I know, and I'm not interested. — jamalrob

You're not interested in what? If you're not interested don't worry - you'll lose in the political arena, that will be sufficient to get you interested perhaps.

I would never have been able to travel without cheap flights, and I would never have been able to read Kant without leisure. I'm pretty sure this is a cultural as well as a material enrichment, and it was made possible by capitalism. — jamalrob

To what use? I would have preferred all of us not to read Kant, if this was what it took for us to be more virtuous.

Thanks to cheap flights, people--non-rich people--travel now for all sorts of reasons. — jamalrob

Yeah ... what's so great about that? Honestly, what's the big deal? I've travelled my fair share, and it's nothing special. I don't see the point of it. When I hear people wanting to travel for holidays it kind of drives me mad. Is that what life is about, traveling? Honestly?! :s I think if my ancestors heard this they'd be horrified! Do you really buy this idea that traveling will necessarily enrich your life and make you happy and content?

I have great distaste for this frolicking over material conditions. As if that's what makes for a good life! This is exactly the forgetfulness of virtue that I'm always talking about.

But Hollywood is full of anti-corporate sentiment, and is now firmly seated on the green anti-consumerist bandwagon — jamalrob

You are mistaken. Progressivism is the new form of organisation of capitalism. In order to get people to work for the big and large corporations (which is becoming normalised, and a matter of prestige), they introduce all sorts of PR moves such as being green, such as levelling down hierarchies, and so forth. This is a way to get people to accept their chains. On top of this, Hollywood is reshaping morality in order to maximise the efficiency of capitalism. See my post here.

Where that's done well, a movie can work and be a healthy engagement. It rarely is. — Baden

Are you mostly watching porn? O:)

Just kidding, I agree with your point. I hate watching movies for the most part, with a few exceptions.

Remember that Planned Parenthood Ad:

Food. Sleep. Sex.
It's simple. These are our basic human instincts. Sexuality is as basic to life as food and sleep

>:O - so do well and defund it.

I'd be interested how one ought to solve this situation? — Question

In my opinion:

1. First and foremost do not participate in such a culture regardless of what you give up in order not to participate in it - similar to Schopenhauer's denial of the Will
2. Second of all, look to form around you small Noah's Arks, where people with different kind of mentalities live their lives. These would become small islands that appear everywhere and in different locations around the globe. So educate people, or try to educate them wherever you go. Stay close to people who are like-minded and gather them around yourself.
3. Third of all fight against capitalism (production for the sake of production, not for the sake of satisfying human need)
4. Fourth, fight for religion and morality - which are virtues which can direct the public at large towards a different kind of culture - doing much as what the media is doing today, except that in the other direction
5. Gather money - to beat capitalism you need money. A lot of it. Gather money, and then use that money to turn the forces of capitalism against itself. Open TV stations promoting virtue - buy nightclubs only to close them down and convert them into different businesses - this will gather you media attention. Use the media attention to make it cool again to take different attitudes - fight the mechanisms of peer pressure. Turn the media against itself - they will be forced to report on your actions because they are new and sensational - this will enable you to attract attention to your message, even though the media doesn't want that. This is the strategy that Donald Trump has been using in fact, only that unfortunately he's probably not fighting against capitalism >:O

Yes, yes, yes. That is exactly what i was getting at in a roundabout way. (Though "globalism" may not be the only term one could use, it will do nicely. And for the term "communities", I would define that as "communities of life", so as to extend it to include more than humans alone, since we do not exist in a vacuum. But that is simply my wording preference.) — 0 thru 9

Increasing the ease of movement combined with encouraging displacement of people for material gain leads to extending the social fabric, in the same way that physical space itself extends. Just as physical space extending causes the space between planets, galaxies, etc. to grow so too this phenomenon of globalisation causes the space between people to grow - both physical space and psychological space. For example, what happens with a couple when one of them wants to move countries, and the other one doesn't? They break up most often. What happens when a family member goes to work in a different country? He loses contact and connection with the rest of his family over time. Globalism is equivalent to social instability and social chaos, especially among people who lack virtue and go after the carrot mindlessly. We're witnessing what is the equivalent of the Big Rip in physics, in our own societies.

