There is a fixed arrow of time, towards increasing entropy, I don't understand what nonsense you are peddling here. — Agustino

Which is constituted by various events as they occur.

Do you not realise how this renders your "hypothetical" with the exact problem I described? How are you going to get humans outside the fixed arrow of time towards towards increasing entropy, such that they can have this "timeless freedom" where there is no change or movement in time? Even "hypothetically" humans can't ever express such freedom. It's a contradiction. We are always finite states stuck on the ever running treadmill of time.

I do think that question has much to do with original sin. In the face of the world we have limited control (i.e lacking the power to fix everything) but absolute control (our decisions do define much of what happens in the world and whether problems can be fixed) over, how can we ever, as self-aware beings, act to make it good rather than evil?

No matter what we do, there are some problems we can't overcome, some problems we don't fix because we choose to help someone else or pursue or our interests, creating a schism between what we understand to be a good world and the one we live in.

In our self-awareness of how we make the world, we see how we have not made it perfect or virtuous as it might be, and it gnaws away our sense of value about the finite. We consider ourselves and our world fallen, to the point where it is not worth anything, where it deserves to be cast into the fiery pit for eternity, for merely having this "limited" which did not produce the perfect outcome.

Why is an arrow of time logically necessary for freedom? Freedom could be time-less. — Agustino

Then it would never of us, Agustino. We are not timeless. We begin, change and end. To say freedom is timeless is to put its expression outside humanity an the existing world. How could I be free to be anything or make decisions if freedom is not an expression of changing states? Moreover, how does freedom even make sense in the context of a necessary, unchanging infinite? Such an infinite has no freedom, for it is never subject to change; it never has responsibility for its presence as an existing state.

What if you could undo somethings, but not others? Having no fixed arrow of time doesn't necessarily entail that there is no arrow at all or that you can decide every single time how to change the arrow does it? — Agustino

We can't undo anything that's done. When a decision is taken or an event occurs, it constitutes that moment in the "arrow of time." Sometimes we can "go back" in the sense of changing the world back to a similar state. One can glue the broken vase back together, but that does't undo the vase was broken.

To be part of the changing world entails the absence of a fixed arrow because there is never some necessary state everything is heading towards. It's always being made as it goes by the specific changes which occur. Not only is no pre-existing arrow of history which one "shifts," but the path of events is made with every single decision and event. Whether or not I turned on the computer this morning made the arrow of history, it was what defined whether the computer existed in an on or off state this morning.

Suggesting we change the arrow doesn't make sense, for there was no arrow defined for that moment until the decision was made. This is the meaning of freedom, time, entropy and the finite. Change and emergence of different states. To be infinite, to be necessary (rather than possible), to be unchanging, is to be outside existing states.

The finite is the expression of the infinite and DOES NOT have independence from the infinite.

Yes it is necessary. That is exactly what a ground of possibility means. The ground of possibility is itself not possible, it is necessary, just the same way that that which makes vision possible (the eye) is necessarily not present in the field of vision (well, except when you look in the mirror, but you get the point). — Agustino

The ground of possibility assumes that something must come in an act as the foundation for the emergence of possibility. It takes possibility to be a finite state which must be created out of the infinite, rather than being necessary itself.

I know you think you agree, but your disagreement amounts to the outright denial of acosmism. You subsume the infinite back into the illusion of the finite, arguing it to be responsible for the emergence of possibility.

The eye is never what makes vision possible. Vision is possible at any point. Logically, any moment might have an experience of seeing. It just takes that state itself.

Eyes are just finite states which are causal of some actual instances of vision. Logically, any other state might play a similar casual role in the emergence of vision. There might even be the presence of experiences of seeing all on their own (i.e. without any specific causal relationship to an information receiver, such as an eye). This remains the case even when its only eyes which are causing experiences of vision. The thing about a possibility is that it doesn't need to actual to be true.

The issue runs deeper than merely thinking that the infinite runs prior to the finite. It goes to the how of how much you respect God as real in (acosmist terms). How you speak about God treats God as a as a possibility, such that we might be born into a world in which God (in acosmist terms) might or not be real. You hold our existence to ransom based on the idea of the presence infinite over the absence of infinite, as if it were possible for the infinite to be or not be. You are still running in fear with belief in the godless world. You haven’t realised that God (in acosmist terms) is real and necessary, such there is no possibility of the godless reality, making the supposed issue, whether or not God is true, entirely moot. The very question is nonsensical.

Confusion of the infinite and finite isn’t just a shallow statement that places the infinite in time, it’s one which fundamentally misunderstands the infinite and it relationship to possibility. It creates the illusion of the meaningless (godless) world which then people try to fill in with various imaginings. God gets treated as an action, a state, one possible outcome, which must be inserted into the world for it to mean, for God to be true (i.e. “the saviour”). In the relevant terms, the Christian world is godless, for it denies God is real (in acosmist terms) and suppose God is illusion for God is a possible (finite) outcome of the world which acts, causes and changes finite states. It is the ultimate category error which denies the infinite then tries to use the finite to paper over the nonsensical gap that denial leaves.

