Uh-huh. So you would tend to agree that the "practical value for society" is a good criterion of productivity?

I was more re-affirming your question to Banno, and agreeing with your question.

↪Banno What exactly do you mean by ‘unproductive’ work? — I like sushi

Exactly.

Marx differentiates "productive labour" from "socially necessary labour," and considers average socially necessary labour to be the aggregate total, divided by the number of labourers. In that schema, the criterion of being socially necessary could be expanded to any labour that allows a person to earn the means of purchasing the necessities of life. So some people might not be engaged in "productive labour," in that they are not generating surplus value, but their labour probably should be considered socially necessary.

The reason why the work week is not decreasing as productivity increases with mechanization is due to the imperative of capitalism to always increase the exploitation of the labourer in the quest for increased surplus value (aka profits).

Indeed. The methods of mysticism are new but they lack credibility unless you want to take the mystics' words on it. — TheMadFool

Yes, mysticism is one of those "proof is in the pudding" things. My perspective is that the primary results are personal, and that that personal growth then also tends to have inter-personal and social benefits. But that this all should take place, sotto voce, as it were.

Perhaps the way to approach the issue is to talk about talking about mysticism, rather than talking about mysticism.

One way of engaging the issues is through mutual understanding and experience of an established mystical tradition, such as can be found in Hinduism for example. But this is fraught with difficulty too, because the analysis, or academic understanding, or interpretation of the tradition in question easily becomes confusing, opaque even secular. This combined with the degree of, or personal interpretation of the tradition, or lack thereof, by the person engaging in conversation. Also mystical understanding is intensely personal and is often gained through personal experience. Such an experience may be either unintelligible to the person, or uintelligable to another. Or how do you find the words, or do the words mean the same thing to another.

In my experience the best mutual understanding I have achieved with another is through spending time together, spending time with people in an ashram and having a teacher disciple relationship with another. I have had interesting experiences with gurus, but again there are problems sharing understanding with gurus. I found this was overcome by repeated worship in the presence of a guru in puja.

This investigation viewed in hindsight was just one of a number of formative experiences and explorations in my path towards a mystical understanding. Part of the reason for coming to sites like this was for me to try to integrate some of this with the philosophical tradition, but this has not been easy, not withstanding my belief that they are not incompatible. I find the philosophy quite rigid.

Any thoughts? — Punshhh

Nicely put.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must waffle. — unenlightened

I guess it's just your style. I never held with the "conceal to reveal" philosophy of writing. Say it plainly or don't bother is my preference.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must waffle.

Mystic: a person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect.
— Google

Mysticism is the practice of religious ecstasies, together with whatever ideologies, ethics, rites, myths, legends, and magic may be related to them. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in ultimate or hidden truths, and to human transformation supported by various practices and experiences.
— Wiki

So do you want to talk about 'whatever ideologies' or 'self-surrender,' or 'the practice of ecstasies', or what? Is there a 'philosophy of' any of this that is worth discussing?

It's not that i don't care, but I wonder if there is anything in the abstract to be said. I practice gardening, and I talk about gardening with other gardeners; I don't make threads about it on the forum. — unenlightened

This all seems rather unenlightened indeed. And there is lots of viable material even in the wiki-drivel. Seeking "by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with..the absolute" is prima facie perfectly comprehensible. There have been many threads around stoicism and asceticism; and asceticism, can also be interpreted as a kind of mystical exercise. Max Weber compared and contrasted the two standpoints extensively I believe.

Personally, I wouldn't start a thread about it either. But I sure wouldn't denigrate it.

Psychedelics are not for entertainment. Maybe if you are only interested in getting as far out of your own head as possible without any concern for the consequences. But presumably that wouldn't be anyone on this forum. So if you plan to use psychedelics, you should not only be prepared but eager to face your inner demons. And be prepared to change. You need to be open-minded but determined.

If you have already cultivated that attitude and made it a habit to work in that direction in general, then maybe psychedelics could be a tool for your. If not, and you're not just out to have a laugh riot, then you probably won't have a great time.

mysticism doesn't offer anything new — TheMadFool

Mysticism to some extent involves the concept of freeing oneself from the constraints of the mundane (viz the whole monastic tradition is a separation from the worldly).

Comparably, scientific theories or worldviews can sometimes become trapped in dead ends, which require a radical rethinking of core beliefs (paradigm shifts). Likewise individuals can become trapped in self-reinforcing frameworks of prejudiced beliefs.

So if mysticism aims explicitly at deconstructing mundane reality in order to work towards actualizing a more idealized version (as in the example of a monastic community) then I would say it absolutely does offer the possibility of something new, and potentially meaningful. Certainly at the very least as an exercise in self-discipline or introspective awareness.

