My point is about the maps. In any case, when we have an experience reporting something (a map), it is a state of our experience, a feeling, a sensation, an idea, etc.

Whether we are treating these maps as directly descriptive (i.e. showing exactly what's there) or just an incomplete pointer to something else, it tells us something, reflects a truth independent of our experience, the territory.

My point is how can you conclude our maps of empirical observation have territory and our other notions don't? In any case, we only have the appearance of our map (our experience) and do not get outside it at any point. How can you justify empirical observations are maps with territory, while ethics, logic, math and aesthetics are maps without territory?

The problem is all our accounts we give are the way we think. When we make an observation of empirical evidence and analyse it with our descriptions and scientific through, we are entirely within our own minds. From beginning to end, we are using reports of our thoughts, sensations and feelings to give description of what is true.

Are our observations and theories "just psychological" because they appear in our mind? Is the fact that what we our conscious of when we make an empirical observation enough to say what we are thinking about is just a creation of our mind?

No, we take our experiences report something true about the world, about facts that are independent form our psychology even though they only ever appear to us in our mind.

The question is, why would we assume this must be different for truths like ethics, math or aesthetics? They, like empirical observations, appear to us in our minds. And like empirical observations, we have nothing but an appearance, sensation or idea in our minds to report their truth. Why assume that only that empirical experiences report independent truths?

Which was my point. Nietzsche identifies any proposed God is just another mortal. "God is dead" doesn't refer to whether a being named "God"exists or not, but to a metaphysical point that dispenses with any being beyond the world or the finite. Even a God, if they existed as claimed, would not be God.

For sure, but my point was claims about what God does/if God exists are empirical cliams. If someone stands up and says: "This being of God exists and cause this." it is not a transcendent claim at all. They might try to say its transcendent to escape empirical scrutiny, but that doesn't make it true.

I used "impossible" for this reason. The existence of a transcendent being is an oxymoron. The catergory of things being claimed, existent transcendent beings, is incoherent and so they are impossible.

My point about the empirical is that this point doesn't give us reason to reject the empirical claims made about God. If someone says: "God was here yesterday. They spoke to me." or "God existed than and was a being who caused a flood.", we are actually dealing an empirical claim which isn't touched by Nietzsche's argument about transcendence.

The incoherence of transcendent doesn't mean there cannot be, for example, a being who takes an action to cause a planet or lifeform to exist. "God is dead" is not to say that a powerful being does not exist. It's just says they cannot be transcendent.

That should have been "causal entity". (which I have now corrected).

What I meant is Nietzsche's argument about the death of God doesn't preclude the existence of a god as an existing being.

For example, we cannot preclude the existence of a being who does the actions of a Christian God on the grounds transcendence is impossible. If we want to say there isn't such a being, we need an empirical account which falsifies such a being.

I think they are the same. When a reductionist says "There is only matter" they literally mean everything is consistuted in the individuals which are matter, e.g. "Your thoughts are just brain states."

They aren't making any distinction between the individuals and the catergory they belong to. It seems they are arguing being an individual is no different than a group catergory.

Probably. I've seen a lot of people use a notion of monism which tries to speak on a level of a certain kind of state, whether it be an atom or an experience. To that, I would say I don't think it is really a monism (or even a dualism, a triism. etc.) because it really talking about individuals. The idealist who's says "everything is an experience" or the reductionist who says "everything is atoms" have an position that the world is constituted only by certain individuals.

States of consciousness themselves aren't falsifiable because they don't have a manifestation outside their immediate appearance. Human states of consciousness aren't falsifiable in this sense either. We cannot do experiments to detect it directly.

I was referring to falsifying that some state of consciousness was causing something.

That means it finite/material in my terms. And subject to falsification, since we could examine the present experiences in relation to caused states.

By "material" I'm referring to a certain metaphysical distinction between a category of existing things and a category of things beyond/regardless of existence. It's wider than just "matter" or "mass". It refers to anything which is true via something existing. So it includes existing things don't manifest as mass at all, such as a person's experiences, the colours of an object, etc.