Spinoza's split between thought and extension is not between the existing minds and bodies, but a logical distinction between that which is present to mind (meaning) and that which is existing (states of the world, bodies, existing thoughts). It's the difference that the mind/body split has been trying to grasp and failing for its entire history. The meaning (infinite) which we access every time we think and the various states of the world we observe or know about. It's how Spinoza dispenses with the mind/body problem. The infinities of mind are given with the finites of body, removing any need to give priority to either, and so eliminating the "hard problem" and the question of "where does meaning come from?" Since meaning is infinite and unchanging, it never had a beginning or end, it came from nowhere and can go nowhere. All meaning is necessary. It given by definition, with all the finite states which are given in themselves (as opposed to by the infinite).

Thus, it makes no sense to claim the infinite as a ground for possibility. It's necessary. Possibility is not made by anything. God is never in doubt such that it makes sense to say: "Well, the presence of the infinite constitutes the ground which allows us to have possible finite states as opposed to not." Any finite state is, by definition, possible. To argue something has to come in (God, the infinite) to insert possibility into a world without it, or which might not have any, is incoherent.

That's not what I said. The meaning of the body, it logical expression, is eternal. Spinoza shows the difference between meaning and existence, which are, in many cases, is referred to "body" and "mind" historically.

I know you are referring to the activity of thinking. But's that your confusion. It doesn't exist. In the sense you are talking about, the meaning of "thinking," as opposed to any individuals thoughts, there is no finite state and no casual relationship.

That's saying the infinite is present before the finite, Agustino. Finite terms. It's nonsense if you are talking about the infinite.

Well what do you think of a triangle if it didn't have any sides? That's exactly what the Christian thinks about the world if it was Godless. Simple. — Agustino

For sure... but that's been my point all along: that under original sin our world on it own, without the existing infinite, in-itself, is worthless and doesn't make sense. You've been the one asserting this isn't true.

I said the infinite is logically prior. The infinite isn't logic btw - logic is merely a tool of the understanding. — Agustino

I know that. My point is it an oxymoron. Logic is timeless. To say it is prior or afterwards is incoherent. you are applying finite terms to the infinite.

It's what Spinoza thinks :) He wrote it. So it seems that you are the one mocking his insight. I think that in a certain sense, we have always been. — Agustino

No, it's your misreading of Spinoza, where you misread the infinite as existence. We are in a certain sense, logical expression, always infinite. We even mean before we exist. Even things which never exist have their meaning (all those possible worlds we might talk about). You are confusing this with existence.

The activity (the soul) has effects in the physical world. For example thought would be such an activity. — Agustino

There's that dualism again. Thought is a existing state. It is finite. Our thought emerge, pass on and result in changes to existing states. It's not the soul.

These terms are incoherent under the Christian worldview. A world without a God is like a triangle without sides! — Agustino

For sure, but we aren't talking about what makes sense to a Christian or whether they pose the worthless, Godless, universe is true. Rather, we are talking about what Christians think about the Godless universe. Whether they believe the Godless universe is true is beside the point. What's important is what they are saying about the world if it was Godless and how that ties worth to the presence of God.

This point is anything but moot. My attack on original sin is not premised on the idea Christian's think the world is worthless, but rather on the idea it is worthless if there is no God. The presence of absence of God isn't even relevant to this point.

But God is in this case logically prior to the world. The world can't exist without God, but God could (logically) exist without the world. Sub specie aeternitatis, even according to Spinoza, is the ONLY reality, and sub specie durationis is the illusion (in accordance to Hegel's acosmistic reading of Spinoza at least). — Agustino

That's nonsensical. God is timeless. The infinite cannot be prior or afterwards. It only IS. God doesn't exist, as God is not finite. Logic is not a presupposition that enables existence. It's always true (the infinite) and runs concurrently with world the exists on its own terms (the finite).

Indeed, with respect to the infinite, only sub specie aeternitatis is reality. The only reality which doesn't change, die or move on is sub specie aeternitatis. No matter how much each moment of my life might seem to be an endless, it's not. We are not of this reality. Here, we are the illusion. In the infinite, none of us matter, none of us exist, none of us were ever there at all. None of us will ever be there no matter what happens (even an immortal life is only transfinite; it has a beginning and a possible end).

It's strange you say this when the Christian position is clearly that this world is good - that God's creation is good, despite its fallenness. — Agustino

Yeah... only because of the divine. Take away God and it's all worthless, despite the fact it changes not one thing occurs in the finite world. For the Christian, the world is worthless because it is fallen. God then rescues it.

"We feel AND KNOW that we are eternal" — Agustino

No, that's just what many people think, confusing the logical expression they sense fort her own existence. It's false. We aren't eternal. As existing state we have not always been. We start and end.

How come? — Agustino

Because it doesn't accept the fallen world (in Christian terms, "the Godless" ) as good. It posits it must be destroyed, that it needs the being of God to save it, because it supposes the world doesn't matter without the divine (and the stuff which usually goes along with that, such as afterlife, judgement, retribution, etc., etc. ).

You are misunderstanding. Is Aristotle's hylomorphism dualistic? Absolutely not. The soul is the form of the body. The soul does not exist physically without the body. And yet, the soul is eternal and lives after death. Not because of a dualistic break between the two, but rather because the soul is an activity, which still remains as an activity even after death when it isn't instantiated in the physical realm anymore. Spinoza is similar. — Agustino

Logical expression works as a "soul"; it something the world (including bodies) do, but it doesn't exist. It not the existing body. Since it is infinite (logical) rather than finite (existing) it does remain after death, but that's because it was never in instantiated in the physical realm at all. The activity was always logical, even when is person was living.