What if it is? — John

If it is, then the "transcendent experience" is actually not transcendent at all but immanent, taking place in the world the same way sight, or hearing or any other experience takes place, simple.

Sorry, Willow, I really haven't a clue what you are talking about; so it would be pointless to respond. — John

What, more precisely, don't you understand about Willow's remarks? You have to be precise, otherwise nothing can be clarified.

the world is everything. — John

God is not the world — John

Therefore God is nothing or doesn't exist ;) ;) ;)

QED By yours truly and very humble John

P.S: "You're sooooo full of shit Agustino" ;)

Being determinate or objective means it is a phenomenon that be intersubjectively determined to be this or that. — John

Okay so you mean it has crisp, as opposed to vague existence. Definite and stable properties can be determined about it right?

Phenomana which can be determined to be this or that are finite — John

So finitude has to do with whether something is crisp instead of vague?

they are also immanent to sensory experience. — John

So I take it that transcendent experiences don't involve the senses?

If a vision is caused by God though, for example, then the cause of the vision is not of this world, that is, it is a transcendent, not an immanent cause. Of course if there is no God then there are no transcendent causes. — John

But what if the vision is caused by God through worldly means such as altering the activity of the brain?

If this world is an expression of spirit, of God, then God is within everything, and everything is within God. There is no separation, but God does not appear in the world, and hence is not a finite, determinate, objective, immanent phenomenon. — John

Well obviously because God is the world in this case isn't He? If so, then God is reality, and everything is immanent in God - God isn't in anyway transcendent.

BTW, Agustino, you are soooo full of shit.

:-}


. — John

Why mate, it's true, he said it himself! >:O

I humiliated myself ... what should I do now? >:O

Ahhh now I see what you did there >:O ....

...wait....what have I just done? :-# — Heister Eggcart

I don't understand. Hasn't Wayfarer stolen the language, words, ideas and expressions found in that Wikipedia sentence and attributed it as part of his own post, without making note that it's not his?

Hegel's counter-argument to Kant was that to know a boundary is also to be aware of what it bounds and as such what lies beyond it – in other words, to have already transcended it. — Wayfarer

Wayfarer, did you plagiarise this from Wikipedia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendence_(philosophy)

Hegel's counter-argument to Kant was that to know a boundary is also to be aware of what it bounds and as such what lies beyond it – in other words, to have already transcended it.

Does anyone here see a difference, because I certainly don't? No wonder that you couldn't explain it!

I read the entry. On that basis, not the kind of writer I'm going to study. Life's too short. — Wayfarer

>:O

Okay Johnny, you're next. Wayfarer apparently couldn't handle it, so it seems he has decided to leave the forums. Let's see if your philosophy is weak coal or strong diamond!

What is perceived by the intuitive intellect is not determinate or objective in the way that what is perceived by the senses or conceived by the rational intellect is. — John

Okay yes.

What is determinate or objective is finite or immanent; what is indeterminate or subjective is in-finite or transcendental — John

How does this follow? What does being determinate or objective have to do with (1) being finite, and (2) being immanent?

It is truly another dimension of experience, a transcendent dimension, compared to what can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, touched and measured — John

But in what sense is this the case? Hearing for example is also another dimension of experience compared to seeing. Why isn't one of these transcendent then?

Of course the immanent realm of sensory experience and rational intellection is suffused with this transcendental dimension, and would be literally nothing without it, so it is certainly not a question of "separation" — John

Okay so if the transcendent doesn't refer to something that is ontologically separate, in what way, again, is it transcendent? And what notion of transcendence are you employing? The Cartesian one, or?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendence_(philosophy)

Or maybe Willow would get blasted to a different planet...
:-O — John

It would suddenly dawn on him that there really is a God? >:O

That is certainly true. — Wayfarer

Tell that to these Buddhists:
http://www.buddhanet.net/nutshell09.htm
http://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/1891/what-is-the-precise-meaning-of-anatta
https://www.quora.com/How-can-we-understand-the-nondual-nature-of-Buddhist-emptiness-sunyata
https://www.quora.com/Whats-your-understanding-of-the-Buddhist-anatta-doctrine-and-do-you-subscribe-to-it

And probably millions of others. The fact that a religion cannot clarify what it says to the point that even its followers do not know it, that's a very very big problem.