Sure, neither do I, necessary. There might be, for example, a existing entity who lives at all finite moments, who keeps living from moment to moment. We might say this entity exists eternally (it's always living). The idea is pretty common. Any sort of immortal being would fall under this, a thing of existence which just keeps living and living.

This sort of eternity is not infinity or changelessness. The immortal is subject to change, the limit of their life in a moment and the possibility of death. They are material/finite, even though they might exist eternally.

When I speak of the infinite, I'm not refer to this sort of eternal thing. I'm talking about a truth which is always the case, no matter what happens in existence (an immortal being never fits this because they require existence, the fact they exist living, etc.).

That doesn't really help me because you could be referring to either. Logic and experience have a theatre in the sense of the infinite definition of their concepts which are infinite and changeless.

But they also have the material theatre of when individuals exist experiencing them, causing things with them or being caused.

Sure, that would just mean it is material/finite. Such spirit would exist in one moment and possibly be gone the next.

What do you mean be "consciousness?"

Do you mean the existence of a consciousness entity/states that cause some other event of existence?

Or do you mean the infinite, changeless meanings of logic which may appear in conscious experience?

Yes, you did. You also claimed God was "non-material" rather than a finite, material state of existence.

I'm saying the "non-material" is infinite and changeless.

So when you claim the finite, limited moment of God causing our universe is "non-material," you ascribe the tiny moment of God causing our universe with and infinite and changelessness it does not have.

It's like taking a group of humans and saying, since they build a city or some other environment, they are infinite and changeless. Causing something doesn't mean you are infinite. Indeed, it's the exact opposite because the cause is limited to that singular finite moment.

Right, and that's the contradiction in your metaphysics. You ascribe something finite and limited, a thing of experience which causes something else, to that which is infinite, beyond change and the limits of tiny causal moments, the non-material.

...that wasn't my claim. States of consciousness may be causally efficacious. My point was any such state is material, a contingent moment of existence present in terms of what exists. This is in contradiction with a non-material God. If God is non-material, God cannot be a causally efficacious entity of consciousness.

I suspected you didn't.

But if you mean a non-material God, then it is not an existing conscious being. And it can certainly not be the cause of our universe. Causes are material events. One moment of existence which leads to another.

This is what I mean by the contradiction. I'm saying you are conflating the material and non-material God. The problem isn't that your non-material claim is falsified, its that you are ascribing the material to your non-material God. It's a logical contradiction in your idea of God.

It's not outside the observable universe. If someone was present, who could perceive that part reality prior to the creation of our universe, they would observe the being in question.

Obviously, it is likely outside our observation since the event would be long past and before us, but that no different than any instance or reality prior to our presence. It just means someone who observes has to be there when the event happens (if we are talking direct observation) or encounter things which show what happened (historical records, items from the past, etc.).

You have to be careful there. It would be outside the created universe, since its prior to its creation, but it would not be outside reality/ "universe" in the sense of what exists.

If such a being exists, there is a moment of reality which exists, which someone could think and experience. It's both existent and falsifiable (the absence of this existing being would falsify it).

Consciousness isn't. That's just a reference to a certain type of logical meaning.

A conscious being, however, most certainly is of the empirical. It's a particular state of the world. If you are going to claim: "this conscious person exists" or "this conscious God exists," it an argument about something that exists.

Science can be performed by the religious or as part of the practice of a religious tradition (just as it can with any other human tradition), but in terms of the science itself, the question really doesn't make sense. Science is just a method of investigating how the world works. It just takes in the world and tries to describe how it works.

Religion or non-religion is just a different thing, a certain kind or practice a person might be involved in. Either way, it has nothing to do with science itself.

I'm not sure if it is your exactly metaphysics, but the metaphysics S thinks you have is contradictory.

