My contention is, again, in that the actual choice of which of two or more alternatives to choose (so as to approach and obtain the want's resolution) will itself not be an immutable link in infinite causal chains/webs. Rather, the act of making the specific choice will stem from the momentary form of the agent as an originating efficient cause, such that its effect is the choice taken. — javra

Would you say this is true regardless of whether the choice can be shown to have any causal relation to the corresponding state of affairs?

Don't get me wrong, I am opposed to Trump. It's just that I'm equally opposed to his opposition.

It's only an opinion, I've seen no poles on the historical trajectory of hardcore political opposition. It seemed like the left possessed greater spirit of doing it ourselves during the Bush era. Today, the left seems to have a strong desire to have things done for them.

I appreciate that you are examining from multiple perspectives. It's worth a re-read

For Millennials, the numerous catastrophes of the Bush administration, particularly the economic recession in 2007, the disappointment of the Obama administration, and the failure of the Democratic establishment to stop the election of Trump is seared into the collective consciousness of that age group. — Maw

The opposition to Bush was hardcore. The opposition to Trump is quite lame (toothless and whiney).

(Add. I think something happened during the Obama days that neutered the left.)

yet are—or at least rationally can be—metaphysically free from an otherwise infinite web of perfectly fixed efficient causations … and this without being in any way chaotic. — javra

The will derives its freedom by relating itself to infinite possibility through the rational imagination. So, in one one sense, it is in the creative will that metaphysical freedom is obtained, and in a way that averts chaos.

Would you prefer the term "real"? "Natural" and "real" and synonyms to me. Are you real? Is your internet post real? Is your internet post part of reality such that anyone that looks in the right place will find it? — Harry Hindu

I have more points to address, but time is limited for now. . .

But I might dispute that the real and natural are synonymous. Consider that the unnatural can also be real (let's call it the synthetic). And indeed I am real, the posts are real, and they likely have a phenomenal reality beyond my immediacy. But, regardless of our mode of reality, I am still a mixture of the natural and synthetic, and all my posts are entirely synthetic.

Thus, I would argue: that society is a synthetic construct. And the human being, as such, is a natural phenomenon.

I am arguing from the perspective of the individual human being. You are arguing from the perspective that the individual human being cannot be isolated from the collective, and the collective of humans naturally forms a society. So you have to go further than I do to explain how it's natural. But it's not wrong.

Don't know if it's been posited here yet (haven't read everything), but:

Perhaps it is immoral not to do illegal drugs.

"Gasp! You can't say that! No! You can't do that!" - but I question such a value. Sometimes I just think, "No, fuck that". — S

:up:

...

But you want a cause for my choice... — unenlightened

Just because there are predetermined factors, it doesn't necessitate that they are the cause of choice

And just because a state of affairs corresponds to the will, it doesn't necessitate that willing is the cause

Suppose the predetermined factors are infinite, would that then give infinite possibility to the deciding agent? If so, that would make the will beyond free

Except maybe that part of me where my decisions are made

And what part of you is untouched by predetermining factors? — NKBJ

Not one part.

Or you could consider the Nietzschean idea that there are so many unknowns that factor into choice, that I have no idea what's going on, but like to think I cause things

But even if the choice is predicated upon determinate factors, the choice itself is not predetermined

There's nothing "free" about a free will, because it's just random and wouldn't be based on reason or values or experience or knowledge or anything. It would be chaos. — NKBJ

If the will is the deciding agent for causality, then that would mean it chooses, and by choosing that implies some degree of freedom

Do you agree, then, that Freewill can't be understood because it can't be explained since that would require a causal (deterministic) model? — TheMadFool

I agree.

But I don't even think a causal (deterministic) model would sufficiently explain freewill. Suppose freewill is an immediate process of an individual's internal state. It follows that free will only seems to be the cause of the state of affairs which occurs subsequent to its act.

The illusion of freewill is that an external state of affairs corresponds to what has been willed. Even if the will corresponded perfectly to the state of affairs, there is no indication that the will is the causal factor.

So a deterministic model would only give greater reason for why the universe is the cause of any state of affairs, rather than a free will.

As in Weltanschuuang

The world can also seem to be a physical reality.

There is still the problem of arguing against one over the other without any initial point of origin. It becomes a problem of ontology. That is why I referred to the phenomenal experience rather than bothering with the impossible problem of origins - I tend to tilt heavily toward phenomenology in these sorts of areas to avoid becoming too entangled in “this came first” arguments; which i my experience lead nowhere fast unless the terms being used are rigidly defined and the limited scope of the subject at hand is made explicit. — I like sushi

Very true.

I have just been experimenting with the two concepts dialectically, regarding them as major categories of existence. And I am aware, this has heavy phenomenological undertones.


Nice, you know the German terms. :up:

n this light it does seem that “raw” experience engages instinct prior to conscious consideration of ethical issues and I cannot see how it could be otherwise? We could go round and round in circles trying to distinguish where aesthetics transitions into ethics, or vice versa, but it would be an endless chase. — I like sushi

Not necessarily ...

In the aesthetic, the individual is immersed in the world as it seems. And, within that immersion of seeming is where the knowledge of good and evil is obtained. So when one poses the question of how the world should be, it is always from the position of how the world seems to be. But the judgement is the movement out of the aesthetic, and the decision to conform oneself to that judgement is immediate.

Sorry for my lack of clarity, I meant "appear" in the sense of seeming, rather than seeing.