Well, that's not true — Wayfarer

What's not true? That progressives are latching onto Buddhism? Just try typing "buddhism" and "sexuality" into google, and let's have a look together in, say the top 10 results. In fact, even your favorite book "To Meet the Real Dragon" makes no notice - no notice at all - in the chapter "not to do wrong" in any of the 10 precepts of not doing wrong that it gives about sexual morality. But of course most traditional forms of Buddhism have a principle to do with sexual morality even in a list of FIVE precepts! Let's see, why is that? Is it because Buddhism is trying to appeal to a decadent mass of the public and thus doesn't want to tell the truth lest it scares them off? Is that how it is then? We'll masquerade the truth to gain adherents and followers! In fact scratch that! We'll change the truth if that's what it takes to get more followers! Sounds like a great idea to me - keep it up! (Y)

That Buddhism is fertile soil for Nihilism? Well that seems to be proven by the fact that they are joining it no?

yet, strangely, I am the one accused of 'nihilism' — Wayfarer

Not you personally, but some of the views you recommend.

I would say that the idea of such 'higher truth' is represented in various philosophical traditions - Greek, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist amongst others. — Wayfarer

The very idea of a "higher truth" vitiates all the lower truths of meaning. That's why I say that it is nihilistic. If there is a higher truth, then these lower truths don't matter.

But obviously I am not being understood — Wayfarer

Well let's see why are you not being understood? Is it because I'm acting in bad faith and despite your attempts to clarify and answer my questions I still refuse to engage with you? Or is it because you have repeatedly not answered even a single objection except by brushing it off?

and another timely reminder to myself to stop wasting time arguing with strangers. So, bye for now, taking time out from Forums, may or may not be back in future. — Wayfarer

Well do as you wish, but packing your stuff and going is certainly not going to solve any of your problems. This is very childish behaviour. If your philosophy is worth anything then it needs to withstand criticism - so far it seems that at the weakest objection it's crumbling - and when it's crumbling you pack your bags and run away. I don't mean to be harsh with you, but you have to understand that these are important matters, so we have to discuss them seriously. It's not my fault that you're getting easily upset. I'm not responsible for your inability to deal with criticism. You should be upset at yourself first of all, because it is you who is failing to adequately engage with all the questions and objections that are placed to you.

So I hope you take those matters into consideration. You may have some valuable insights, but you need to defend them and prove their worth, otherwise they will only remain your insights. And you shouldn't take philosophical discussions personally regardless of how heated they get. Anyway, all the best to you!

A person can only matter per se if they matter to God, otherwise...no. — John

I actually agree ;) ;) ;) - but if I said that to Willow I'd get blasted to a different planet.

person with significance. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Can I be a person of significance if someone doesn't give me that significance (or I don't give it to myself)? In what sense is it even possible to talk of significance except to an actor who has feelings?

object which produces value or a person who matters — TheWillowOfDarkness

A person who matters to who? Mattering is a value judgement. You can't say I matter, except by pointing to who I matter to. Maybe I matter to you because you're a kind-hearted person. Still - it's with reference to somebody.

Are you only understood to be an image which produces value? Or do people grasp you as an individual, a logical and ethical subject that matters in-themselves? — TheWillowOfDarkness

All this says something about the person evaluating me, and not about myself. If they are good people they will evaluate me as an individual who matters. If they aren't, then they won't. In fact, this is even Kant's notion that he argues about with regards to always maintaining your self-respect - never falling below your own principles. In that case it's about you mattering to yourself - caring about your own self.

So this has to do with love. A loving person will care, an unloving one will not. To be loved is precisely to be significant to someone. To love yourself is precisely to be significant to yourself - to care. Love your neighbour as yourself - care for your neighbour as you care for yourself.