Again, we see trying to make the finite into the infinite. You insist despite the obvious contradiction, that the soul was initially apart of the body, a state of the existing state of the world, a finite thing which passed into existence, which somehow changed and altered with time. Here the problem is not the soul as activity, but that you read it as the existence of man.

Careless, Agustino. I never said that we didn't feel infinite. We (well, some of us) do that all the time. I do that all the time, I might go as far to say in every moment. The infinite expression of each moment is clear. The problem with original sin is not that it a proposal that people feel infinite, but that it suggests they are meant to be and can be infinite (which triggers a sense of feeling infinite under the delusion they are).

Part of ourselves - namely our bodies - are outside of the infinite. But our souls and minds never are.

Re-read Book V of the Ethics. Spinoza is clear about this: "V.P23: The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but something of it remains which is eternal". It's ironic that YOU are the one talking about mocking Spinoza's insights... — Agustino

In logical expression, yes (though our bodies are infinite there too). Not in life. Our minds aren't distinct form our bodies in the sense that former is finite and the latter infinite (you are regressing into the mind-body dualism Spinoza dispels here). This is an outright textual example of your refusal to accept the finite. You speak of if the indestructible nature of logical expression were the existing mind of a person. As if the feeling one was infinite actually qualified as part of a person existing for eternity.

Nope, we run to something other merely because it exists - it is real, and it is a part of ourselves. If we neglected that part, then that would be the equivalent of neglecting part of our being. Kierkegaard wrote extensively on this - on the need for man to balance the finite and the infinite within him, on the fact that man is a contradiction, holding both finite and infinite within him, yadda yadda yadda... — Agustino

Another example of not accepting the finite nature of man. Here you propose there is an infinite part of man such that it produces a contradiction. This is not true. Such a contradiction is impossible. No state of man is infinite.

There is plenty of feeling the infinite, being aware of logical expression, but these are not existing states of ourselves. We are all finite. Sometimes we are finite states which are the sensing of the infinite. The supposed contradiction is an illusion created by us not distinguishing between sub specie aeternitatis (logical expression) and sub specie durationis (the existing state which is a sense of logical expression).

No the spirit never escapes from the world sub specie durationis because it simply never is part of the world sub specie durationis. I don't know what happens after death - I can't imagine either that there is feeling or that there isn't feeling. Those categories, as far as I'm concerned, no longer apply, except perhaps metaphorically. — Agustino

If you want to describe it like that sure, but that means is incoherent to refer to it as our existing mind.

Nope, original sin states that that is precisely what will happen.

That's not part of the doctrine of original sin - quite the contrary, as I have stated very clearly, the punishment for sin is death, and this is inescapable as I have illustrated. Therefore there is no delusion that we can ever escape from it. Original sin states quite the contrary. — Agustino

I never contested original sin stated that there was inescapable evil in the world. My point is it considered the world worthless because of that. It is the fear of existing in world in which there is at least some evil that cannot be escaped. Worthlessness is part of the doctrine of original sin.

Rather than noting the presence of inescapable evil (sin) and the stating that such a world is nevertheless worthwhile, it proclaims the world with evil is completely worthless, such that things need to be infinite to matter.

"In Him we move and have our being" — Agustino

More like: "With the being of the world (including us), He moves (i.e. the infinite expressed by the finite), " if we are being careful in our language to avoid the equivocation of the finite with the infinite. The world is not a subset of the infinite as your quote might imply if read the wrong way.

This is what I was talking about in the other thread: the notion the world (including human life) is inherently worthless because it is not perfect. It the failure to accept that we are human, that we live in a finite world, that we will die, that we live in the swirling chaos of the world sub specie durationis. Here the problem is not the identification of the world as full of evil (it is), but rather the delusion that we can ever escape it. Under original sin (or any other position which similarity considers the finite inherently worthless), we make the mistake of of think we (and the world) live world sub specie aeternitatis. So distraught at the failures of the finite, we run to the lie that our lives are something other, that there is somehow a place, a state, a life, sub specie aeternitatis. Not even the spirit of man escapes of the world sub specie durationis. When man dies and his feelings leave the world, there is no more feeling eternal.

It's the fear of the finite, the fear of death, the inability to accept life is sub specie durationis and that we, as existing states, are outside the infinite. It's a mockery of Spinoza's insight into sub specie durationis and sub specie aeternitatis, a confusing of the latter for the former because one cannot accept the finite nature of life.

Orignal sin doesn't merely point out the wrongness of finite life. It mistakenly proposes we are worthless because of it, that it means we must be something other than ourselves, something other than finite. God ceases to be the immanent expression of the world (i.e. the infinite) and is mistaken for a life, a utopia, which has never existed and never will. It forms a delusion about our life (that be can be infinite) and worth (that the world is worthless, without the immanent expression of God) with which we try to fill the whole in our heart.

