This thread was started to be originally an open forum regarding the major questions on the OP. It came about through people providing the stock answer of "Stoicism" anytime suffering was debated. It then turned into a pretty intense argument over Stoicism and Pessimism. Anyways, what I am saying currently in reply to your idea that it is a solution to human suffering is that Stoicism may be one way to try to ameliorate suffering. It is an interesting coping mechanism that might be effective for some. — schopenhauer1

I don't agree with how the question is framed here. Stoicism, in philosophical terms, might ignore suffering (act as if it is not serious), but that's not the whole position. It's also a position for preventing suffering-- the Stoic sets aside so much anxiety and suffering about the world which doesn't meet their expectations.

It's really an attempt to prevent-- a call to not suffer in many circumstances-- suffering rather than just a claim of ameliorating suffering. In this respect, it's not different than any other philosophy or hobby we might partake in to have some satisfaction (or even contentment) in our lives.

Usually, it is the opposite of the pessimist position. Most doctrines of "hope" are built on ignoring or apologising for human suffering. They build there fictional realms where suffering either doesn't matter or is resolved-- Stoicism says ignore it, Christians say Jesus resolves it, Buddhists say it doesn't matter, etc.,etc. All approach the question as if there is a resolution to human suffering.

The pessimists know better. They understand sin cannot be paid for, that pain aways hurts, that suffering, if it occurs, cannot be magic'd away. Some pessimists are open to the possibility of something more, in the sense that life is not always suffering, but it's a moment of being other than suffering rather than undoing anything people suffer.

In the respect, the pessimist (rightly, in terms of accurate description of the world) calls out other philosophies for taking the easy way out. "Something more," in the sense of ignoring or (supposedly) undo suffering, is to take a short cut--in the face of the horrors of the world, we turn away and pretend they aren't there. We fail to come to terms with suffering and are unable to posit joy and wonder despite (and with) all those horrors.

The point is, I don't believe that Schopenhauer, despite having recognized this important truth, ever realised the stage of actual cessation - for him it was a remote ideal, personified by the stereotype of saints and sages. — Wayfarer

Indeed. For Schopenhauer treats suffering as the constant state of life. Willing (supposedly) always burdens us, to a point where we can never do anything and be content. We are (supposedly) under the constant pressure of life and cannot have contentment at any time.

The absence of suffering, that moment we are content in ourselves (whether that be sitting in a monastery or playing with our kids), is considered impossible by Schopenhauer-- sometimes a philosophical pessimist's concern for suffering obscures how other things happen in the world.

The point there is no contradiction: states of causality are without design but the cause. In the end, there is no final cause. Any causal relationship if defined by a prior state and the states it causes.

Whether there is unknown cause or not doesn't matter to this point. No matter what causes we find, the "why" question is never answered. If we find cause to specific mutations, we still don't have the desired answer because there's the question: "Why those specific mutations and not something else?"

What's at stake is not unknown causes, but the logical necessarity of causal relationships. The point is final cause is incoherent. No casual relationship is logically necessary. States are themselves, rather than present out of design.

Studies in animal behavior (including emotions, cognition, memory, perceptions, etc.) will either validate your intuition or they won't. — Bitter Crank

Not particularly telling, given that's true of every study humans have ever carried out. I think we sometimes have a tendency to misuse this sort statement to dismiss relevant stuff in the context of consciousness-- but then I suppose that's really an extension of our inability to the our own consciousness seriously as a state of the world. So much philosophy is devoted to saying how consciousness is not a state of the world or doesn't make sense as one.

Jamalrob seems adamant that genetic mutations are, in some sense, random. But if we take as an example, an animal such as the horse, why does an animal such as this continue over time, to change in the same direction? It continued to get bigger and bigger. This is what we find in domestication, once a beneficial direction is determined, an organism will be encouraged to continually evolve in this direction. This characteristic of evolution can be noticed in most plants and animals involved in husbandry. It appears like the creature can be directed in its evolutionary changes. This is not supportive of Darwinian random change, it is more supportive of Lamarckian habituation — Metaphysician Undercover

"Random change" doesn't mean without cause. It means "without reason." Why is that horses got bigger and bigger? We might say "natural selection" or "directed changes" (and that is, causally, true), but it still leaves the "why" unanswered. How come horses existed rather than not? And how come the existed with pressures which made them bigger (as opposed to anything else)? Why were these particular states necessary as opposed to any other?