The sophistication of capitalism is quite frightening whereby these so-called 'individuals' in their expensive clothing and cosmetics are now taking selfies in the bush and marketing people to go back to nature and be natural - all artificially, almost as a trick that ascertaining what is authentic is becoming close to impossible. This is what needs to end. — TimeLine

Capitalism is like the man who at night goes and throes stones breaking the windows of his neighbours' houses, and in the morning comes in to repair them :-O

massive egotistical capitalist culture that prohibits any self-reflective contemplation and this consciousness of our finitude — TimeLine

Yes I agree. Capitalism doesn't want you to be virtuous because virtuous people don't need much so you can't sell to them. But those governed by fear, lust and the other vices - they are very easy to sell to so long as you present a product which can "solve" whatever problem you have artificially created in them. That is why capitalism is tied with democracy - it requires the levelling down that can only be achieved in a democracy. The evolution of say - morality - in the last 50 years is dictated solely by capitalism. People generally have whatever morality they do today, largely because this morality is the most conducive to commerce. For example - we admire diversity and globalisation only because their existence means more markets and more business. We are more benevolent and compassionate not because we are becoming better human beings ("We're no longer in the Middle Ages!") but because this sells. Being compassionate means we produce for people in Africa. We get money from governments in order to buy vaccines and the like, and so on.

We don't admire the hard virtues, which are disappearing - they mean less business.

So capitalism requires a democratisation of culture - that is to say a diverse culture where differences between good and bad, high and low are wiped out. The other tactic employed is blurring the distinction between fantasy and reality - if you have a fantasy today, you can't simply enjoy it as a fantasy, you have to make it into reality. In fact, people are no longer as capable of judging between what reality is, and what their fantasies are. In addition to this, there exists an army of experts to inform you on everything from what products to use on your hair, to how the economy has to be run, to who you should vote for, to what to do with your sex life and so forth. These experts don't actually share knowledge - most scientific studies out there, especially with regards to social trends - are probably false. I know this independently as I've worked in scientific research in engineering (note! - not a social science) - and even there it is easy to obtain whatever result you desire to obtain (this is useful in receiving more funding). This video explains this concept:


Now in my own opinion - I think the situation is much worse, especially in the social sciences than illustrated in this video. My hypothesis is that the rate at which false information grows is greater than the rate at which true information grows. And thus - while apparently we are having greater and greater access to information (or so democracy/capitalism wants to tell us) it becomes more and more difficult to get to the true information. Thus - in practice - we actually have lower access to true information than ever before, and this will only get worse, as reaching true information will become even harder among the larger and larger ocean of false information. Reality is becoming fantasy. And fantasy is used to manipulate you to engage in whatever actions are profitable for capitalism - and not only this, but to bully you to do so. "The experts are telling you so, what, are you an idiot? You know better than these people who spend their life working on this? How dare you think for yourself?" But the data is skewed! And people don't know how to think about data. You have to think what mechanism could give rise to that data - that's what is important. But generally this is provided for you by the "experts" - it is the conclusion that they want you to believe.

Capitalism devours itself - even smoking being proven unhealthy becomes a source of making money - new products to help you give up on smoking, psychotherapy, and so forth. Capitalism creates its own problems and then "solves" them - and the solutions always allow for other solutions as well. The analogy I gave in the beginning. It thrives from doing this. Problems do not cripple capitalism, but power it. And capitalism exploits especially the following: drugs, alcohol, sex, cigarettes, and other addiction inducing substances/activities. That's why we're becoming more drug friendly, more casual sex friendly, and so forth. The 1960s weren't the sexually repressed rebelling against their oppressors (as capitalism tells us) - but rather it was exactly what capitalism wanted to happen. More drugs and more promiscuous sex = more business - more medicines for STDs, more money for abortions, more money for addiction treatment with regards to drugs, and so forth. Capitalism must create the problem (or the victims) and then offer them a solution. And if there are no victims, it must make them think they are victims!