The metaphysics S is attacking equivocates metaphysical entities (logical meaning, presences which do not exist nor exist) with empirical ones (the existence of some conscious being).

I know that, but my point is that is not attributed to any existing being under your argument.

Let's consider this Universal Consciousness. What happens if it exists with respect to the arguments you have given? Humans can call upon notions of hope, peace, love, etc. because they have those ideas and experiences.

Now what happens is if this Universal Consciousness doesn't exist? Humans can call upon notions of hope, peace, love, etc. because they have those ideas and experience.

My point is the existence of this Universal Consciousness doesn't matter to humans been able to call on notions of of hope, peace, love, etc. Humans can do it whether Universal Consciousness exists or not.

The meaning you are talking about/logical structure with Universal Consciousness is true without respect to whether it exists. It's a different sort of presence.

I think it's in the meaning of that where the objection of the OP fails away. What can be everything? If we are considering an individuals of the world, it would seem the only answer can be nothing. To be an individual supposes distinction from everything else. If I am an individual, I am one who is not any other. I am absolutely not everything.

We might think this is the nail in the coffin of monism. If a thing is never everything, how could everything be one? How could it all "be mind?" Or all "be matter?" Or any other singular notion we might consider? It would seem a thing is incommensurable with belonging to everything.

If we were only to think about things, that might be the end of the matter. I don't think we always do. It would seem that a monism isn't even talking about things in the first place. If I think "matter" or "mind," I don't have a definition of any individual. If I think "God," I don't have a definition of an individual. If I think "human," I'm not describing any particular individual. Same with "man" or "woman." Any time I use a category on its own, I'm not speaking about an individual or thing at all. (it would so seem that your objection in the OP would also apply to dualism, since it's claiming everything belongs, just to two categories rather than one).

I think the monist (or dualist. Or triest. Or... ) gets around the OP's objection because they are talking about no individual at all. They are just referring to some sort of shared meaning which might be of an individual (in the case of the dualist or greater a collector) and is of all individuals (in the case of the monist).

In this respect, I think the monist is more than just a reaction to dualism. We could state the monist perfectly on its own: "Every individual shares the meaning of existing," for example.

I don’t think it matters whether our universe is special or not. To me, God is a loving Presence, a Spirit akin to a Universal Consciousness that all of us can call upon for hope, peace, love, equanimity, patience, joy, and all of the loving virtues. It makes no difference how many universes there are. God is Present in all life-supporting worlds. — Noah Te Stroete

I want to know how such a God can be said to exist. Nothing you said there makes a claim of an existing being of God in the world. We are always able to call upon notions of hope, peace, love, etc. in virtue of own existence. That's to say, we just have the relevant idea and take the action of calling to the meaning. We can do this, it would seem, whether "God exists" is true or "God doesn't exist is true."

Given this, how is this Universal Consciousness an existing being of God, since its present regardless of whether God exists or not?

Nietzsche is referring to a metaphysical God. “God is dead” doesn’t refers to the existence or even just to the death of a religious tradition in society. He is making a specific metaphysical point about our world and our place within it.

“God” refers to the metaphysical idea of our existence being constituted in something outside our world, in some transcendent force which defines who we are, gives us our meaning, from outside our own meaningless existence. When Nietzsche says ”God is dead.” he is referring to the realisation this transcendent account is impossible. He's not equating religion with God. He's pointing out a feature of many religious beliefs and making a metaphysical point about the realisation it's impossible.

Since we are of the world, there is no way something beyond it can define our existence or are meaning. God is dead because we realise the transcendent cannot be us or how we come to exist. The transcendent power of God cannot be how we exist, mean, live, etc., any claim suppose we are constituted or made by such a transcendence is shown to be necessarily false. We know that God cannot be a formal reason we exist or have meaning as existing beings.