"Chance" is to say there is no answer to this question. There is no purpose or logic which made horses and their environment exist like this. It's just what happened. It was arbitrary "chance" that these horses existed, were naturally selected and directed the way they were, as opposed to any of the other countless options which might have occurred-- "chance" is not opposed to the determinism of causality but an expression of it.

But it does exist-- there exists an absence of a cup in the cupboard and that presence (non-absence, if you will) is why I'm wrong about the cup being in the cupboard. It's not nonsense, but the requirement of existence if my belief about the cup is to be wrong.

You don't know that. Unrecognised objects are not said to be anything because they are unknown. There may, indeed, be unknown cup-absent cupboard. All it takes is for one to exist and for people not to realise.

I've addressed this. The claim is that objects just are things which are recognised as such. Therefore there cannot be unknown objects. Sapientia claimed that ordinary language use and logic can show that this isn't the case; that there can be unknown objects. But given that the realist's claim is that the existence of objects is independent of what we say and believe it is inconsistent to use what we say and belief to justify the claim that there can be unknown objects — Michael

The realist isn't making a claim about an object there. They are making a claim about logic. Stating that "objects are independent" is not an argument that any object exists. It doesn't make any claim about what exists in the world. No inconsistency. You just aren't paying attention to what they are talking about.

This is false. You don't need for things to exist for the claim "things exist" to be false. In fact, you need for things to not exist for the claim "things exist" to be false. That's straightforward logic. — Michael

Not true. If the cupboard is empty, then there must be the object of the empty cupboard. If someone is to be wrong about the cup, the absence of the cup needs to exist. Your problem is you don't think beyond the immediate claim and whether someone has presented you evidence for it.

I have no idea what you're trying to say here. — Michael

If I think the cup is in the cupboard, then I do not know the object of the empty cupboard. I will be unable to detail the cupboard is empty-- if the thought or suggestion arises, I will dismiss it as false for I know there is a cup in the cupboard. I will not recognise the object of an empty cupboard. It is unknown to me.

The realist, if he is to be consistent, can't use the fact that most people assert and believe realism as a defence of his position. — Micheal

But that's not what the realist is asserting his position on. "Ordinary language" is not a popularity argument, but a logic one. It's to say: "If we are using this language, this meaning, then X is true."

The case is not made on the number of people who use it, but rather than what we are saying if we do not-- in this case, failing to use the "ordinary language" amounts to denying there can be unknown objects.

For the very reason that false beliefs depend on the independence of things. Take the cup in the cupboard. What is true if we are wrong about that? Well, not what we thought-- the cup and the cupboard-- but something else.

So what is this something else? If we think there is a cup and a cupboard, then we won't have a bar of any other idea. We will reject there is any other object-- it will be unknown and we are unable to detail it. The absence of the the cup and the cupboard is the object(s) we cannot admit.

And so, by the same logic, we might say that unknown objects exist and we might believe that unknown objects exist but it might nonetheless be the case that unknown objects don't exist. — Michael

Indeed, but this is only to say that unknown objects might not exist, which does not preclude (as you were arguing) that they can. All you've done is shown it's possible that subjects know everything-- something I've (and Sapientia) never denied.

For sure, but that is what gets you in a pickle-- if every object is recognised, then unknown objects are impossible. Every object is, by you own admission, necessarily recognised and so known by a subject. So, if your claim is to obtain, then every object must be necessarily known to a subject. There can be no unknown objects.

So Sapientia's counter is right. If we are using our ordinary language of knowledge, which admits that subjects don't necessarily know everything, then it is shown that all objects aren't necessarily recognised.

We can, of course, reject this ordinary language. But, if we do, it amounts to saying that subjects must necessarily know everything-- that unknown objects are impossible.

No, there might be unrecognised objects out there-- the claim not that any particular unknown object existed, but rather that they could exist.

I'm saying that unrecognised objects can exist, unless subjects having perfect knowledge of all objects is necessary. You are hoisted on your own petard of doubt. Unless subjects necessarily recognise everything, unrecognised objects can exist-- subjects must have infallible knowledge of objects for your claim to obtain.

You're assuming your conclusion.

