love is pure relation itself.

So my argument is that love is inclusive of attachment/detachment, not the other way around.

Nice! As per your assessment then love isn't attachment and, flipping the sign, it hasta be detachment, but then we end up with the problem of having to disentangle love from indifference/insouiciance because love also isn't that either. Ergo, my brain informs me we're in a pickle. In re attachment and its opposite detachment, love is adiaphora (logically undifferentiated). It, love, is something else entirely. It is neither attachment nor detachment, it is ... — Agent Smith

Why is the binary necessary? I didn’t say that love was opposite to attachment - so, no, it doesn’t hafta be detachment.

I think that love is more about realising the fullness of potential in any relation. Christian love simply posits ‘the Christ’ as the fullness of human potential in relation to the absolute. Our relation with reality is triadic, not binary.

You can also observe your own thoughts. You can observe your feelings, too. These are actual phenomena, — Xtrix

We can perceive thoughts and feelings - what we observe are the internal changes some can effect on our brain and nervous system. But not all thinking leads to actual change.

‘Magic’ is what we name something we cannot understand, which is different from what we cannot explain. I’m simply making a distinction between actual and potential, observation and perception. The human mind makes sense to me as a five-dimensional structure in which thinking, feeling and acting exist as aspects of perceivable potentiality, undefined in time. You can call it ‘spooky’ if it makes you feel any better, but it’s as real to me as energy, and no more actual a phenomenon.

Phenomena are objects of our perception, pieced together in potentiality from the interaction of internal and external observations. That’s not to say phenomena aren’t real, but it is what we observe that is actual, not the phenomena themselves.

But my point, I guess, is that much of our thinking amounts to nothing actually occurring. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the assumption that ‘thinking is doing’ is false, and can lead us to this addiction to thinking, a distortion that prioritises thinking over feeling and acting.

Thinking occurs in time as well. Where do you think it takes place? Outside time?

Thinking takes place in the brain. It's a product of the human nervous system. It's not well defined, but it's certainly a human activity.

Unless of course it's magic. But I don't think it's worth discussing that possibility. — Xtrix

What I’m saying is that, like energy, what we name ‘thinking’ is evidence of thinking, based on perceived potentiality. I agree that it’s not well-defined and not magic, but I cannot agree that thinking is either physically confined within the brain or directly observable in time as an activity. These are probabilistic conclusions at best - a reductionist account.

Thinking involves the brain and nervous system, and is a collaborative result of their ongoing interaction and change, but is a product of neither. Just as energy can be exchanged between events regardless of whether or not any change appears to take place, so thinking can occur between brain and nervous system without any observable change in activity to locate this occurrence in time. When we do observe change, we deduce that thinking must have occurred prior. When we expect intentional activity but are yet to observe any, we presume that thinking is occurring, as a potential cause for the delay.

But the idea that thinking occurs in time is an assumption, based on observable evidence - and/or lack thereof. I would argue that how we experience thinking as humans can be simultaneous, reversed, non-linear, jumbled, fast, slow, circular or even amorphous as far as temporal order is concerned - if we’re honest. Thinking, like energy, is not well-defined as an activity, but I believe it may be more accurately determinable as a potentiality.

Attachment, at least in the sense I’m referring to here, is not the same as the original Christian notion of love - but I could argue that most modern expressions of ‘love’ fail to distinguish between the two.

Drastically oversimplified, attachment is when you pluck the flower…

Thinking is not just a kind of doing, any more than feeling is a kind of doing.
— Possibility

Thinking is an activity that can (sometimes) be controlled. We’re “doing” something when we’re thinking. I mean it in this general sense. It’s not an action on par with running, but perhaps similar to speaking. — Xtrix

Sure - sometimes - which is why I said it’s not just a kind of doing. When we talk about ‘thinking’ we are commonly referring to the attention and effort we commit to particular thoughts. My view is that there is more to thinking than activity, and that it’s not so similar to speaking as it is similar to the potentiality or conditions in which speaking does or does not occur.

Speaking is always an activity: it occurs in time, or it doesn’t occur, and the difference is observable in time. But this is not necessarily the case for thinking. Thinking seems more like the notion of ‘energy’ as more than just work: in many instances, we determine that thinking must have occurred prior to an observable action, or we presume that thinking is occurring when action (such as speaking) is not.