Any effort to translate from the sphere of institutionalized practices (e.g. Buddhist meditation) to uniquely personal experience (which mysticism is by definition - e.g. samadhi) is going to be prone to the subjective-terminological quagmire problem. Do we de-mysticize mysticism in order to discuss it?

Thanks for clearing that up! :)

You’ll get the same from me either way — I like sushi

Perhaps like saying, "I would say this, even if you put a gun to my head"? Some contexts dictate results in ways we might not anticipate.

Do you think the quality of criticism offered by someone who has, in turn, offered their own work for criticism is the same as someone who is critiquing from a completely external standpoint?

As long as one always give a reason for one's pleasure, the question why the reason you gave makes one experience pleasure can be asked. — TheMadFool

Yes, that is the essence of criticizability in general. It's what makes rationality possible!

Edit:
I think it isn't clear that pleasure is the only or highest desideratum. Many moral philosophers believe the apperception of duty through recognition of obligations and rights to be an elevated type of experience. I think I'm rather of that ilk. I don't believe my answer on the other thread (which was just the question "why are you here") depended in any way on the concept of pleasure.

So an exercise in philosophical rhetoric, basically? Contribute if you want to critique?

Why are you here Pantagruel? — TheMadFool

LOL! I presume you just read why in the other thread and this is banter.

Why would you call this a fallacy? — TheMadFool

Because it is specifically an example of the fallacy of division?

Johnny loves his car. Johnny mostly loves the engine of his car. But without the car, Johnny no longer loves the engine.

why are we, the readers of this forum, here, on this forum? — Pfhorrest

There are certain specific themes and directions of thought that I find most interesting. I like to compare my perspectives with those of others. I'm not so interested in debating issues. My approach tends to be quite holistic and inter-disciplinary, so I may suggest consideration of a new salient dimension to a problem.

I especially like the forum as a way to discover areas and philosophers I may have overlooked; and to motivate me to undertake challenges. Reading Karl Popper has been an awakening for me. I read The Critique of Dialectical Reason as a result of tiddling online dispute. I'm taking on Das Kapital because of a thread proposing a close-reading group of the text. Stuff like that.

Edit. I guess on reflection, the sense of belonging to a community of like-minded individuals. Even people with diametrically opposed viewpoints to mine presumably share my passion, in some way. That in itself is an interesting philosophical paradox I think.

I have a pretty heavy reading list already, but I'm definitely interested in tagging along on this. I just may not participate in every discussion.

This seems to me a spurious regress. While you can always analytically decompose any thing or event, this does not remove or divert the value or experience from the original thing. A enjoys X. X has the features f1,f2,f3,f4. Just because A enjoys f1 more than f2 does not mean that
1. A does not enjoy X
2. A enjoys f1 outside of the context of X

I would call this a 'decompositional fallacy'

I'll be honest, I have no idea how to interpret your proposition in that case.

It seems that you are using "creationism" as a kind of anchoring symbol or paradigm of an "ultimate metaphysical value". This is exactly what Talcott Parsons calls the "Telic System". Which certainly does figure prominently in the way our personal-socio-cultural systems function.

Edit: I think this quote from Habermas pretty much parallels your reasoning about the way in which this "religious intuition" is (or tries to be) foundational:

Parsons insists that any talk of a telic system presupposes belief in a sphere of ultimate reality (This strategy is not at all unlike that with which the late Schelling, who took the experience of God's existence as his basic point of departure, introduced his "positive" philosophy.) In Parsons' words: "With full recognition of the philosophical difficulties of defining the nature of that reality we wish to affirm our sharing the age-old belief in its existence."

i.e. the essence of goal direction and valuation presupposes some shared belief in an ultimate reality - which historically has been thematized through religious beliefs and which you construe specifically as the creation myth. As far as I can tell.

Truth, validity, accuracy, preference, etc. they are only meaningfully defined in respect to creationist logic. Your arbirary use of them without foundation in creationism is just noise. — Syamsu

Creationist logic is only valid within a communicative framework of rationality.

Efforts to deny creationism are futile at best, and more likely just plain lies. — Syamsu

I don't deny that creationism exists as a sociological fact (although I do think that is over-narrowly construing the scope of sacred meaning). That does not in any way, shape, or form imply that it is true, or valid, or accurate. At the most, you could claim that it is a "universal tendency" or preference, either at the psychological or social level.

I think the ultimate authority must affect us not at a proscriptive but at a prescriptive-motivational level.