I'm stating the premise that we can't describe or detail the objects we don't know, yes. There's certainly no outside evidence or "deriving" from another outside presence. But then I don't need one. Pay attention to the content of the argument.

How exactly would we describe or detail objects we don't know? It's impossible. To avoid a contradiction, one would have to place the supposedly unknown object within knowledge-- in which case it would be a known object.

Rather than assuming a conclusion, I'm pointing out being unable to detail or describe an object is lack knowledge of it. Unless, subject necessary recognise every object, unrecognised objects may exist.

No, Michael. I'm not.

Logic shows that it being otherwise is a contradiction-- it would require all objects to be necessarily be known by a subject. That's the only way it would be impossible for an unknown object to exist.

This is impossible because the presence of a knowing subject is defined by existence. The presence of knowledge cannot be necessary. It takes a state of the world, something which may or may not be.

You are just ignoring the argument here. You are applying empirical reasoning in a context where it makes no sense.

How can language use and logic be used to show that there can exist objects which haven't been recognised as such by a subject? — Michael

By our very inability to detail or describe objects we don't know.

With logic we can tell there may be things we don't know about-- the presence of something we have not experienced or been told. What are these things we lack knowledge of? We cannot say for we don't even have the idea to distinguish them until we have knowledge. One of those objects we do not know might be right in front of our noses this very moment and we would be oblivious. That's what it means for an object not to be recognised by a subject.

So unless we necessarily recognise every object, there may be objects which haven't been recognised by a subject .

The problem is it can only be effortless. If one gets caught thinking they need to get to "total awareness," then one is obsessing over "me" and it dominates. One cannot laboriously attain "total awareness."

In this respect spiritual discipline is often a hindrance because it frequently consists of the idea of how one needs to do something to get to total awareness-e.g. stepping towards Nirvāṇa in Buddhism.

Now this is not to say that those with a spiritual discipline cannot attain "total awareness." They can. It's just that it "effortlessly" occurs when engaged in spiritual discipline, rather than something given by hours of laborious work of spiritual practice, working to achieve a "total awareness."

The effortlessness of Krishnamurti is not a problem with his teaching, but a key feature-- it points out what being "total aware" entails. Rather than rambling about all over the place with allusions to some "total awareness" which we might get if we were "spiritual enough," Krishnamurti turns knowledge of ourselves over to us. We gain the knowledge "total awareness" comes not from laborious work of spiritual practice toward "total awareness", but in the Being of "seeing without any sense of me."

How does existence do this? By power ontology, teleology, tychism, etc? — darthbarracuda

By nothing. To exist is to be oneself, not some other means. A logical distinction which is given not by anything else, not by any idea about what is in the world, not even by a form. The difficulty in coming up with a set of principles or forms which defines the extent of a person, object or object is because self is an infinite expression, a nothingness in empirical terms, which always defines distinction in form.

No matter what we say about me part of the world, some object or even some part of an object, there is always its logical expression of self which extends beyond what we've identified. Anything always means more than what we can capture in any one idea or description.

The thing in-itself, the noumenon, we might say, is the logical expression of self-- the meaning of a thing which always defies categorisation and description as a finite form of the world. Nothing is the infinite expression of our existence. Logically, nothing "made" us or enables us exist-- that's a question for causality, for the interactions of particular states.

Peirce was basically an idealist - didn't he think matter was "condensed" mind?

It's why it rubs me the wrong way when people believe in an objective, unknowable noumenon "just to say they're realists". It's as if it's just slapped in their in order to avoid being called a full-fledged idealist. — darthbarracuda

To be realist is to understand that the noumenon is knowable: the infinite logical expression of self that we may understand.

The subjective idealist does not realise this. They still treat noumenon, "nothingness," as if it is a state of the world, with finite forms, that we might identify. Supposedly, in understanding the "thing in-itself," we fail to grasp what is. There is meant to this "unknown" state with forms that exists beyond our empirical world, which we can just never know. They are treating logic as a state of world. What they don't realise is understanding the noumenon is "nothing" is to know it.

I don't know, you seem to manage pretty well on your own. You never engage with criticism of Peirce, even with the people you don't have on ignore.