Sometimes I feel that when Schopenhauer described the Will - he was actually describing capitalism itself. Indeed there is something uncanny about that thought, at least for me. But maybe it offers some clue as to how it may be possible to overcome capitalism. Anyway, this is a very interesting subject, maybe we should start a thread :P

It is good to be back, almost symbolic as I overcome certain things one step at a time. As said by Schopenhauer, "I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself from above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man.” — TimeLine

(Y)

Quibbling is the fun bit >:) — TimeLine

>:O

But the point he makes is that a species that goes against the laws of nature might exist for a time, but even a thousand years is an evolutionally short amount of time. And to go against nature is (to borrow Agustino's phrase) to saw off the branch they are sitting on. Individuals are needed to devise alternate ideas, but without the support and action of the majority/collective, even the brightest ideas will wither on the vine. — 0 thru 9

This is the same point I've made before that there is a tension between the individual and society (or the family) which has to be maintained for the well-being of both.

However, it seems to me that TimeLine is fundamentally right that the individual must have "transcended to this existentiality and conscious awareness and only amongst others of the same mental state whereby they exercise this freedom together" - otherwise it becomes impossible to maintain this underlying tension. Morality cannot be a matter that the collective decides on - morality always is and must always be the relationship of an individual with reality, and the collective cannot be an individual. So whatever the collective decides on, it will be at best a replica of authentic morality and a replica is dead. Consider Kierkegaard:

If someone who lives in the midst of Christianity enters, with knowledge of the true idea of God, the house of the true God, and prays, but prays in untruth, and if someone lives in an idolatrous land but prays with all the passion of infinity, although his eyes are resting on the image of an idol - where, then, is there more truth?

[...]

The one prays in truth to God although he is worshipping an idol; the other prays in untruth to the true God and is therefore worshipping an idol — S. Kierkegaard

Or consider St. Augustine:

For if, because power is not given, the hand is free from the murder of a man, is the heart of the murderer forsooth therefore clean from sin? Or if she be chaste, whom one unchaste wishes to commit adultery with, hath he on that account failed to commit adultery with her in his heart? Or if the harlot be not found in the brothel, doth he, who seeks her, on that account fail to commit fornication in his heart? Or if time and place be wanting to one who wishes to hurt his neighbor by a lie, hath he on that account failed already to speak false witness with his inner mouth? Or if anyone fearing men, dare not utter aloud blasphemy with tongue of flesh, is he on this account guiltless of this crime, who saith in his heart, 'there is no God'? Thus all the other evil deeds of men, which no motion of the body performs, of which no sense of the body is conscious, have their own secret criminals, who are also polluted by consent alone in thought, that is, by evil words of the inner mouth — St. Augustine

Furthermore, an individual is better off extricating himself or herself from an immoral society, even if this means death, as illustrated by the examples of Socrates, Cicero, Jesus, Seneca, etc. For what use is being a well-integrated thief or criminal or choosing to live for a few more days, only to live in shame? So in this sense the individual is primary. The individual's heart is primary. The first step is always for the individual to free himself - as Nietzsche puts it in Zarathustra, the first stage is the man going up the mountain to be alone - apart from community. The going down is only a secondary movement. If the individual isn't free, it is of no use that he belong to any community whatsoever - just as it is of no use marrying an outwardly chaste woman whose heart secretly harbours evil.

Now, once the individual has "transcended to this existentiality and conscious awareness" he returns to society - why? Because all people thirst for community and love, especially those who are close to their own hearts. And what is the problem of the return? That the individual is now taken to be mad by the herd - thus the desire transforms into being "only amongst others of the same mental state whereby they exercise this freedom together" - Why? Because returning to the community, the individual finds he has no real freedom. Real freedom isn't merely being theoretically capable to undertake X or Y action - that's freedom only in a negative sense. The actions that the individual wants to undertake cannot be undertaken because he finds no people willing to collaborate. So freedom in community is useless unless we can "exercise this freedom" - then it becomes positive freedom. Hence the thirst for reforming society - at least if not possible at the macro level, then at least at the smaller levels - friends, family, etc.