What is common to both forms of ‘thinking’ is the perceived potentiality or conditions in which thinking is deemed to occur. Without this potential, there can be no thinking. Yet we often imagine/assume thinking where there appears to be evidence, but no potential.

We often call bad habits “addictions.” It’s an activity done in excess. Substance abuse comes to mind. Where does thinking stand on this spectrum for those who frequently engage in online discussions (myself included)?

Are we addicted to thought? Are we amateur “philosophers” steeping ourselves in excess?

Therefore, is what is needed for better philosophy actually a fasting and detoxification of thought? — Xtrix

If we consider ‘thinking’ to be a kind of ‘doing’, then we’re only looking at the allocation of attention and effort towards thought over time. In relation to addiction, this can be considered ‘excessive’ when the allocation of these resources impairs our ability to function in a healthy way - whether ‘healthy’ is determined by ourselves or by those who rely on our interaction with the world.

I think we can become addicted to thought in the sense that we avoid the application of thought to our own physical lives, preferring instead to focus our attention and effort on unproven theoretical discussions for their own sake. It’s safer to live in a virtual reality, where pain, loss and humiliation are thoughts that cannot really harm us - we could justify, ignore or argue them away at will.

A similar addiction would be gaming - the abuse seems to be not on the body as much as it is on the mind and its relationship with the world.

Meditative practices can be seen as a fasting or detoxification of thought. I think the important aspect of it is recognising that the connection between thinking, doing and feeling is in relation to our personal and ongoing allocation of time, effort and attention - our intentionality. Thinking is not just a kind of doing, any more than feeling is a kind of doing. Thinking, feeling and doing are all temporal reductions of a five-dimensional existence, inclusive of not-doing (wu-wei).

Most of what we learn about the world begins with simplistic categorisation as heuristic devices - it’s how our understanding develops with language. But as this understanding matures, the true complexity of the world becomes apparent, and our minds, hearts and behaviour have the capacity to adjust - even if our language does not.

I have watched young people quickly and easily develop a non-binary approach to gender identity, discarding the binary in much the same way as they would shed their belief in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. And I’ve noticed how parents and teachers respond with oppressive tendencies when their heuristic devices are exposed as insufficient, and how they justify their attempts to maintain control over these complex ideas such as gender identity using language, definitions and laws.

Much of your description of a 'continual process of change' reminds me of Gene W Marshall's Primer on Radical Christianity. One can safely say it is a very different response than the Evangelical churches of today but probably is an example of the 'modern' that Dermot Griffin objects to. — Paine

I get the sense (and I could be wrong) that in criticising the ‘modern’, Dermot Griffin is contrasting it with an original notion, rather than traditional practice, of christianity, church and evangelisation.

I haven’t read Marshall, but I have spent some time (a few years ago) exploring the movement of ‘Progressive Christianity’ in which he writes, so I dare say we may agree on some similar points. Much of this primarily US movement does attempt to uncover the original notion of christianity, but it’s also a reaction to and disentanglement from Christian fundamentalism, without losing the sense of belonging and other social comforts that institutional church life brings. That’s not where I’m coming from (my initial background, FWIW, was Australian Catholic) - I remain sympathetic to the notion of christianity as a shared approach to spirituality, but not as an institution.

A ‘church’ in the original sense is simply an assembly, and the ’petras’ (rock) on which this was to be built is a ledge or mass of connected rock, as distinct from ’petros’ as a detached stone or boulder. And yet, the first church of ‘Christians’ were hiding and meeting in secret - practice already diverging from the original notion.

’Euangelos’ means to bring good news. It doesn’t require membership, morality, or even acceptance on the part of those who hear it. It doesn’t even require you to speak this information, let alone use particular words. If you understand it, share this with others, and learn to recognise this same understanding in its many different forms.

I think ‘Christianity’ has spent far too much time, attention and effort on identity, power and especially survival, forgetting that its very foundation has rendered them moot.

I suppose the human journey can be summed up as a struggle against nihilism. Some might even say it is the most dangerous idea to come out of the human mind - it rejects/denies/everything by definition and that includes the stuff close to our hearts and therein lies the seeds of untold suffering. :sad: — Agent Smith

That may be one way to perceive it. I agree that nihilism by definition rejects/denies everything, as it were. But I see nihilism as a process, not a position. The human journey, then, may be summed up as a process inclusive of both nihilism and existential effort. It is in our attachment to this ‘stuff close to our hearts’ wherein lies the seeds of untold suffering. Nihilism refers to our capacity to let go of these attachments without ceasing to exist, at least for a time. There’s a freedom in that understanding, to remake ourselves in every aspect, as part of the human journey.