And so he did draw the natural conclusion that intelligibility was itself the driving principle of developed existence. If you have a model of the mind, it is also going to be a model of the world, as the same generic semiotic principles describe self-organisation of any possible kind. — apokrisis

This is the problem with Peirce. He puts all possible self-orgainsation into the principle of our minds, as if we new everything about the world by knowing a few general principles. Rather than putting models and meaning in the world, giving each state of the world its specific meaning which we might or might not know, he insists what we know must be the extent of the world. Instead of the world being intelligible of itself, its considered something the world needs to have added to it, something which the the world has to act towards. Peirce does not give enough respect to logical meaning and reduces the world to our present knowledge.

I'm afraid you are too caught up in Peircean worship to pay attention to what I'm saying, but that's the usual practice for you.

That problem was solved by semiotics. Peircean semiotics shows how the world can be divided into matter and symbol, and then interact and develop as a result of its causality being divided in this very fashion. — apokrisis

Peircean semiotics is too meek. The world not only can be divided into matter and symbol, but it always is-- existence and the meaning of existence (and the wider meanings of logic). The symbolic is not an addition of causality, but a necessary truth. It does not have to be added in. That's why there is no hierarchy. All meaning is already there. Anything is always possible.

More importantly, casualty is turned over entirely to existence. The interactions and developments of causality are entirely question of states which exist, not any symbolic meaning.

Now, it is true that which ever states exist express a symbolic meaning, so for a given state to be present (e.g. tree) the "presence" of a symbol ("tree") is always given, but that symbol is not how the tree exists. Existence does that.

The big problem for naturalism was doing justice to the apparent dualism that divides minds and worlds, top-down formal and final causes and bottom-up material and efficient causes. — apokrisis

With causality turned over to existence, this is resolved. There are no distinction of formal and efficient cause. All causes are of the same realm, material-- a state which brings about another, whether the given cause is an atom or someone's experience.

The point is hierarchical organisation is a misapplication of logic to casualty. One which mistakenly views logical expressions (e.g. gravity, "laws of physics," etc.,etc.) as the source of existing states. Supposedly, things on one level order the presence of things on another, such that various outcomes are inevitable in the world-- there is this "universal" idea that constrains the world.

What is at stake is not whether we know how the world works (we do, to a large extent), but the means by which it works in this way. Rather than springing from logic (a "universal" constraint), states of the world are existing things in themselves-- they have to be. So instead of states of the world being defined out of the universal or the semiotic, they are logically their own things. There is no hierarchy. Just a whole lot of things swirling around each other. We can't reduce the meaning of the world to a nice set of "universals" which give an account of everything.

The semiotic is driven into an expression of states themselves. The gravity relationship between the Earth and the sun, for example, no longer needs defining by the "universal" or the semiotics of human language. It a feature of those two states themselves, until such time (if any) they work differently. The same is true for any meaning of anything in the world.

Thus, there is no "vagueness" to any state of the world. All the way up, all the way down, and all the way around, there are infinite specific states and relations. "Vagueness" is just the realisation of the connection of the world without knowledge of any specific state.

If you imagine a world of dynamical processes where those processes are free to unfold over any spatiotemporal scale — apokrisis

This is incoherent becasue no process is capable of unfolding over any spatiotemporal scale. Processes are states of the world in relation or working together. They are tied to their own spatiotemporal moment. We can't have our Big Bang, for example, which unfolds outside its time. My body can't replace its cells outside its space and time. And so on. And so on.

This goes a bit into Spinoza's metaphysics: Spinoza thought there was one Substance, with various Modes of existence, and these Modes had Attributes. According to Spinoza, we humans have knowledge of two Modes: the Physical (extension) and the Mental (mind). And Spinoza thought there were infinite Modes. — darthbarracuda

You've fallen into the substance dualism Spinoza refutes here. Humans don't have knowledge in two realms of modes. Some states of knowledge are not "body" and others "mind."

Extension and mind refer not to different types of things in the world (e.g. different human experiences), but rather to the logical discintion between an existing state (extension) and a meaning in thought (mind). Any state of the world has both a form in existence but also an infinite logical expression of meaning. (and conversely, infinite logical expressions are expressed by extension when a state with a given meaning exists).

The former is the state of something's existence, while the latter is the meaning of the state in thought, which extends beyond that state's existence in the world-- thus, our experiences, which are not the existence of the things we experience, nevertheless hold the meaning of those state of existence, despite the states being entirely different (e.g. a tree is a different state to experience of a tree).

That's only human's particular interest and thought. How can you say for certain that other animals don't have a similar language you don't speak?