But it never really works because we are finite. We cannot escape ourselves, even when we throw our efforts into projects, such as ideology and empires which remain others. Ten years? Fifty years? One hundred and twenty years? Three hundred years? A millennia? It is never enough. In every case, the result is dissatisfaction because it is still finite and so ends in every case. When we wish to be infinite, the hole in are heart never closes because we want something that we never are. We become stuck on the treadmill of desire, desperately insisting the maintenance of life (the afterlife) and a whole host of fictions (nations, empires, duty, etc.,etc.) into to perpetuity, without actually paying attention to the communities of the world, what matters to them or how our polices would actual affect them (you would have us invading Iraq for empire building ).

We become drunk on enacting power on others for to achieve the infinite (e.g. salvation, the never-ending empire, the utopia, punishing "moral decay, etc.,etc.") which never does what we say. Instead of sacrifice for the community, it the throwing of people on the altar for a present delusion of infinite life, so a certain group of people can FEEL like they will be infinite, that they will achieve transcendence from the finite world and their fear of it, even though nothing of the sort occurs.

. We don't have resources anymore not because our neighbors have become too powerful - but rather because we have become too WEAK. Our people are not interested anymore in preserving and increasing our resources. Everyone cares just about themselves. No sense of community exists.

You are missing the point. When the interest in empire building wanes, the actions which would horde resources for oneself, and so prevent other powers from rising, ceases. After conquest and commerce, the battle is essential lost.

The seed for the fall of an empire is sown when it shifts from external interests to internal ones, for it is at that point expansion and its need for an endless supply of people for expansion ceases.

"Becoming weak" amounts to ceasing to be a warmonger and actually caring for the well-being of one's citizens here.

It not actually a question of selfishness (people still care for each other plenty in falling empires), but rather having no interest in empire building anymore. What you care about here is not community, but building empires.

And that provides for their lives, which makes all the difference.

In an established society and growing, were there is an excess of economic roles, the equation reverses. There aren't the places in the workforce for everyone and so it's not a problem which can be solved through motivation to do pad work. Interests shift outside doing work which obtains money because it isn't there and often plays a big part in serving the community (for all that work that needs doing which no-one is interested in paying for).

This is quite ahistorical. It was not "significant". — Agustino

It was, though no-one liked to talk about it. "Ahistorical" in the sense that we are actually interested in considering them people and talking about their relationship to the rest of society, perhaps.

The difference between them and modern Western society, in term of actual behaviour, isn't all that different. Major shifts in Western culture have occurred in terms of sexual behaviour before long term relationships and in the ending of long term relationships, but most people are not promiscuous otherwise. It just doesn't interest them.

I don't understand why you claim this is my position. It isn't. — Agustino

I claim this because it is your position. You are more interested in whether people are said to be in a community, whether they a pronounced to have ties or joy with others, than if they actually do or not.

Sorry, but the English of your sentence isn't very clear here and I can't understand what exactly you're trying to say. What do you mean by "see it amongst some 'promiscuous' people people who are giving similarly interested people an expression of their interests"? — Agustino

I mean that I see some promiscuous people thinking of others in their sexual practices. It is a limited subset, but not every promiscuous person views sex as question of getting an object. For some people it is about what other people want too. The point is, even amongst those who you would single out as lacking community, there are people with communal ties. You are making the mistake only looking at what is said to be a part of community, rather than examining what people actually do.

Not if there is no work available or that work can't pay regular bills. Being motivated to clean toilets all day is useless, at least in terms of your own wealth, if no-one will pay you for it. No doubt the motivation to build a better a community be making sure their toilets are clean is a great one, but it gets thrown under "useless pursuits" in this context. As does anything which doesn't pay the bills.

A much more diminished presence, except in periods of social unrest and instability. — Agustino

More like a significant underclass of people that weren't talked about in polite society.

Yes, with Aristotle, I think man is a social animal and cannot ultimately be happy on his own - but requires his community for that. I also think that it is immoral for someone to pursue only his own happiness and disregard the happiness of others. I think it's immoral, for example, to trick your collegue at work so that you get a promotion instead of him. I think it's immoral to disconsider the interests of your beloved ones when deciding what to do with your future. Etc. etc. — Agustino

Indeed... but you aren't offering that. You are talking about community in terms of fiction, of the God they all follow, of the country they all serve, not their ties to each other and what they build as a community. It's all bluster with you. Statements which soothe fear, which say they have belonging, without examining how people live or if they have substantial ties to others.

Just go and have a look and see if people are loving to each other. What I see is that men abuse women they claim to love and treat them as exchangeable socks, what I see is mothers neglecting their children in order to advance their careers, etc. — Agustino

I do. I see everyday. I even see it amongst some "promiscuous" people people who are giving similarity interested people an expression of their interests. This is what I mean about ignoring people. You don't examine their interests or what they are doing. Someone one focusing on a career, for example, maybe about helping other people.

That's economically driven situation. Our economies have changed such that those sort jobs are not available or being replaced by technology. The blame that "Ah, those people just don't want to do the work" is mindless scapegoating which ignores the underlying problem. I mean it doesn't even make sense to say immigrants cleaning toilets is causing the collapse of society. The service is still getting done. Even if it were the case that it was merely a matter of local people refusing to do it (rather than, you know, companies preferring immigrants for economic considerations, where people are living, the need for a living wage, etc.,etc. ), these mindless accusations of "moral decay" doesn't address the problem. That doesn't specify we need to a community which offers those jobs (or some other economic structure to deal with the loss of hose jobs) to local people and individuals who are comfortable doing that.