As for its relation to the gospels, I don’t see them as definitively either pro- or anti-nihilistic, and I think any attempt to label either Jesus or the gospels one way or the other is merely for argument’s sake, as the concept of nihilism seems entirely foreign to their thinking. The idea that letting go of certain attachments gives us freedom to remodel our systems and structures is explored within a particular cultural context, in a particular (filial) relation to the assumed existence of one eternal ‘God’.

The way I see it, the gospel teachings are further along in this human journey than the teachings of the OT. But more than 2000 years later, our understanding is potentially further along again, if we’re willing to let go of any attachment to christianity, scripture, or even the example of Jesus, as the Logos. Through nihilism, however, we can also let go of attachment to the existential assumption of ‘God’ - again, not a position to hold, just part of the process…

A story's terms should be bound by what happens in the story. — Fooloso4

No, what happens in the story is a reduction of terms. And no wager happens in Job, it is only discussed.

I understand the preference to treat the text as a four-dimensional structure. Except that it isn’t only four-dimensional, and you won’t fully understand it by reducing it this way. That is, if your aim is to understand - and not to describe or define, which relies on (normative) conventions of language and story.

If we are agreed that the story doesn’t actually happen - that it interacts in potentiality - then I’m confident you will see that any ‘wager’, too, is only potential in this story. For a character to even say “I’ll wager” is NOT a wager made in the story.

This may seem to be splitting hairs, but it points to the extra-dimensional aspects of the story itself - which I maintain is more the point of these writings than what happens in the story. As I see it, the point of the Book of Job is NOT that God appeared to make a wager with Satan which led to suffering, but is more along the lines of “The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao”.

I think it is rather the case that you are imposing assumptions on the text. In my opinion, as a general principle of interpretation, the attempt must be made to understand the story on its own terms. Is there any indication that the author(s) of the story do not mean that they are temporally or physically located characters? See, for example, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, "God: An Anatomy". The ancient peoples of the Levant did think of their gods as temporally or physically located characters with intentions, desires, and emotions. — Fooloso4

No, you’re assuming the story actually happened, but it’s literature. A story’s terms should not be bound by what happens. This only limits understanding.

There is no physical or temporal description of either character, while there is of Job, his family and friends (‘in the land of Uz’). If the author(s) meant for the Lord or Satan to be physical or temporally located, they would have described them as such. Their discussion/interaction may be temporally located, if vaguely (‘one day’), but nothing more. Just because some people thought of their gods in terms of human intentions, desires and emotions, it does not follow that they are temporally or physically located characters, nor that this must be assumed for all gods, or authors. What ties the biblical writings together is this atemporal and ethereal (extra-dimensional) nature of ‘God’.

And how can we learn from it if, for example, the wager is only an

apparent ‘wager’
— Possibility
? — Fooloso4

We learn nothing from what appears to have happened, but from higher level interactions in the presented structure.

In the story the wager was not an "apparent wager". A wager was made. If we are to understand the story then we must accept that in the story a wager was made. To read a novel and point out that the things that happen in the novel did not actually happen is pointless. — Fooloso4

Read it again - there is no talk of a wager made at all. Just a theory-based chicken-and-egg disagreement, followed by an experimental change in conditions for Job. We must NOT simply accept that a wager was made based on how it may have ‘commonly’ been interpreted.

Job does not know about this wager and challenges God. God's answer is that he would not understand. While I am sympathetic to the idea that we do not know why things happen as they do, the more troubling question is why God would permit the adversary to do what he did. This is a challenge Job could not raise, but we can. In not understanding God's will we also do not understand His justice, which seems in this case to be injustice. In addition, not being able to understand the reason why things happen as they do seems to be because the are without reason. There is no good reason why God would enter into the wager and allow this to happen. Throughout all this Job remains faithful to God while God is not faithful to Job. A pious reading is that Job has the kind of faith we should all aspire to. But my impious, adversarial reading is that Job's faith is unreasonable.