Even if they don't, how is this justification for denying their Being? Just because a life form doesn't go around thinking and speaking Being doesn't mean they don't expess it. Are animals nothing more than observed matter and energy just because they don't happen to talk about their Being?

What you are arguing is a doctrine of human exceptionalism, which only views humanity as meaningful or significant because they happen to talk about their Being sometimes.

That view is a form of reductionism which treats all other lifeforms as "matter" or "energy" in comparison to humanity's Being.

But what of the Being of other lifeforms on the Earth? Are all other animals mere matter and energy used to fuel human bodies and factories? Do other animals not have a life of awareness with a logical expression beyond the bodies we observe?

I can't agree to that. It equivocates the being of the world with the being of the of our theories, treating the construction of our thoughts as the same as the construction of the thing we think about-- as if hypothising the world worked in some way was required for it to do so. This is inconsistent with observing events of the world which have yet to be described.

The point is the world is a construction. At any given moment it is constituted by itself. Not only is human thinking historically situated, but so is every state of the world. Gravity is only so by the measure of states that exist at a given point at time. At any moment it is possible the world might work differently and the gravity we know is no longer expressed.-- tomorrow the world might wake up to every object speeding into Earth as if it were a black hole. The "rule" of gravity only describes so long as the world acts like that. The logic of gravity is, therefore, not a constraint on what states of the world are possible, but rather an expression of only the particular states which exist.

Indeed, and that's the problem with "universal" as used by you and many others in this thread.

The "universals" are suggested to meet the standard of that which is true regardless of the empirical world. The sort of truth which obtains regardless of the flux of empirical states (which is how they are a different order than empirical states). Something that is true regardless of space/time.

Only universal truths are this. A "universal" which might or might not be true, which is defined by a force drawn against states of the world, lacks this necessity. Your "universals" are a contradiction.

Make logic possible? How is that a coherent idea? Logic is necessary. With the universal there can be no question of whether “it is” or “is not.” Universals are always true.

Aristotle is the one who doesn’t believe in the universal here. He is the one who says, in response to me telling him that it’s necessarily true that a tree means tree, that I’m talking nonsense unless I suppose some specific force of the world which makes logic true, as if the tree began without the meaning of tree. Logic supposedly isn’t enough on it’s own. Logic is thought be defined by states of the world or else fall into incoherence.

This is why Aristotle understands the world to be defined by general categories. To fill the supposed “gap” he relies on observed states of the world. On observing an human, he sets out a standard which supposedly tells us when human are present. We can supposedly tell when a human is present by these “general, universal properties” which define the existence of a human.

But this creates a problem. Now there is a restrictive standard. At what point does a thing qualify as human? What if it’s missing an arm? A leg? Certain states of consciousness? Or what if someone has an extra finger, limb or hair? If these “general universal properties” were to define the meaning they would have perfectly account for the meaning of any possible human. Clearly, this is untrue. Many possible humans do not fit these meanings.

Aristotle is a reductionist who eliminates the meaning expressed by many states just to get the (supposedly) “universal truth” which describes everything in one moment. Like the person saying “consciousness” is just a brain, Aristotle equivocates a vast array or states and the meaning they expressed with something else entirely.

Thinking is not an abstracting process. It is a specifying one. Each thought picks out one specific meaning, one which is no other, a universal. For metaphysics to be more general or vague destroys this. What are unique expressions of meaning get reduced to the presence of some other thought— “Humans are necessarily X,Y,Z ”, “Experiences are brains.”

The sort of inference you are talking about is reductionism. Supposedly, by having one thought (humans, experiences) we must mean another (X,Y,Z, brains) and there's is no room for these meanings to occur on their own terms.

In terms of metaphysics, one could not get more wrong. It’s the equivocation of the order of the empirical with the logical, which goes both ways. We end up in the absurd situation where the logical is read as empirical (a caused truth, the meaning of properties X,Y,Z=existing humans, the meaning of experiences=existing brains, etc.,etc.) and empirical is read as logical (supposedly, empirical states are necessarily by logic: first cause, PSR, God, "constrained by the universal,"etc.,etc.). For these metaphysics, "vagueness" is a requirement because the universal nature of every logical truth is rejected. For them any truth is "vague" because is it has to have its logical meaning given by a different meaning.