Note: I believe the German translation of “aesthetics” to be something more like “the judgement of taste”. — I like sushi

Excellent point. So the the judgment of taste implies a movement out of immediacy by abstracting it into a judgment of what seems to be the immediacy of taste.

The ethical proceeds the opposite way. Instead of the individual proceeding from immediacy into an understanding of reality as it seems to be (i.e. the aesthetic), the ethical begins with a judgement of how reality should be, and recedes back to immediacy where the individual conforms himself to such a reality.

hahaha. Nicely done. I think that single statement finds a way to offend everyone involved. — ZhouBoTong

Thanks!

Those descriptors to not refer to anything materially real, but rather our reactions to a real thing or phenomenon. — Not Steve

Indeed, but they are not descriptors as much as they are categories of thought

I would imagine this relates to hedonism? Meaning to view “aesthetics” (pursuit of beauty) as a guide to an “ethical” life. — I like sushi

I agree that is what the ethical becomes when framed aesthetically, but I disagree that the aesthetic is more immediate than the ethical since it is a relation of appearances (qua. an external relation), whereas the ethical redirects that external relation, turning it back onto the individual. So while they are both immediate in their own sense, the ethical is more immediate by its inward focus on subjectivity, rather than outward projection into appearance.

this materialist orthodoxy or that pseudoscientific theory — Daniel Cox

These can only provide approximations, relative truths, contingent knowledge, reductions in uncertainty...I would add.

I would also use the word quasi-scientific, since it sounds cooler

Nowadays it seems as though aesthetics has been removed from the "really real", consigned to a position of illusion (alongside ethics!, too). — darthbarracuda

The aesthetic is the world of appearance (qua. how things appear to be) , and appearance is illusion. But it is the sphere most occupy in their existence, and the perspective from which many philosophers (if not the overwhelming majority) on this forum argue from, or rather, the category their reasoning is confined to.

What is the good however?

Neither the individual nor appearance is in a position to determine the good as a truth. So this nessecitates a teleological suspension of the ethical. In other words, the ethical purpose to see the victory of the good in the world is no longer adequate. This brings us to a higher category in which the individual comes to will the good by virtue of the absurd - the fact that he can neither know what the good is, nor ever see it become victorious in the world.

I consider the aesthetic and ethical to be antithetically related. The aesthete has no concern for ethics. And, once he enters into the the ethical stage of life, there is no going back, the knowledge of good and evil is irreversible.

Not sure what the mechanism is behind this. Maybe aesthetic awareness takes us outside of ourselves and our selfish interests. — praxis

I might argue: that it takes us out of ourselves by making our selfish interest the focus of existence, and by alleviating the individual of personal responsibility.

Good and evil do not factor into the aesthetic, the aesthetic is only concerned with preference regarding the interesting and disgusting. In relation to the aesthetic, the individual is simply a spectatator, and he loses his individuality by relating himself to the aesthetic, becoming an appearance in relation to other appearances. All that matters, aesthetically speaking, is how things appear.


In contrast, in the ethical, the individual is in a decisive position of personal responsibility.
He can no longer sit back and be entertained, but is tasked with willing the good (or willing evil if that is considered what's good) - to see the victory of good in the world. The individual becomes ethically victorious by becoming good himself, so that by relating himself to the good, he does not lose anything, but rather is revealed as the deciding individual.

Very clever

Big companies would only make sense in a planned economy like in communism. — lucafrei

A command economy is not necessary for the existence of massive corporations in a healthy society, regulation has proven itself historically (e.g. the Glass-Steagall act).

I'm in favor of maximum wage. That would allow societal excess to be recycled in a more healthy way, rather than just being hoarded by the greedy and cowardly. Think of how much inflation is affected by the useless wealth lost in the coffers of those money-grubbing saps.

I feel like that is a type of philosophy. It's not OLP, tho. It's whatever New Atheism is, in essence. — csalisbury

You might be onto something, and it's a pathetic excuse for philosophy, but an acceptable excuse nevertheless.

Non-answers, both paragraphs. — StreetlightX

More like every paragraph he writes in response to an inquiry. Nothing but dodging the question

Look how far you have to go to explain how society is a natural phenomenon.

I can't even say that seeing is a natural phenomenon because that is essentially a tautology, and we all know how stupid tautologies are

Then it follows that technology is a natural phenomenon in which case...

More transhumanism

Using your eyes is as natural as using language to explain what you see.  — Harry Hindu

That is not true, language is a societal phenomenon, sight is a natural phenomenon.

Your mind is just another object that I can talk about - no different than talking about any other thing in nature.  — Harry Hindu

But talking about it and the thing in itself are two different things

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the doppelganger theory, I feel it devalues the worth of individual responsibility. But that is treading into the ethical

Roflmfao!!!!

That means: what qualifies as a subjective fact cannot qualify as an objective fact, and all concepts that fall under the category of subjective can have no direct relation to those of the objective (viz. The subjective must be adapted through mediation if it is to be communicated objectively)

I could agree, but then I'd have to go further, and say they are qualitatively opposed and categorically incompatible

I never heard of that, thanks for the lead

I must say that bears well for eternal return, in the metaphysics sense. And I am a lover of fate, so I'm all for it.

But it offers us no help concerning whether or not multiple Devans99s can exist sinultaneous across space and time, it only suggest you exist again in every detail. And if that is the case, how important is every moment, how precious is the instant?

Perhaps, if extraordinary language can move ordinary people, ordinary language will move extraordinary philosophers