To anticipate the obvious objection, yes this is not meant to be taken literally, but we should take the story on its own terms. These things happen in the story and if we are to understand the story we must attend to what happens in the story. — Fooloso4

But it seems to me that you’re personifying in order to make this query - a character even in a story does not imply personification or being in the sense that we, Job or his friends are beings, much less imply human motivation or morality. Neither God nor the adversary are temporally or physically located characters, and it’s this aspect of their characters that is described in God’s answer to Job. The intentionality of either character is interpreted by this limited early experience of humanity and language - the apparent ‘wager’ is a description for literary purposes, and to assume it as actual or ‘happening’ is to make the same error as Job’s friends in taking convention to be truth. The story is an heuristic device.

I find that the majority of the bible is an attempt to describe extra-dimensional aspects of human experience - that is, atemporal (eternal or potential) and/or non-physical (intangible or ethereal). The words and even the story don’t matter so much as understanding the human experience to which they refer. It’s similar to the way we generate a 3D render by the relation of change between multiple 2D images, angles, etc. You can’t understand a 3D render without this 4D awareness of change/time, and you can’t understand the story of Job without this 5D sense of atemporality.

So, no - there is no good reason why God would enter into such a wager, and yes - Job’s faith is unreasonable. But anyone who considers or expects faith, or God for that matter, to be reasonable, is missing the point of Job, and then entire biblical record. It’s not about understanding God in terms of will or justice, but about recognising the extra-dimensional aspect of this relationship between God and humanity. The way I see it, understanding requires more than reason.

If I can say "I understand X" and can at the same time say "X is incoherent," how does that play out? — ZzzoneiroCosm

Well, I don’t think it’s possible to say both at the same time, but it is possible to believe both at the same time. Any action can be interpreted/observed as ‘saying’ one OR the other, and two people at the same time can interpret you saying “X is incoherent” to mean one or the other.

Some people reduce understanding to the coherence of language structure. An understanding of X is constrained by the language concept of X.

Food for thought:

1. Quality: There's happiness/suffering.
2. Quantity: There's amount of suffering/happiness.

Those who'll pull the lever - killing one to save many - are looking at it quantitatively (2).

Those who're are in two minds - should I kill one to save many? - are looking at it qualitatively (1). — Agent Smith

A little more...

1. Quality: There’s different kinds of happiness/suffering.
2. Quantity: There’s different amounts/levels of happiness/suffering.

It seems to me that the notion that one can make good decisions and be right all the time is based on an arbitrary preference for one of these over the other.

According to Pew Research, about 3% identified themselves as atheist in 2014, so I imagine that antitheists (opposed to religion) must be less than 1%. Around half reported that religion was important to their lives. Unknown what portion of this demographic may be anti-atheists. That’s about all I can say offhand. — praxis

Thanks for the stats. It’s very different to external perceptions. There does appear to me to be a very vocal (or lobbied) push FOR religious intervention in US politics. And I can see that a perception of anti-theism is NOT the same as self-identifying as ‘atheist’. But would it be more accurate that it’s not so much anti-theism as anti- religious-intervention?

So no, no examples. I’m gonna go away and rethink this...

The US is not anti-theist or anti-atheist, though it contains citizens of both. — praxis

What proportion would you say are neither?

I think Australians are moving inexorably in the direction of a 'monarchy-free zone.' I hope Scotland becomes independent eventually, then gets rid of the monarchy and joins Europe again and Unites with every other country it can, including England but not as something as colonial and empire soiled as Great ( :rofl: ) Britain. I have never felt British in any way at all. British means nothing to me. I don't think many Australians still feel allegiance to something as outdated as the British monarchy. Surely they see how such was rewarded in the inept and criminal way Churchhill used the Anzacs as fodder at Gallipoli — universeness

I understand your hope, and I agree there is a distinct lack of allegiance as such to the British monarchy in Australia. But I honestly don’t think we’re there yet. Our representatives still too often operate as if the ‘adult supervision’ has simply left the room, and I think they prefer the sense that if it does go pear-shaped there’s still a ‘grown-up’ around. I’d like to think we can get to the point where we don’t need that, but unfortunately I don’t believe that time is now. The ‘grown up’ is little more than a stabilising reference point or an empty threat at this stage, but it’s still useful as such.