What does this mean for the theistic God? Nothing in terms of whether a theistic being might exist or not. To say there cannot be a transcendent God doesn’t preclude any sort of casual entity in the world. One might, for example, have some sort of being who caused a universe to exist. Or a powerful dictatorial judge and jailer, who sends people to a land of plenty to a fiery jail. Since those are claims about what exists in the world, they have to be judged on the relevant claims and evidence.

But Nietzsche’s point does something even more powerful to the theistic God than denying its existence: it turns God into a mortal. Like any human, God becomes just another state of existence, a mere being of a large amount of power, who is subject to the possibility of death (all it would take is a state of existence in which God ceased) and is subject to rule of both logic and values. God ceases to be the special kind of being of infinite existence and infallible judgement. A command of God, for example, has no inherent superiority over a command of a human. A human may know or argue just as well as God. (Really, God is just one of many humans, one of the many rational denizens of the world).

That you don't read these philosophers because you think they are just delivering meaningless words.

I'm then extending it into the point your criticism don't actually address their arguments and form a reasoned conclusion they are speaking incoherently.

Aside from that, in my view it's a matter of "the emperor's new clothes" basically. — Terrapin Station

Maybe read a philosopher who isnt just a big mishmash of gobbledygook instead. :joke:

Staying away from the continentalists is a good idea in general. :yum: — Terrapin Station

Then why would you write "quote me"? And why would you assume that I'm making a comment based on textual evidence rather than other possibilities? — Terrapin Station

You even outright denied your comment were based on anything these philosopher had said or writing (i.e. that what you are saying isn't based on what texts say). The content of the argument is relevant because that is what you are attacking. You are saying it is worthless and meaningless. If your claim was accurate, it would be true the claims in the text were incoherent, worthless, meaningless, etc.

"essential being" refers not to any sort of essentialism whereby some particular form is said to necessarily be given with something, such as "humans are necessarily greedy."

It refers to an ontological/metaphysical/logical notion about existence, a fact of belonging to a necessary unity (hence the use "essential").

You outright said you won't read these philosophers because they'll only say something meaningless.

You also said this in response to a Hegel quote earlier in the thread:

Personally I think it's a mess Pretty much every phrase there is problematic. Just for one example, "the "self-consciousness of his essential being"? First off, essentialism is muddle-headed in general. Secondly, what does "self" add there that "consciousness" without the "self" modifier wouldn't do just as well? And what is "consciousness of his being" saying, really, anyway? It seems like a needlessly rococo way of just talking about consciousness or awareness period. — Terrapin Station

None of that addresses the content of the argument. You misread the use of "essential being" as talking about some sort of essentialism. You ignore that self-consciousness is making a particular distinction between different sorts of experiences. None of the objections you gave to the content address what Hegel was talking about. How can you possible assert "the emperor's new clothes" when you don't even know what is being spoken about?

I'm not saying you should or need to know what Hegel is saying either. We all have our particular interests. No-one needs to know everything or a specific philosopher. My point is just that you keep making pronouncements of meaninglessness when you don't even know the potions you are talking about. Why are you moved to dismiss field of study you don't know nothing about? Am I going to go around saying nuclear physics is meaningless just because I don't understand its ins and outs and it's complex to learn? This sort of response doesn't reflect truth context. A combination of "I don't understand it and won't take effort to learn" are not grounds to degree a field of study meaningless or mistaken.

This sort of statement is incoherent. If you don't even know what someone is saying or haven't even looked at it, how can you have any idea whether an idea is wrong or misconceived? The move of decreeing a position wrong because you haven't understood it or done some work to understand it is to abandon honesty and reason. Speech and efforts of others aren't meaningless just because someone doesn't want to take time to understand it.

I am quite shocked people seriously entertain the argument otherwise so frequently.

I don't think so. We have to be careful here. The certainty of death is something people the to approach form a position of actuality. Promises granted in response are never merely possible. When immortality is promised, it's some sort of certainty attached to the actual outcome. You will live some sort of (after)life.