No I actually find (1) selfishness, (2) the enthralment of money, and (3) lack of sexual mores to be the most serious problems of the West. For me, your statement that joy has been turned over from God to ourselves - I could really care less about that. Someone who loves and respects themselves and their neighbours, and follows virtue, is a believer in God as far as I'm concerned. You seem to think that belief in God is something different than this. — Agustino

Laughable. (1), (2) are not new. Empires have always been about those. (2) has been made available to many people in the West because of their economic power and production (now its not just the King's treasury which worried about how to spend lots of money, for lots of people gain significant funds and have to distribute it). (3) has always had a presence too, present Western culture just doesn't make an example of them.

The turning of joy over to humans is what you care about most. It the focus on the individual and their worth which hurts you the most (which you incorrectly perceive as "selfishness" ), for it means the loss of community based categories as sole providers of joy. Now one doesn't need to be a part of a church, a monogamous relationship, a nation, etc.,etc., etc. to feel joy. They can have that all on their own.

And this is why you completely ignore the question of of whether people love, respect themselves and their neighbours. Notice you do not actually examine the beaver of various individuals in their communities, what they do for each other, the community projects they run, the way they play a part in their local communities. Instead, you talk about what (supposedly) governs people (money, rampant desire for casual sex), which are really only and image presented as ideal. You ignore people themselves. Thus, you come away with this impression that Westerners are somehow all money obsessed, sleeping with everyone and without communities ties at all.

Belief in God is something different to what you claim. Here it (though it is not always this) is the idea human are worthless and the need to band together under the "divine" to matter or have community ties. A position so caught-up in the joy of being "saved" that it ignores that many people don't need saving and their social ties and virtues.

Yes it does name a change in people's behavior. It may not name the cause of the change, but it names and identifies a behavior which is bad, not the cause of that behavior. — Agustino

That's nonsense. The question at hand wasn't whether people were behaving badly, but rather whether that behaviour was responsible for social collapse. Merely naming the change is exactly the problem. It isn't actually tied into the question of what is causing the collapse of society.

The only thing that can avoid the collapse is mobilising a sufficiently large group of people, and creating communities of righteousness within the larger society, which slowly take over it. — Agustino

Indeed... but to what? And this is the great illusion of the scapegoating of "moral decay." In many cases the "moral" decay has nothing to so with the social change that avoids collapse or rebuilds a society. Much collapse and rebuild occurs on cycle depending on the resources and economics of the time. Beating-up the "Moral" decay frequently has nothing to do the the rebuild. It just people violently venting anger that they were unlucky enough to be stuck with a terrible time.

I don't think people are inherently worthless, they just make themselves worthless by forgetting who they are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-vnLHaTe3g . Simba's relationship with his father is much like man's relationship with the divine. — Agustino

Utter falsehood. You do think them worthless. Without the divine, humanity is scum. That's your position. The notion you've been struggling with ever since I've known you, right back to your first posting about God on the PF. You've never been able to view humans as worth anything in themselves. You're always demanding the must aim higher to save themselves from their inherent debasement. You are still chasing that which is never us, just like the consumerist who is never content the thing they just bought. The divine only manages to avoid lack of fulfilment in this role because it is imaginary. Since it can't be attained, the hollowness of reaching a desired state can't be achieved. One never gets to the divine, to become worthwhile, such that their sense of worthlessness renders the divine sour.

Yes and no. We have become too selfish, that much is true. In that sense, yes my problem is that we think we are worth too much when in truth we are not. And no, in the sense that if we thought we are great, and we were indeed great, there would be no problem with thinking ourselves to be great. — "Agustino

I wasn't talking about selfishness there, but rather one's own understanding of their worth. The point is about whether one has joy without the divine. When one understands themselves to be a legitimate part of the world, on their own terms, rather than a monster who needs the divine to make their lies worthwhile. My point is you lack this insight. You continue to outsource the worth of live because you think they have none on there own.

Yes, the West has forgotten duty, and because it has forgotten duty it will either remember it, or it shall disappear, as all other civilisations have disappeared. That the West thinks of itself as immortal is a grave delusion. The barbarians are at the gates. Hannibal ante portas... — Agustino

The duty to what exactly? (Further) subjugate the rest of the world under its military might? To (again) wipe out cultures and communities, (continuing) exploit other places such that we maintain overwhelming economic and military superiority?

You are delusional here. Make no mistake, the West will end sometime. Empires are built on the subjugation of others. Sometimes the fall because, at some point or another, they weren't destructive enough to those around them to hold themselves as a sole power. In some ways it is the life cycle of empire. The West won't end in the near future (still too much economic and military power for that), but it will pass on at some point, as is the case with all empires. Eventually, some force will develop with is strong enough to effectively oppose the West and it will crumble (as the British Empire, as the Ottoman Empire did, as Rome did ). And it won't be because they did not remember a duty to avoid casual sex. It will be because successive generations abandoned empire building for other interests (in some cases the interests of others).