And I agree with TimeLine about the attack on capitalism and globalism. The former is a sick system as it demands growth not for the purpose of fulfilling human need - but for the sake of growth itself. We don't produce more because we need more - we produce more for the sake of greater production. Greed. This brings with it consumerism - we need to consume more because we're producing more, otherwise what to do with all the increases in production? And globalism tears down the fabric of local communities, and increases the space between people - leading ultimately to a scenario where each person becomes an island unto themselves.

I disagree that "liberal democracy is as close as we could get to this" - although I appreciate the increase in compassion, benevolence and personal liberties, but there's an equally dramatic if not more significant fall in virtue (especially the hard virtues - honour, dignity, chastity, etc.) coupled with rising of hedonism/nihilism. I agree with Plato that democracy is the worst form of government besides tyranny. It levels everyone to the same level - the bottom level. We all tend to become equally bad.

I missed you. — TimeLine

Well I think I missed you too :P There's few on these boards like you with insight to talk to about really significant matters (I love that your philosophy is always practical and practically oriented), if you can believe it, I'm busy here quibbling about matters such as whether 2 is a subset of 1 >:O

A house is just an object without genuine love — TimeLine

I agree. Life is a mixture of pragmatism and love. A family without love is at best an army - that is if it hasn't also lost the other pillar holding them together, virtue. However, a loving family without pragmatism (and discipline) is like a ship with a hole in the bottom. For lack of better words, a family thrives when the "male" - "female" tension is maintained, and there exists mutual respect between them (and this respect is born of the understanding of the family's dynamics). Love is needed - but love cannot reach the point of annihilating discipline. Discipline is also needed - but it cannot reach the point of extinguishing the flame of love. Most houses crumble because the partners don't adequately maintain this tension, and each seeks to impose their will over the other - for example one partner imposes their discipline to the point that family life becomes like an empty and lonely desert, held together only by mutual hopes and fears. Or one partner imposes their love to the point that the family loses direction, and becomes a victim to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune :P

but I have witnessed virtue mocked and the immoral praised as long as this immoral adequately fits within the social requisites — TimeLine

I have as well, but so what? I witness virtue mocked more frequently than I hear it praised in fact. Dogs will go on barking, and those lacking character will go on mocking virtue, and those foolish will go on cutting the very branch on which they're sitting. But I don't want to be like any of them - for the one thing that is impossible to lose unless you surrender it is dignity. Society - modern society at least - has a corrosive effect on virtue due to the mechanisms of peer pressure that it employs almost in its every move.

Moral consciousness and not the master-slave morality is what makes us human rather than objects. — TimeLine

I agree.

If happiness is merely an externalisation or a quantitative multiplicity that represents spatial influences and that quantifies the very fibre of our existence, then what is real or authentic? — TimeLine

Happiness in and by itself (without virtue) is unstable - it quickly degrades into unhappiness. Now virtue isn't a guarantee for happiness today or tomorrow - it's only a guarantee for happiness in the very long run (which may be even longer than your own life). But happiness is a certain outcome of virtue - regardless of how far into the future it lies. Whereas happiness without virtue is always uncertain and can never satisfy our need for perfect happiness.

The real Socratic irony is that the virtuous man or woman also ends up as the happiest man or woman, and inevitably does so. The real point I was making is that the person who does actually have the perfect life - but is still somehow unhappy, that person has an internal problem, a problem of virtue. It's useless that all external conditions have aligned (and thus happiness is really present), for he lacks virtue and cannot enjoy it. Instead, he will ruin that perfect happiness - he will start getting drunk, gambling away his money, cheating on his wife, abandoning his family, etc. At that point, he is the source of his own undoing.