You seemed to be claiming that the US struggles to recognize the difference between ‘freedom of’ and ‘freedom from’ religion. The separation of church and state facilitates both. — praxis

I agree that ideally it facilitates both. What I’m saying is that the dynamic driving ongoing discussions about separation of church and state in the US is in trying to resolve this distinction - drawn up as anti-theism vs anti-atheism - in a way that differs from the UK and Aus. Again, note this is an outsider’s perspective of American politics. I’m not claiming this is the intention, only an appearance. The neutral position in the US is the Constitution, in which the ideal ‘wall of separation between church and state’ is stated as “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”.

The neutral position is a logical ideal: separation of church and state enables freedom of thought and of sentiment. It’s a distinction in potentiality - differentiating power, significance and value systems. But there is no actual separation to be observed - ‘God’ is named in the Constitution and on all legal tender, and is called to bear witness in all court and parliamentary sessions.

Hmm, can we assume that starlight took her treatment as deserved simply because she adapted by changing her behavior? I'm actually not sure, it's one I'll have to mull over. Preliminarily though, I think one can believe oneself to have done nothing wrong in a given scenario yet consider a fight over it to not be worthwhile. — Valued contributer

I don’t think we can assume anything, tbh. I do think a persistent conflict between what we know about ourselves in our private moments and how we ‘should’ represent ourselves to others is a common societal issue. But it wasn’t just that particular fight - she said that ‘learned’, she changed how she represented herself in relation to guys she likes from that point. I think what we believe in terms of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ behaviour is less about what we know, and more about how it feels under the circumstances. She felt her behaviour to be ‘wrong’ under those kinds of circumstances - that doesn’t change what she knows about herself. She’s still capable of kicking ass - she just believed it was ‘wrong’ to present that aspect of herself IF she wanted a guy to feel comfortable around her.

For what you say about the respective social responses being the central indicator of toxicity here to be meaningful, they would have to be representative of the broader pattern of responses to such scenarios. So would you say this is the case? That women generally respond to a man's resultant standoffishness, from them undermining his masculinity, by adaptation instead of standing up for what they know to be true? That they did nothing wrong? And that men generally react by mocking/calling the man's masculinity into question? — Valued contributer

As I mentioned above, I think it has a lot to do with how it feels under the circumstances. Yes, it is my experience that men are generally expected (regardless of what they might think or know) to react to a girl who is aggressively and physically defending her male partner by mocking/calling the man’s ‘masculinity’ into question. And a man who identifies himself with this ‘masculinity’ perceives a choice in these circumstances between being loved and being ‘masculine’.

And a woman whose male partner’s response is to distance himself from her, when his ‘masculinity’ appears to be undermined by her behaviour, perceives a choice between being loved and being herself - as if they are somehow mutually exclusive. Hughie’s response is to reassure her that they are not, while challenging this concept of ‘masculinity’ himself - his own character is juxtaposed as ‘a white Steve Urkel’.

And this isn't paralleled in the social responses to women's bad behavior? A man would not adapt and change his behavior? Other woman would not say her reaction should call her femininity into question? — Valued contributer

Sure - there is a societal expectation that a ‘masculine’ man has no reason for turning down sex, and that a ‘feminine’ woman would not behave aggressively or make emotional demands on her partner. But the forum situation presents an anecdote which challenges expectations about turning down sexual advances as well as responses to it. And he didn’t exactly present just the facts. He described the circumstances in a way that attempted to restore his own ‘normative’ status, despite turning down sex, by presenting her response as not just emotional, but abnormally irrational.

Now, a man may very well adapt and accept his girlfriend’s offer of sex, despite a lack of interest, especially if he prefers to stay in a relationship. And this man may very well have done that, despite his complaints. He’s just fishing here for public reassurance that he’s the ‘normal’ one. And the women who respond are likely also trying to present the girlfriend’s reaction as a ‘normal’ response to these expectations.

But the difference is that the women are attacking society’s expectations, but the guy is attacking his girlfriend’s behaviour...

This doesn't make me understand a single bit what consciousness is. It's like you analyze a dead stone. — Hillary

That’s because we prefer to assume that consciousness, and therefore human experience, is something non-physical rather than metaphysical. As scientists and logical thinkers, this is often more reassuring than incorporating all this uncertainty into a ToE.