In making his materialist argument, M is outright denying this certainty of an (after)life (and so is Hume). The clearing of the space of the possible doesn't actually give (after)life. It missing the guarantee which of those promises. There is a huge difference between saying; "Well, you might get to keep living..." and "you will keep living by the power of this..."

If I read your use of "machine like" correctly, M is actually giving the apotheosis for nature being machine like. Under radical contingency, there is no idea or rule which can guarantee a life. Life is put beyond any sort of definite promises. We have to always come back to: "Well, only if those states happen to exist..." He is using the machine like order to deny the certainty of death, but that's precisely what the machines entail: for death to occur, it needs the machines to do it. Nobody dies without being an existing dead thing. Not even an omnipotent being can get past this requirement or escape the possibility of its life/death.

M is taking a position directly and violently opposed to those would would claim something there than machine like logic. He's not using machine like logic to deny nature is machine like. Quite the opposite, he's saying it is only/necessarily machine like, so we can never substitute in a rule or idea which would give a definite promised outcome. Since it is necessary the world doesn't care, we cannot ever close possible events off to a particular expectation we have. In this respect, he is the opposite of mystics and theologians who promise (after)life. All we can ever promise is something might happen. With regards to death, we can never have a position of definite certainly with regards to actually. M is denying all those promises of a caring world. We will only ever have an uncaring one of possibility.

In this respect his argument (or a Humean one) isn't trying to secure resurrection at all. That it might happen is not a reason to think it will or does. Possibility is not actuality.

I thought he was talking about the truth. That's why I commented he was arguing a contradiction. If truth is at stake and someone has good reason for holding a position on those grounds, then someone is being refuted.

If truth is our measure of having a good reason to hold a position, then some sort of falsehood or incoherence in the opposing position has been identified. My point was if we have good reasons for holding a position in term of truth, we are committed to the refutation of an opposing position is some shape or from. We have reason to reject to because it is false and known to be false.

For two position to beyond refutation would mean we could not have a good reason for picking either on grounds of its truth.

The math stuff can be a little bit bizarre ( I think he's chasing after justifications in a correlationist form actually), but I wasn't really concerned with that. I just worried about how you were seemingly equating what is an out and out materialist argument (the possibility of resurrection occurring through states) with speculation and some sort of faith style argument.

He appropriately dismisses Heideggarian concerns. His point, since it is about necessary Being (to contextualise it to Heideggarian), is that Being is not "for us" at all. It's is that which is necessary, that which obtains regardless of the finite. The Heideggarian concern is flawed form the beginning in this context. I think Meillassoux's argument is confusing and misleading in this context because he references two specific qualities, contingency and math, which are of finite beings. He obscures his own point about Being. I think he would have done better just to argue Being was the infinite which was nothing else.

I think the point he is trying to make about Being is Spinozian. What we really wants to say is there is a necessary infinite being which is nothing else, especially any of those finite (contingent states). The God present in non-existence is pretty much identical to Spinoza's God of Substance.

I also think this would save Meillassoux from accusations of faith. In a world in which it is guaranteed anything is possible, then we can hold out that death or injustice might be overcome. Not in the sense it must be, as detailed within what might be ferried as "faith based thinking," but in the sense that finitude doesn't doom us to death or injustice. Just because we die and injustice occurs, we don't have to take them as necessary. Something we can always be certain about, since the non existing God of contingency (death might be overcome, justice might occur) is necessary.

Meillassoux's position is pretty understandable in the context of radical contingency. Since he holds any logically possible state can occur, including ones which violate what would seem to be established rules of reality, there is no limit to possible events except a logical contradiction.

Resurrection is not a logical contradiction. Tomorrow, the bodies in a graveyard might blink to the surface and be reconstituted as living. All it involves is a movement of bodies and a change in their status. Since there is no correlationist rule which constrains the behaviour of finite states, it's possible dead bodies could reappear living tomorrow.

That's true, but then you are shifting from "good reasons" in terms of truth, to "good reasons" in terms of normatively or preference, as per my comment. They aren't good reason in terms of the truth being discussed.