Ah, would that be so even if your wife prostitutes herself but she is beautiful or your family — TimeLine

Then I certainly don't have a "perfect life" nor a "beautiful wife", for physical beauty would not be sufficient to make her a beautiful wife.

only "love" you for things other than who you really are? — TimeLine

Well I'm not sure about this. Say my family loves me because of my money-making ability. Is that not part of me as well? What the trouble would be in that case is simply a problem of their lack of virtue - lack of loyalty to be more specific. If, for some reason, I can no longer make money - they leave me or no longer love me. So the issue isn't that they shouldn't like my money-making ability (for that is also part of who I am) - but rather that I desire them to be virtuous. It's their lack of character that I dislike, not the fact that they like me for a variety of reasons including my money-making ability.

For instance, you could have a perfect life, a home, loving family, beautiful wife so then why would you feel like something is wrong? — TimeLine

If you have all that and still feel that something is missing, then something is indeed missing - it is your own head and reason ;)

If you want the truth, I actually view your own transcendentalism as nihilistic as it evacuates any and all meaning from this world, and transports it to some fantasy, some Nirvana. Buddhism in its regular interpretations seems a nihilistic and ascetic religion. It doesn't see virtue as the best way to thrive in this world, but rather in some other world. Now I know you'll tell me that's not the correct interpretation, and so on - but the mere fact that such an interpretation arises is a problem. Why does Buddhism talk about anatta? That is a problem - from the very beginning it is a problem. I don't care that you can correct it through mental gymnastics and textual exegesis, it doesn't change the fact that there is a problem there which needs correction, which needs the "right" view, where of course the right view is the one you give. I have talked with quite a few Buddhists online, and the more I talk to them, and the more they explain Buddhism the harder it is to hide its nihilistic side. More and more complicated acts of mental gymnastic each and every time. The self is bad, and yada yada yada, you need to get rid of the self and attachment and yada yada yada, you need to sit facing a wall meditating cross-legged for 5 hours and day, you need to stop being attached to your wife because attachment is suffering, and other obviously sounding nonsense. Yes sure, this nonsense can be corrected and amended so that it makes some sense... but even the very basic fact that it needs to be corrected and amended is a problem. That's why Buddhism isn't mainly concerned with ethics - with doing right and avoiding wrong - but with the achievement of Nirvana! As if that mattered to anyone...

I much more prefer Daoism which is this worldly. In Daoism there is no other world. The Dao isn't transcendent. The Chinese were smart. For the Chinese virtue is maximising your power and capacity in this world - not renouncing the world and your attachments (unless you have to), but making the most of them.

Why do you think the progressives are latching onto Buddhism? Because Buddhism is fertile soil for their nihilism. I mean we should be careful, lest this evil of Buddhism befall our Western world, as it seems to have already done so. Definitely this isn't an escape from nihilism, but a full plunge into it.

None of that was clear until you elaborated your idea further, but fair enough. — Noble Dust

It was clear from my second reply to you. A motive is grounded in something - in the relationship of the person with reality - hence why I said that I know their motive but not how they arrive to it. Without having access to the ground - not through knowledge, which is impossible, but through first person awareness, how can I make sense of their motives? They are almost nonsense to me = I know the motive but not how it is arrived at.

No, in the bit about the Emperor, you're saying that his motivations "are almost nonsense to people who aren't the person in question". But you just said that we can know the motivations of others. That's the inconsistency I was pointing out. — Noble Dust

They are almost nonsense to the person in question because they don't have access to their first person relationship with reality, not because they cannot imagine being in that situation and having that motive.

1) our own motive is knowable to us — Noble Dust

Not only our own motive, the motive of others too are knowable.

it's source is not knowable — Noble Dust

The source of our own motive is not knowable because it cannot be put into concepts. The source of others' motives is not known because we have no direct access to their relationship with reality, since we are not them.

It is the same:

Knowing what his motives are is different than understanding why they are his motives. — Agustino

I can imagine being in their situation but I cannot imagine arriving there. — Agustino

The motive is strictly personal - one could want to live in Hawaii because they were born in very poor conditions, where life was very difficult and ardous - living in Hawaii would be a release for them and their family. Someone else could be motivated to become Emperor of China because he feels the destiny of his nation sits on his shoulders - feels he is asked to do something for it. And so on - these are very particular reasons, that are almost nonsense to people who aren't the person in question. — Agustino

The path as to how these persons arrive at having such fundamental motivations is not known. Why? Because their motives emerge from their own particular relationship with reality, which is unknowable. You can know their motivation is X - you can imagine being in their situation and having that motivation - but you cannot imagine ARRIVING there - you cannot imagine their relationship with reality that grounds that motive.