Being a metaphysical debate makes it the realm or philosophy, not physics.

Physics will no doubt understand different forms in 400 years, just as it has changed throughout human history, with the discovery or loss of knowledge about how parts of the world work--understandings of empirical states not metaphysics.

Apo's problem, and the problem of "universals" in any context, is in trying to define the presence of states of the world in terms of metaphysics.

Supposely, logic imposes "constraints" on existence, such that one state is present over another. The "universal" is literally the idea that the meaning of thought creates states of existence. In knowing it, we supposedly have the rule which tells what states the world must be.

Eager to say we know how the world works, we have reversed the role of logic and the state of existence. We forget it's the empirical state which defines what is present in the world. Our "physics" becomes prescriptive. They start say the meaning of the world must always conform to them, rather than doing what physics should, identifying the meaning of present states of existence. The meaning of physics is subordinate to what the world does. It's never "universal," only specific to the states of the world which work that way.

The "rules" of physics are not a constraint on the world. They are an expression of what it happens to be doing at a moment.

You want Spinoza's Substance. Not a cause of state of the world, but rather a logical expression of all states. A God that doesn't exist.

Apo's "Vaugness" is unsatisfying because it's trying to pose it as an empical state. Obviously, this doesn't work because it doesn't place anything in existence. Substance which doesn't exist lacks this problem-- by definition to has no empirical form, not even an absence. Nothing empirical could ever be said about it, as vauge as you can get.

Because they don't believe the self matters unless saved by Jesus-- follow or you are worthless unrepentant sinner.

Mariner had a great thread on the PF before the crash about how Christianity expects a violence world because it lays bare the scapegoating of the individual and shows how absurd it is.

The essence of Christianity, however, is to scapegoat. God, in sacrificing Jesus, used the ultimate scapegoat. While this is great for showing absudity, it is also the ultimate example of what it's critiquing.

If scapegoating is mindless violence, then the sacrifice of Jesus is entirely unnecessary for sinners to be worthwhile-- God is the prime example of the problem.

Sinners ought not have to pay for their sin to be worthwhile. The violence committed in response to past sin cannot undo it. It would just be a scapegoat to appease the powerful. (God in this case).

To be a sinner AND to matter (as is true of all of us) is the most truthful position. The only one unburdened by the illusions past misdeeds can be paid for through death of a scapegoat.

Christianity cannot stand this idea- the love of the sinner not as someone to be saved, but as the self who has sinned. To the Christian the self of the sinner must be degenerate-- they need to be saved by Jesus.

A similar relationship to self exists in Buddhism, though tends not to be predatory. It offers a set of traditions and practices which are, on some level thought to required for better the self. The idea someone already matters in themselves is alien to them. Almost everyone supposedly needs to take steps to achieve Nirvāna. The idea there are many people who have already achived Nirvāna, who are going about the world with a self that matters is considered absurd and rejected as basis of the belief.

"Transcending the self" is about seeing through an illusion of the self. All those beliefs are about having a fiction about the self which removes the illusion of the worthless self. Jesus' sacrifice turns the degenerate self into something worthwhile by taking away our sin. Taking steps towards Nirvāna quells our frustration with ourselves.

But each leaves a fundamental illusion of self intact: the worthless self. Like we did before adopting an idea of "transcending the self," we still think our self is worthless-- why do you think we are so desperate to transcend it? " We posit our worth in terms of following an idea, text or tradition, rather than in terms of the self. Even as we break the illusion we don't matter, we are still caught under the spell that our selves are worthless.

Demonstrateably wrong. People have thought such things over history-- societies engulfed in the instability of revenge killings, society which scapegoated a minority with glee, etc., etc. To say people have never thought such things is ignorance of how people have behaved. At various times our moral intuitions have lead to exactly the opposite of how we considered them.

But more to the point, what is possible matters too. Even if no-one had believed such acts were moral, it would still be a possibile outcome. If people were to think a cycle of revenge kill was good, then it would be-- clearly a contradiction with what is ethical.

I expected as much, for the self is the most vile, worthless thing in according to the "religious" texts and ideas you suggest are the requirements for wisdom and insight. What could be more unwise than selves that matter?

Nothing, to such religious thought, for it renders the religious thought and associated traditions unnecessary for a fulfilling life. If the self means, ones does not need a new idea or tradition that promises fulfilment. Transcending the self is not required-- that book of tradition may be burnt.