We like to think that consciousness defines the human experience, but it makes more sense to acknowledge that human experience is an ongoing iteration of what consciousness could become. In the same way that DNA is a static blueprint of what an organism can be, based on the integrated information so far.

But I understand that it seems to you like I’m being overly analytical of consciousness, stripping it of the beauty, terror and wonder that makes us feel conscious and alive. People once felt that way about Darwin’s theory.

Maybe I overstated my case. When I think of separation of church and state, I usually think of protecting the political system against a theocracy such as ISIS. I was pointing out that protection of religion is just as important. I understand that is you are saying. — T Clark

:up:

Don't know about that. Most Australians seem embarrassed by public discussions of god or religion and we are largely secular. God was rarely mentioned in culture when I grew up and only now has a flicker of interest because of the culture wars and the fact that we've caught some of America's shallow Evangelical style beliefs. But this seems to be mainly a form of capitalism rebranded with a cross. — Tom Storm

I grew up in a Catholic community in Australia - God was rarely mentioned in public, only in personal and private arenas. I think it’s not so much that we’re largely secular, but that we’re publicly secular.

Politicians are exclusively public figures here. We’re embarrassed because religious beliefs are private - in the same way that we’re embarrassed by public discussions of sexual misconduct in our politicians. If your private influences become part of your public influence, that’s not on. Hence the ‘capitalism rebranded with a cross’. You don’t see that as a form of political corruption?

How does the US struggle to recognize the distinction? The US is not an anti-religious state. Neither the Bible nor books by Richard Dawkins are banned in the US. — praxis

And yet the battle lines between secularism and religion are drawn, and the argument on both sides cites ‘separation of church and state’ as their basis. This is what I meant by ‘struggle’ - not an incapacity, but an unresolved and open debate.

Separation of church and state is intended primarily to protect religion from government influence rather than the other way around. One obvious way that could happen is that government will restrict religious practice. Surprisingly, to me at least, many Christians also believe that churches' involvement in politics leads to a corruption of faith. — T Clark

That’s an interpretation - in the US particularly, it depends on your position in relation to religion. Realistically, the intention is to protect BOTH. The church IS (at least potentially) a political entity - like in the UK, it retains its power by remaining politically neutral. To take a side is to halve its influence. And vice versa, any system of government maximises its power by remaining religiously neutral. In the US, that amounts to an overt deference to ‘God’, regardless of personal position. In the UK, it’s more of a ‘he that shall not be named’ pervasiveness. In Australia, its a case of private vs public.

Is the movement in Australia towards becoming a republic not quite significant now? — universeness

Not significant enough...

One noticeable difference is that US Presidents, bare minimum, play at believing in god whilst in the UK a Prime Minister is mostly mocked/ridiculed for outward/semi-vocal religious faith (eg. Tony Blair). — I like sushi

Too true. The US system of political power relies on taking a position in relation to ‘God’ as a reference point, even if it’s false. The UK political power system relies on the absolute neutrality of ‘God’ - if the Prime Minister takes a personal position in relation to ‘God’, then that position cannot invoke the power of the Prime Minister.

And in Australia it’s perceived almost as a sign of corruption. If a politician takes a position in relation to ‘God’ then they effectively give whatever power they represent to something/someone else - whatever we deem this notion of ‘God’ to be.

That’s how I see it, anyway.

It is a nebulous term. The UK is classed as a ‘non-secular state’ in some ways yet religious institutions seem to hold far more sway in the US, which is classed as a ‘secular state’.

I just roughly demarcate in terms of political influence and sway over court and governmental proceedings … which leaves the UK in a somewhat contrary position as the Royal Family has legal power yet they keep these powers by not actually using them and remaining ‘neutral’. In the US it doesn’t take a genius to see that religious views play a large role in leaning governmental powers one way or another. — I like sushi

Agreed. I like that you brought up the ‘neutral’ position of the UK Royal Family, as head of both church and government.

In Australia, there appears (in my view) to be a considerable percentage of the population who are deliberate ‘fence-sitters’, both in political and religious ideology. Where the UK system enables a neutral position as ‘above’ politics (ie. nobility), in Australia the neutral position is that of the larrikin: the boisterous, badly behaved maverick with an apparent disregard for convention. They always have a critical voice in our government, but no noticeable balance of power because they are deliberately informal, in every sense of the word.