I think that two people can share a motive. That's why we can cooperate. And if you're certain that you don't share a motive with someone else, trying to find out what they want, by your lights, is pointless. — Pneumenon

We don't share fundamental motives with others. However, them reaching their goal may help me to reach mine and conversely, in which case we'll both work together.

This motive is entirely knowable to the more self-conscious amongst us, at least our own is. It's our own individual purpose for being here, bestowed upon us by the Eternal. Its source is unknowable and unfathomable. How one relates to this motive depends - some have motives that cannot be fulfilled at this time and place. Chinese culture has a word for these people - they are known as "sleeping dragons". A sleeping dragon is someone whose purpose cannot show itself to the world at the moment, and remains known only to the individual. This particular individual relates to it by patiently waiting until the stars align - the moment when the dragon awakens and the motive becomes known to the world through the individual's actions, whatever they happen to be. Steve Jobs for example was asked what his motivation was, and said if you want to know that, look at our products. Steve Jobs as a young man, before he founded Apple, was a sleeping dragon - no one knew that this kid who liked to go to meditate and live an ascetic and simple lifestyle in India would go on to be the founder of a large business empire.

Another way to engage with this motive is to despair for not being able to actualise it at the present moment. Such a person may jump from activity to activity and experience a sort of restlessness and inability to quiet themselves down.

Others may not know the motive at all - because they lack self-awareness. They will be rushing from here to there, and back, not knowing what they're looking for, troubled by an itch whose origin they do not know.

So you're saying the foundational motive is unknowable? — Noble Dust

No I'm not saying it is unknowable. I'm saying that its source is unknowable - it's not known why Steve Jobs has that motive.

I definitely disagree here; understanding why his motives are what they are would just be discovering the further motives underneath those motives. We don't choose our motives, as you say. Steve Jobs chose his career path, but he did so because of underlying motives; he didn't choose those motives. If I had been one of his closest friends or family members, I could probably elaborate further on what some of his motivations probably were.

Do you disagree with what else I've said here about motives? You don't really seem to be responding to my thoughts, just to what I say about your thoughts. — Noble Dust

I disagree because some motives are primary. It's simply what it means to be Noble Dust that you have such a driving motive. Without it, you lose your very own essence. Otherwise we'd have an infinite regress of motives, which is nonsense. Some motive has to be primary and foundational to one's character.

Steve Jobs chose his career path for an underlying motive - he didn't become a Buddhist monk, even though he could have become one. But if he had, he would no longer have been Steve Jobs. Because to be Steve Jobs was simply having that underlying motive that was the core of who he was.

Can't you just ask the guy? >:O

Really though, I partially agree, at least in that the motives of another are not always knowable or clear, but I think we can certainly apprehend some amount of another's motives. Actions also reveal motives, for instance. We can make decently accurate assessments, given enough time. We can make an assessment accurate enough, for instance, to make a judgement and then take an action. The results of our action could reveal that our judgement of the other's motives was accurate. — Noble Dust

Knowing what his motives are is different than understanding why they are his motives. It's part of his freedom, having chosen those motives (or being chosen by them :P ). For example, why was Steve Jobs motivated by the idea of creating ground-breaking and revolutionary products for the world instead of, let's say, go and become a Buddhist monk? Both were viable alternatives, but he chose one of them. Why?

Why not? — Noble Dust

Because one's motives reveal themselves to them, and to no one else. I do not know how, for example, the guy wanting to become Chinese Emperor, how he started to perceive it as his duty to become the leader of the country, and start feeling it is his responsibility to do so.

But surely by learning about their reasons, you can make sense of it for yourself? — Noble Dust

I can imagine being in their situation but I cannot imagine arriving there.