Yes, we've replaced the spirit with ourselves, and so we have sought to make man into a God, into a standard for judgement. That is why we have become so selfish and perverted. —

Yet, we are not. Selfishness and pervasion heave been present in abounds in God fearing societies for centuries. Including you much vaunted examples of Rome and the Ottoman Empire. No, we replaced the locus of worth with ourselves. We've kicked the divine out. We feel we do not need it for our lives to be worthwhile, not in the sense of abandoning rules of individual actions (e.g. sexual morality), but in the sense of whether our lives our joyful and worthwhile. No saviour required, for we we matter in ourselves. And this is what you find most objectionable about Western culture, that joy has been turned over from God to ourselves.

However, you have to realise that we have the writings of historians who witnessed those events, and they describe what happened. The fact that they noticed moral decay in their society is a fact. It's unquestionable. It's not something that can be interpreted. Something that is up to interpretation for example, is why did moral decay occur? Some say because of relaxed religious control, others because of too much well being, others because of orientation towards money rather than virtue, etc. — Agustino

"Moral decay" is a useless measure for exactly that reason. It doesn't actually name anything that's happening in society. It's post-hoc blaming of the nearest thing (the promiscuous, the gays, the Jews, etc., etc., etc.), in the vein hope there is something that can avoid the collapse which is already in motion.


Societies collapse because of the distribution of resources and how they are used. We know this outright. We've seen it in the historical record. We've actually seen it in modern Western communities. This isn't a mystery. What people notice is various things happening in society as it goes down in flames. Most of the time, these have just about nothing to do with the collapse, with the case of the collapse set in motion many years before or beyond the immediate control of the society (e.g. the presence of invading armies, economic depression precipitating internal conflict, long standing ethnic tensions, etc.,etc. )

His primary concern is actually overcoming the worthlessness of humanity. The praise of original sin here is no coincidence. Agustino is looking at the lack of joy (or at least a perceived) lack of joy in people's lives and is then throwing out a whole lot of behaviours which are supposedly causing the lack of joy. He is so investing in saying who is wrong and what is wrong because he views joy a question of overcoming one's worthlessness.

His much vaunted "moral decay" is really the loss of a culture which views the individual as essentially worthlessness and in need of saving. That's why he so invested in saying, commanding and being seen to be tough immorality. He is lamenting the lack of demands put on people in Western culture. Aside for whether any individual is happy of not, his problem is we think we are worth too much. We've eliminated the joy of being "saved" from our own worthlessness, at least amongst the "liberal elite" and anyone who shares similar cultural values. We've replaced the what Agustino calls the "spiritual" with ourselves.

Shouting out all over the place that a small but greater percentage of Muslims is not an open discussion. It's fear mongering with no benefit to the task of preventing Islamic extremism. We know about the spread of Islamic extremism. News of radicalised locals reaches us everyday. The cultrual connection to Islam is known. Information that X amount Muslims, a small group which is bigger than other groups, makes no difference to our understanding of the issue.

It does have relevance to particular in-depth policy discussions to dealing with radicalisation, or to nuanced analysis of the relationship of Islamic extremism to Muslim communities, but as a headline which supposely captures the nature of a great threat, it is utterly useless. Merely a detail some people will latch onto to "prove" how dangerous Muslims are.

And no, it does not shut down criticism of conservative Islam. Refraining from plastering headlines which characterise Muslims as necessarily dangerous terrorists doesn't stop anyone taking about problems within Islamic culture.

Indeed, I would say it is actually helpful in that regard, as the discussion doesn't become mired in an ineffective blame game. Instead of sitting on releaving but shallow accusations of terribleness, the discussion can move on to people talking about living with under Islam and problems it may have with its values.

Absolutely. In the present context of the Western media, that would do nothing but stir-up anti Muslim sentiment. The public gains nothing by having that fact trumpeted loudly at them. Present narratives of Islamic extermism would be unchanged. It would do exactly nothing with respect to dealing with radicalisation or sympathy of some Muslims have towards Islamic extremism.

In the Western media, we are dealing with this issue terribly. We simultaneous split the ideology of terrorism away from Islam (i.e. extremists, who are utterly disconnected from the acceptable group of moderates), while presenting lslamic extremism as the only ideology Islam has, creating a monster which doesn't take the connection of Islam to terrorism seriously (all contained in the extremist box, envisioned to have no relation Islam as a cultural force) AND creates the Muslim boogeyman where anyone related to Islam is thought of as an existential threat.

Not for those already born. They're stuck with their lives no matter how much anyone says no one else ought to be born.

The direction this discussion has taken doesn't make sense. The question of the worth of the lives of the already living is a different question to that of whether new life ought to be created. If you are already born, then the only questions are how you've been cooked (and sometimes burnt) and how you will be cooked (and sometimes burnt) in the future. Only the suffering of future lives can be prevented by eliminating new births. For the suffering of the living, it holds no consequence or solution. It says nothing about whether already living is worthwhile or not.

From an anti-natalist point of view this is just confusing. The position makes its case against life precisely by avoiding such comparisons. For the anti-natalist, suffering is so bad any comparison with the worthwhile is incorhent. It cannot be paid for or mitigated by good experiences. Responsiblity to avoid new instances or life is argued on the basis suffering is a state which must be avoided, in terms of itself alone. The moment one tries to compare suffering with the worthwhile, they've missed the point anti-natalist is making about suffering and its place in life.