What I spoke about is certainly compatible with egoism. There are Egoists who are aware of their infinte self (just as there are people from all sorts philosophies and faiths). Their mistakes about ethics don't mean their life is somehow less fulfilling. Just as the fictional nature of "transcending the self" doesn't undo how fulfilling it is to someone who believes in it-- what they believe might be a fiction, but their fulfilled self is not.

To have a final state misreads the point. No-one has a final state. By death they are gone, before death they have not ended. So called "transcending the self" is really aiming to access one's significance that's not dependent on any particular state of the world-- the logical expression of one existence.

Or in Sartre's terms the existence which "proceeds" (or perhaps "is regardless") of essence.

The problem is that it's not about transcending the self. It's just approximating fiction. Rather than realise that infinite expressed by the self, it supposedly given over to some other act or idea-- God, a tradition, buying stuff, freedom, evolution, etc., etc. Even Sartre made this mistake, offering freedom as transedence of self, despite his identification of the infinite of self.

What is sought is not a final state, but a realisation of the self regardless of states. As such it's not really about one's tradition (e.g. religious, atheist, reductionist, idealist, etc.,etc.), but one's awareness of infinite self along with what one happens to be doing.

Logically, it makes no sense. Countless simple examples show it to be false. Would it be ethical to have an endless cycle of revenge attacks if most people thought it was good? What about a genocide? Would it suddenly be okay to deny you rights if everyone else just turned around and said you no longer had them?

Ultimately, the approach of tying ethics to popular opinion disrespects the objectivity of subjectivity. It treats the world and its people like they are devoid of ethical significance. Ethics is turned into a sort of recreation which is only about making a majority happy, as if it were a trival pursuit papered over the top of insignificant lives.

It's like Unitarianism, only with a standard of "what most people think," even if it results in destruction which makes many very miserable indeed.

iconoclasm of this anecdote — Wayfater

Contrasted with unenlightened's reading, I can't help but feel there's a lot of Western individualism going in the responses here.

Most seemed to have approached the story as if both men are of separate traditions. As if the book burning amounts to the victory of one individual's ideas over another.

Viewed instead as a tradition held by both, it makes a lot more sense. The burning is a reminder the tradition is lived rather than just laid down in text.

The act of burning the book is external too-- the obsession with burning all the unnecessary ideas. He's attached to externals either way. So do we protect the things important to the people around us or do we destroy them?

I do agree with unenlightened's reading though. In that context, it works.

I would enjoy it... if it were about an individual casting off a burden they didn't need.

But that's closer to the angtheist's (or religious dogmatist) demand to wipe anything which is not them out of existence-- yes, burn the book you've not read and wipe all ideas from the world because it simply could not contain any wisdom or be helpful to anyone. Then there won't be those pesky people who are different than you.

The anecdote goes against its (at least by your reading) own point. To be at ease with one beliefs is not destroy what you do not need (and is deeply important to others), but to know that you do not need it, so you do not feel compelled to "enforce" your ease upon others. The person truly at ease with their outlook wouldn't have been threatened by the book. They would have kept it for those to whom it might be important.

The correct argument though, for our world is just one of many possible ones. We are just lucky it's the we live in rather than one of the countless possblities without us.

That our world works the way it does is a feature of itself, not "universal rules of constraint" which sit outside of it. Our world is a lucky accident.

Far from being "optimistic" speculation, we know this to be true for else we fall into the incoherence of defining the world based on logic rather than what exists. Else we assume that because we have seen the world work one way (the "universal"), that it must necessarily do so.

It's classical materialism's error of concreteness repeated--an assumption there is one "equation" ("the universal") which predicts whatever we might encounter in the world.

This part just didn't make much sense to me. You and I might look for evidence of consciousness in regard to a third party. In that case, the evidence we gather would not generally be considered to be consciousness itself. — Mongrel

It's not about looking for evidence. Evidence itself is the point of contention. What exactly is evidence? The term specifies something specific: a particular kind of thing, a showing of the world or logic, such that we can say: "Yes. That claim is accurate. We know something about the world or logic." Evidence is observation, seeing, hearing, touching, thinking, reasoning.