I think perhaps it’s the ‘one way or another’ - the lack of neutrality in the US system - that I find intriguing, as an external observer. It seems to me (but I may be way off the mark) that the very notion of ‘God’ (whether possible or impossible) assumes the only ‘neutral’ position available in the US. This separation of church and state - and its subsequent interpretation as either freedom of or freedom from religion - contributes to this.

Separation of church and state doesn't mean we exclude religious values, it means we exclude religious institutions from government. — T Clark

Sorry - I should point out that my personal experience of democracy is external to the US system. I wasn’t referring to the ‘separation of church and state’ as such, but to its common (mis)interpretation as the ideal of secularism: as Wayfarer pointed out, the difference between ‘freedom of’ and ‘freedom from’ religion.

I think where the US struggles is in recognising this distinction. So I agree with you here, and I think that secularism should not be presented as the ideology behind ‘the separation of church and state’ at all. They’re not supposed to mean the same thing. That was kind of my point.

I think we tend to forget that the democratic system is not just about who we vote in t represent us, but also the process of discussion, debate and decision-making that follows from that. For that reason, the idea of secularism - that we can exclude religious values from this process, which includes discussions of morality to develop an inclusive ethical framework - is naive at best.

Alhamdulillah! — Agent Smith

Yarhamuk Allah!

Don't think so. A zero or one (or combinations thereof) in a computer is a physical structure (a potential, an electron in one of two states, etc.) which we assign a meaning. This information is not inherent. — Hillary

That was what I said - information is the capacity, not actuality. It exists as a variability in the state of an electron. The particular meaning we attribute to that unit of potential (if any) is not essential to its existence as information.

It seems that you may be referring exclusively to ‘relevant information’.

It just directs the particle around — Hillary

...with what?

Obviously if we are doing philosophy, we try to use reason/rationality to make an argument and avoid contradictions. However is reason simply, as the postmodernists would argue, just another normative way of looking at the world that creates a power structure?

Note that I’m using reason as defined as:
the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic

Or does it correspond to reality because our observed physical reality seems to follow some level of consistency as well? In order to use logic to understand our world, we in some way have to assume our world is logically intelligible and predictable.

In other words, what our our reasons for trusting reason/logic? — Paulm12

Not sure that ‘by a process of logic’ is quite correct. Reason and rationality are not identical. Reason is at least capable of acknowledging the limitations of logic, whereas rationality excludes affect, rendering logic ‘absolute’.

We ‘trust’ logic due to affect, or irrational desire for a systematic order and predictability to reality - a fear of uncertainty.

I don't think think structures and forms contain information. Entropy yes. A wavefunctions is just a collection of hidden variables with a specific form which is continuously changing shape. Collapsing, taking shape in potentials, It's shape influences the particle directly. There is no information contained in the sense that it refers to something else than the particle, like the information in a computer refers to things we define, giving it meaning. — Hillary

A ‘bit’ of information in a computer system, as I described earlier, refers to the capacity or potential for an event in a specific system. The difference that makes a difference. This system, I should note, is not just the static components of a computer, but must be inclusive of the electricity that runs through it - the movement of electrons. The information in a computer system, therefore, refers to an event, as does a wavefunction. Don’t be fooled by the rendered appearance of either.

What about an uncomely reaction from a woman who feels her femininity being threatened? Say for example, a woman that flips out when her boyfriend turns down her sexual advances. I've seen a man complain about this and receive a response from a woman who explains how his girlfriend's reaction was a result of how strongly society attaches a woman's worth to her sexual appeal. She got a lot of upvotes and commiserating comments.

I'm juxtaposing something like that to how starlight's date reacted. It came from a similar place no? He felt his masculinity threatened/attacked and his response clearly reflected this.

Are you saying the difference here is that in both cases men are the ones reinforcing the values that lead to both reactions as opposed to society? — Valued contributer

This is a useful example to work with, although the details are unclear, and I don’t want to make assumptions. I can understand how you would interpret this as similar, and in some ways it is, but not the crucial aspects. The difference is not in the behaviour of the person threatened - which in both cases can be considered ‘poor behaviour’ regardless of gender - but in the subsequent social responses to that behaviour.