This is an absurd question because it never happens. The relief of suffering is only a feeling in moments where someone has suffered. No-one can relive anything. To ask whether one would relive their live differently, as if someone could still be themselves, the person who felt relief from suffering, is nonsensical. If they didn't suffer, their live would be different. They would be a different person. You aren't asking to relive their life, you are asking whether or not there is a different life which is better than theirs.

Now that is a perfectly coherent question, one which many people would answer in the affirmative. It is, however, irrelevant to the lived experienced of the individual. They are forever stuck with what happened in their life. Imagined worlds cannot alter what happened to them. Whatever suffering and happiness they are feeling/ have felt, they are stuck with. Your pontifications about a life which would have been better are entirely irrelevant to their lives. It's like walking up to a torture victim and asking: "Wouldn't it have been great if you weren't tortured?" - nothing more than a platitude on your part, which is irrelevant at best and insulting at worse.

Misery is important for happiness because, in some cases, that person's happiness occurs after misery and is an end to that misery. This is not to say that misery is what makes happiness possible, but rather to point out that many instances of happiness occur because a moment of misery has ceased. It is about the misery and suffering that the people in question are living through. For many people, to end a moment of misery is an accomplishment which brings happiness.

Yes... if the circumstances are such that the law-in-question is unjust. And yes, the point is to remove the power of the law, else we end-up with a society which can't track and remove immoral laws. Laws which are not ethical do not deserve power.

I'm arguing causality is ridgidly determative. The future is ridgid because there is one outcome which occurs. My point is this ridgidness is concurrent with possibility.

Where the (pre)determinist goes wrong is not in suggesting causality is ridgidly determative, but rather in arguing such causality constitutes the absence of freedom.

You are still missing the point. Here the compatiblist's is attacking the idea a ridgid future entails the absence of freedom.The point is the common split between determinism and indetermism is build on a fundamental misunderstanding of freedom and causality. They never been opposed. Freedom is always present because no future state is defined prior to itself. All future states follow on from past ones in the ridgid set of actual states. Freedom and determinism are both necessary.

Luckily there are always more rooms everyone can run too. It all sounds like some sort of Hellscape mystery-adventure platformer.

The "ridgid" future is the actual outcome. You are currently thinking of the ridgid future as if it mutually exclusive with possibility. It's not. As you point out, the fact there is one inevitable outcome of actual events has no impact on possibility. In the case of any actual event, other outcomes are possible. A ridgid future does not eliminate possibility at at all.

So, indeed, the presence of a ridgid future does not leave us with one possible outcome, just an inevitable event which is one possible outcome of a set of possible events. This means DETERMNISM, the ridgid future, does NOT invove only one possible outcome.

The proponents of (pre)determinism got determinism wrong. They thought a ridgid future meant one possible outcome when it does not.

This is the compatiblist's point: possibility is there with the ridgid future of determinism. Most of philosophy has been using this incorhent ideas of determinism and possibility.

Indeed, but you are ignoring that it is states of existence which are the causes and effects. You keep proposing (pre)determinism on the ground a past state can necessitate will happen in the future. That is treating the cause as logic. It is to say, logically, there is only one outcome which follows from this given state, as if it did not need the presence of the effect to define what was caused. To say that when one rolls a six-sided die, the only potential outcome is one because that's all a roll of a die could produce.


We know the future is closed though, for only the set of events which happen will occur. This is a basic logical point. Any casual relationship, similarly, is known to be closed. If there is X cause and it has Y effect, no other options are open to happening in that instance. Events turning out any differently would would involve talking about a different instance of cause and effect. By identity we know that cause and effect is rigid. (and it is most certainly "closed" to us, for we have no way of avoiding the actual events of the future).

Missing the point, John. I wasn't saying the "causal relation" was observable. The point was that it is a logical expression of existing states. We might have to "infer" the presence of causation (just as we do any other logical meaning), but it is the existing states which constitute the presence of the causal relationship, the cause and effect.

For sure. "Causation" is a logical expression of correlated empirical states. Doesn't change the fact that causal relationships are the presence of various states of existence following each other. It is the presence of a cause state and an effect state which constitutes a causal relationship.

Without those empirical states, there is no cause or effect. "Causation" might be an expression of logic, the abstracted meaning of a cause and effect, but that doesn't make causes and effects logic. Causation isn't a "force" which acts on states of existence to produce causal relationships. It is a logical expression immanent in existing states, the respective states of cause and effect.

In this respect, causation is most certainly an empirical matter; it is states of the world which do the causing and are the produced effects. Without them, an instance of causation is not expressed in existence.

Well, that's the problem with your approach. Causation is a matter of the action empirical states. It is existing states which cause other ones, not some metaphysical force. The presence of causes and effects is a question of what states exists. If we pose a causal relationship, we are discussing existing states. Causation is not a metaphysical action.

You are making the same mistake most in philosophy have for centuries: trying to define questions of existing states by logic.

Your problem is you are treating free will like its a state of existence. It's actually a logical expression of our states of decision. We can't point any moment in time which is a state of "free will." States involved in the casual relationship of decision making are always instance of a thought (e.g. "I will make a post) or other states of the body (e.g. someone's fear response). Free will is what is means for us to knowingly cause are future actions in someway (which is why it's so linked with our awareness). It's not any one state of the world. Free will isn't a cause. It's the meaning that one has caused their actions through a state of awakeners of themselves.