For any instance of evidence to be, something must be demonstrated, must be shown in thought or perception, and understood. All instances of evidence are experience. The only coherent position is that evidence is consciousness itself-- the states of consciousness which are the respective instances of evidence. If there is evidence (the world or an idea shown), then there is a conscious state.

The notion that it's all just stories, lingual categories, or otherwise entirely subjective cannot account for the predictive nature of universals, and the conformity to them, witnessed in nature. — Wosret

It can actually, where the subjective is the objective, rather than caused or constrained by it. Predications work because, in the future, there is an existing state which expresses the meaning incorrectly cited as a "universal constraint." Gravity is not a universal cause or constraint upon existing states.

Rather, it is an expression which is given by many individual states. If the world works differently, if there is a change in states, then gravity we known no longer be expressed and our theories won't predict what happens.

The subjective does not conform to universals, it constitutes the expression of universals in the world--Gravity is only expressed so long as they're a states which express that meaning.

Philosophy is not the absence of wisdom, it's the presence of wisdom. Thought and understanding which has been attained. Wisdom is gained precisely when there is no longer that particular piece of wisdom to attained (though it is never ending, for there is always more to learn)-- the shift, for example, from understanding the world to be meaningless to understanding there is immanent "spiritual meaning" (whether that of the world or a transcendent being).

The notion that wisdom is an absence which is to be obtained is a ritual and belief. A powerful sense that we are going to make ourselves better. Just think some philosophy, at some point, were're going to be great again-- it's like Trump's slogan. Say where going to make ourselves great again, and we get the sense as if it is happening, even though we aren't doing or learning anything.

Frequently, it becomes a substitute for wisdom. People partake in the absence like it's the "mystical" which is always revelatory-- just ask "why" at every moment and you'll be the wise.

It gives nothing at all. If we were to dismiss the immanent "spiritual meaning" by asking "why" whenever the topic came up, we would never gain that wisdom (indeed, you've probably encountered nihilists who make exactly that argument). Wisdom is obtained not in asking why, but rather when we understand the truth.

My posts do not proclaim "not seeing" is the only thing we can hope for. Indeed, I outright argued that opposite: that seeing is perfectly possible, that the there is immanent "spiritual meaning" and that we may understanding this. You responded to this by suggesting my proposal didn't have any meaning. As if it was impossible for us to recognise immanent "spiritual meaning" because the world can just never have this.

When I speak of your nihilism, I really mean it. I argue there is immanent "spiritual meaning" to the world, that it matters, that ethics apply to it, that it is worthwhile, that it expresses an immanent meaning which is not defined by the existence of any state. What do say? That I'm speaking nonsense. There's no way this could be true because the world just doesn't express that sort or meaning.

Supposedly, I'm meant to say: "The world is meaningless. It has no immanent "spiritual meaning." To be wise I'm meant to have a nihilistic hole in my soul which I need to resolve. And you call this notion that the world doesn't matter wisdom. How exactly it wise for me to deny the immanent "spiritual meaning" of the world and become "troubled?"

This is what is so egregious about your argument. Not that you would argue for meaning through the transcendent, but that you equate any recognition of immanent "spiritual meaning" with denying it is an immanent expression of the world.

You proclaim anyone must reject the meaning of the world, have a hole to fill, if the are to understand truth and to be wise. To a point where you cannot even see when other understand immanent "spiritual meaning" through a different means, one which understands that immanent "spiritual meaning" in expression of the world.

Like the dogmatic preacher, you proclaim the world is worthless and needs the transcendent being to save it-- "Believe in God or else you do not understand the truth. You are not wise. Everything you say is meaningless. You will be doomed to burn in the Hell of a world which doesn't matter. " You set fear of worthlessness amongst the flock.

The person who is content with their life, who understand it has an immanent "spiritual meaning," is suddenly confronted with the accusation they've failed to understanding the truth, that they have no wisdom, that they are meaningless. You seed doubt to create the hole they must use your particular beliefs, rituals and practices to fill.

Rather than respecting realisation of "spiritual meaning," you dogmatically advocate everyone must understand it like you or else be pedalling meaningless nonsense. Malicious in intent? Maybe not, like many dogmatic preacher, you think you are saving people from a horrible fate. Terrible in effect? Most certainly, for you make the demand people must consider the world worthless just so they can experience the wonder of being saved by the transcendent. You trying to create the "hole" in the soul of anyone who listens.