A man turns down his girlfriend’s sexual advances, and then complains when she ‘flips out’ - this gives no reasoning for either the man’s rejection nor the woman’s behaviour. And yet, before we even get to the question of sexual appeal, is it assumed (and reinforced by the use of language) that the man has a reasonable explanation for his behaviour, but the woman does not? Is it also assumed that the woman is supposed to accept his behaviour as ‘reasonable’ by his account, despite her own feelings? That she has no recourse to complain to him about his behaviour in the context of an emotional relationship, and yet he feels justified to complain about her emotional behaviour within an emotional relationship to anyone who will listen?

The fact that other women recognise the situation and commiserate with her demonstrates that these women are at least calling out the situation - that a woman’s worth is strongly determined by her sexual appeal - as unacceptable. And in direct defiance of that, they would seek to restore the woman’s sense of worth regardless of sexual appeal.

Starlight’s response to her date’s behaviour was to automatically change her own behaviour in future social situations, assuming that it was her own behaviour that was ‘wrong’. Note that she didn’t complain about her treatment, but took it as deserved. Hughie’s response was to reassure her that the problem was not her behaviour, but rather confirmed the likely reason why her boyfriend had responded in that way in the first place: because his masculinity would be perceived as insufficient.

It is the pervasive and insidious nature of what’s going on here around the boyfriend’s behaviour, in relation to masculinity, that leads to the label ‘toxic’.

It’s always a risk in allowing for greater variability, and there will at least appear to be much more failure than success. Fortunately, evolution no longer needs to be a matter of life and death.
— Possibility

In fact that makes a lot of sense to me. Could you cite your sources? I would like to investigate more about it. — ithinkthereforeidontgiveaf

To be honest, this is an idea that I’ve been piecing together from an understanding of the temporal process of Darwinian evolution in a broader, multi-dimensional context. If you recognise that the process of consolidating ‘random’ variability with relative system stability (survival) described in Darwin’s process has a temporal qualitative structure, then you can see that the same basic, atemporal process exists in the formation of other dimensional structures, including atoms and carbon-based molecules.

Carlo Rovelli in ‘The Order of Time’ had suggested that it’s more accurate to understand reality as consisting not of objects moving in time, but of interrelated events. He also gave an intriguing interpretation of QM in terms of information systems in ‘Reality is Not What it Seems’ (Ch.11). This ‘dimensional’ shift in awareness made a lot of sense to me, not just in terms of QM, but in terms of how, as conscious beings, we don’t simply respond to but rather anticipate experiences (as four-dimensional systems), and then relate this prediction to real-time observation/measurement. Lisa Feldman-Barrett proposed a similar process in ‘How Emotions Are Made’ that looked at the system stability aspect of this, but she also touched on neural diversity ‘issues’ such as autism, depression and anxiety that got me thinking back to the evolutionary process...

I find really hard to believe that the brain would harm itself. If it has done something, it has to be for good, or at least for better. — ithinkthereforeidontgiveaf

The cosmic process of evolution is based on the variable stability of system structures. Humans evolved from highly variable (yet sufficiently stable) atomic, molecular and then DNA structures, to develop a highly variable brain/nervous system structure. Next step is a highly variable structure of mental processes, in search of the most efficient and effective, universally relational system. It’s always a risk in allowing for greater variability, and there will at least appear to be much more failure than success. Fortunately, evolution no longer needs to be a matter of life and death.

Try wisdom as 'my words on a subject' and knowledge as 'a subject'. — Varde

This is a reduction, and can lead to inaccurate thinking if not understood as such. Wisdom is more than words, and knowledge is more than a subject. The difference, therefore, is qualitatively more complex than illustrated.

Actual existence (observed, measurable, inactive or changing)
Potential existence (perceived, valuable, improbable or attributed power)
Possible existence (absolute, imaginable, impossible or personally preferred)

Where does ‘God’ fit?

I defined philosophy as: thinking about knowledge. — Varde

I agree that thinking about knowledge seems rather pointless. I would define philosophy as ‘thinking in the context of a desire for wisdom’.

Wisdom is not just knowledge as a quantitative measure of intelligence, nor a capacity to act, but a qualitative relation to reality of useful understanding or accuracy.

We'll always have a pull between imagination and reality as basic human nature often tends to treat what is actually imaginary as being more real than reality. — ASmallTalentForWar

That’s because human nature abides in between, and is at least vaguely aware of more to reality than what is real.