Either your decisions are based upon the pre-existing causes or they are based upon random events that are uncaused. — Hanover

That's a false dichotomy. All events are actually a question of both pre-existing states and randomness. Each events follows what came before. Any future events is born form some pre-existing state. No state in our world is given without pre-existing states.

Yet, it is also true that any pre-existing state, on it's own, does not defined a future outcome (and what is caused). So if we take any pre-existing state on its own, the future outcome is, indeed, random and uncaused. Without the definition of the specific effect and so the casual relationship, it entirely undefined what a future outcome will be.

Consider a book on the table. If no events which follow it are defined, nothing points to what will follow the state. It could be anything. From this position, anything which follows it will be random and uncaused, for there is no rule or law sets what it will be. Why was this state followed by someone picking-up the book than not? Well, it just so happened a person who picked-up the book existed. There's no determining reason. It just so happened it was determined a person who picked up the book would be there rather than not. Underneath all the deterministic relationships, existence is arbitrary and random.

Determinism is not about metaphysical actors. It cannot be. One state causing other involves states of existence. It’s an empirical question. Causality. Rigid determinism is incoherent because substitutes in the metaphysical (logic, necessity) where states of the world should be (not necessary, existing moments).

The compatbilist’s point is determinism has freedom. Rigid determinism’s error is not in arguing there will be only one outcome which occurs, but rather in suggesting that fact eliminates possibility and freedom. Only when the specific outcome occurs is the one set of events which occur defined. Here freedom is about far more than merely our limited knowledge. Since the outcome is absent, we lack not only the knowledge of what happens, but there is no necessity that any given outcome will occur. It isn’t defined in existence yet. The specific causal(deterministic) relationship hasn’t emerged. There is no effect. Not only can we not speak of any casual relationship, but it isn't expressed in existence yet. Here the past state hasn’t caused anything. Our freedom isn’t an illusion.

Spinoza is actually attacking libertarian free will with that example, not our freedom. The illusion he is talking about is the idea of us sitting outside casualty (determinism). If we knew what was going to happen in the future (knowledge of causes, what’s determined), we could tell what was going to happen in the future. There would no longer be any uncertainty about what would happen. Indeed, this uncertainty is entirely a feature of our lack of knowledge. There has always been one determined outcome which will occur. We just don’t realise it when we lack knowledge of what’s determined. What is at stake here is not freedom, but the uncertainty of future existing states.

Indeed, you are correct that the compatbilist’s is not saying freedom is merely an illusion. But you are also dismissing their argument by rejecting what they mean when they talk about freedom and determinism. Instead of addressing the argument they are making, you are prescribing what they are saying must mean the same as argument for “rigid determinism” and its understanding of freedom. You are stuck using the language the compatbilist is deliberately leaving behind because it is inadequate.

Indeed, I mean (pre)determinism suggests that prior states necessitate future ones. That's it's error. Prior states cannot perform such an action because they do not amount to the presence of any future state. Anything could be after any given state. All it takes is the right state of existence. Possiblties only become actualised when the FUTURE event happens. In causal relationships, the effect state plays as much of a role in defining what occurs as the cause state.

If rocks didn't fall to the ground when dropped, the CAUSE of opening one's hand to drop rocks would not exist. The necessary only makes sense when the past and future are taken together. If there is only the prior state, we have only half the equation. I would exist letting go of rocks. But then what happens? No-one knows. It isn't even defined in the world. It could be anything. The rock might suddenly cease to be. It might fly up in to the sky. It might fall to the ground. It might float and start making sounds. My letting go of the rock necessitates nothing. Only when the specific EFFECT from the cause happens is the necessary(the actual) defined. For all instances of prior states possibility is maintained. States which follow could be one of any number of possible outcomes, regardless of what nessesary outcome (the actual) occurs.

They are the same with respect to the idea of future outcomes being necessary by an initial state. I used "(pre)determinism" for exactly that reason. My point being that such a notion of determinism is really a position that poses future states are defined by a prior initial state.

I was drawing the distinction between this and "determinism" as it actually makes sense. Rather confusing "(pre)determinism" with determinism, I'm specifying a distinction which allows us to understand the incoherence of "(pre)determinism" while also grasping the deterministic (that there is only one set of actual events of the world) nature of the world. You are ignoring the language I'm using (I agree "(pre)determinism" is the same as the "determinism" you are talking about; that's part of my point) and strawmanning my argument here.

For sure it influences our ethical positions. Persons get protection from harmful actions. Whether that be an unborn foetus/baby from a mother who wants to kill it to end her pregnancy or a women who gets to choose whether her body continues to carry a baby.

Personhood is an ethical position. It signifies who is important, who matters enough to protect for certain actions .

It is, itself, an ethical position. One is not a person by having a functioning brain. They are (under that argument) a person because this individual, who has a functioning brain, ought to be protected. Personhood is the expression that someone ought to belong to the world; that their interests and presence matter. It is this ethical value which falls by the wayside when abortion is discussed. In effect, people keep what's really driving their position hidden. The squabble over semantics of "personhood" rather than actually stating their (ethical) position on personhood. We get second order claims about what must make a person, rather than proper statements about who has personhood.