More importantly, these normative good reasons are independently defined to truth based good reasons. The former doesn't make the latter false. Someone might, for example, have good normative reasons for believing in a god, even when there aren't good reasons in terms of truth (which is the case for most claims of god because they propose a refutable empirical claim).

That doesn't refute anything. Not that I'm an idealist of course, but that doesn't refute it. Neither idealism nor realism are refutable. It's just a matter of whether we have good reasons to buy one framework or the other. — Terrapin Station

This is an outright contradiction. If we have good reason to hold one is sure over another, then we are dealing with refutable positions. By the measure of truth, having a reason to select one potion over another involves some sort of refutation of an opposing position. We reject it because we have good reason to think it is false. Having good reasons to take a position literally means some type of refutation is in play. Else our reasons are not reasons at all. They are just a preference.

You are putting no effort into thinking about the subject. In the face of the positions in question, you've just thrown your hands up and just said we cannot know anything. You're just repeating popular aphorisms about mystery. Why would the independence of objects by something we could never know?

The reason logical independence refutes idealism is because it shows other things are not logically given by experience. An object doesn't to require experience of it to exist. What we might call the empirical veil, our inability to confirm empirical states outside moments of observation, does not affect independence.

Can we confirm a tree is still there when we turn our head away? We cannot. But this does not create dependency relation between the tree and the presence of our experience. In terms of the state present, there might still be a tree (since we cannot observe it, we cannot say it must be absent) or there might be an absence of a tree. Either way, the state exists even if we a not observing. It's existence is not dependent on the presence of our experience.

The form of idealism referred to in this thread (which is not even Berkeley's) confuses our confirmation of an empirical event for the existence of an empirical event. It commits the category error of my experience observing a tree for the existence of a tree.

Yes, idealism is refutable.

It requires recognising the question at stake is not whether the table exists when we look away from it. That's just an empirical situation which cannot be subject to observation.

Idealism (of this form) is actually a metaphysical position which cites presence of experience as logically entailing other entities that might appear in experience. The claim is actually stronger than just saying things of our experiences only exist when experienced. It goes a step further to conclude without experiences, the presence of anything must be logically impossible.

This is easily refeuted by pointing out the logical independent of things. Just because I see a tree, it doesn't make me (including my experiences), the tree. The tree is its own object which may or may not exist without the presence of my experience. It is not logically reliant on my experience to be.

People who say "privilege is why" are using this descriptive sense. They mean in the social context some people have been put in difficultly by an unstated material cause, which is producing a society with this relation of privilege. In making this point, they are only describing someone on difficultly in relation to this social order.

In some cases, when we want to identify a cause, people can make a mistake of only giving this description. Sometimes this happens when people are trying to explain the issue. They'll just say "It's privilege" because they already know associated material caused nested with that outcome. Confusing to those outside, who don't know those associated states and causes, but not wrong.

The biggest issue is a lot of people just don't do description of people in the social context. One of the reasons people get confused by notions of privilege is they relate only in terms of a justification or causal state. They take everything about giving a reason for a state, social organisation or event. Description of an event, a person, how someone is treated, how someone understood, is a rejected catergory of inquiry.

The appeal to intentionally is a great example of this tendency. Supposedly, something will only count as discriminationatory if it's intended. Only if someone is rejected for being black can there be an issue with racism. Social inquiry gets reduced to reasons for rather than being descriptive of people in social relations.

If use description, intentionally is only one form of an issue. Various issues are going regardless of intention. Any material cause which produces difficulty for a social group will manifest a relation with respect to that group.

If economic and cultural situations are producing, for example, a society in which black communities have massive rates of incarceration, then the racial social relation is produced regardless of both intention and whether a response is justified.

Thinking in just terms of reasons or intention just doesn't make sense. It leaves out some of the most aspects of social relations. To do so is like trying to think about poverty only in terms of people who we've already employed.