Is it possible to define anything, in a encompassing way, to describe something in a singular manner? And to what degree does that quality define itself in contrast to the [functional?] connections that allows that system/trait to exist? — ISeeIDoIAm

I am thinking that the mind's intuition of its own existence corresponds with and is the synthetic integration of the total set of ts functional connections. So consciousness, qua identity, i.e. this perspective, could be so singularly defined.

I wonder what happens if all references to "creator" are substituted with "knowledge"? — Zophie

Exactly. Any metaphysical system that can describe both the empirical and the subjective in criticizable (rational, intersubjective, reasoned) terms equally fulfills the success criteria assumed here. Popper's three worlds is the best example there is IMO.

:up:

Religious social facts are necessary not open to review because they are by nature inexplicable — praxis

The sacred is not open to the review to the extent that it is used as the basis for normative authority, and therefore not subject to rational criticism. I guess that equates with inexplicable.

Does anything truly matter? — Cidat

Not according to Freddy Mercury....

It's hard to imagine anyone saying, doing, thinking anything other than with the assumption that whatever it is "matters". Anarchists or iconoclasts who seem to want to undermine all values implicitly value something, or else why would they bother?

There are some really interesting cases in physics around physical entropy and large-scale structures. For example, for any given volume in a state of disorder, in order to be truly random, there must be substructures of a definable size which are actually ordered. If randomness is completely average, you end up with a large scale average distribution, which ends up in fact being ordered, not disordered. Really cool stuff.

Treating something as sacred is to establish value. You can value things without being religious. The mark of religion is a definable institution such as a church and people associating with each other.
— jacksonsprat22

Durkheim wouldn't agree. — h060tu

Would he not?

"the sacred principle is nothing but society hypostasized....it should be possible to interpret ritual life in secular and social terms" (Oxford World Classic edition, page 257).

Which is exactly what I said in my post and to the point re. it being a general type of value, per @jacksonsprat22 s point.

Unfortunately, when you read something based on a presupposition (this is about religion) you will tend not to see other interpretations because of confirmation bias. viz., this is a text about socialized communication and socialized action.

Durkheim's characterizations of the sacred and the profane are couched in the context of early or primitive levels of social development. In a more general sense, the sacred is what serves to unite the empirical-cultural, socio-normative, personal spheres. So perhaps we no longer experience the sacred, per se, in our modern world. It is precisely this disenchantment (Habermas' word) with the sacred that contributes to Durkheim's malaise known as anomie.

So my point remains that there is nothing special about biology in this regard. The inter-theoretic reduction program is difficult and contentious at just about every level. — SophistiCat

I went through an Intertheoretic Reductionism phase, and it is tortuous stuff. I recently came upon Popper's writings. He maintains that this type of science, even though it cannot reach the answers it seeks, nevertheless is excellent for leading us down different paths, and opening doors to new areas of research (leading to new metaphysical research programmes) .

No doubt you've examined Chalmer's "Hard Problem." Would you share your thoughts about it? — Greylorn Ell

So I used to be much obsessed with the mind-body problem (Chalmer's hard problem). I favoured a kind of idealist-cartesian perspective as it suited my intuitions about the hegemony (free will) and autonomy of consciousness. When I immersed myself in systems philosophy last year, I became aware that the problematic nature of the mind-body phenomenon is a function of the reductionist approach. By taking the system as fundamental (in a paradigm-shifting sense) all events are comprehended in situ, specifically, insofar as they are elements (holons) within hierarchically nested systems. So the mind-body problem just isn't something that gives me pause anymore. There are psychological entia, intersubjective entia, empirical entia. They all participate in the operation (and self-reorganization) of the complex adaptive systems that constitute our reality. I'm finding Popper's scientific realism really works well with this perspective, especially his three worlds and critical objectivism. Habermas' theory of communicative action too, as it also carves experience up into subjective/social/objective realms which mutually interpenetrate.

The OP and subsequent comments seem to regard "mind" as an entity separate from the brain, repeating Descartes' mistake of conflating the concepts of soul and mind. — Greylorn Ell

The mind could be strongly emergent, in a systems theoretic sense, for example, without postulating a separate immaterial entity such as a soul.

chemistry is clearly reducible to physics — Pfhorrest

This is very much in contention and , given your usual thoroughness and scope I'm very surprised you would slip this in in such an offhanded yet apparently authoritative manner. Chemical properties are clearly not reducible to the mechanisms of physics. The entire science of Systems Theory (which offers a much better basis for a fundamental theory) is based on the emergence of new properties governing emergent realms, like chemistry, biology, psychology, etc.

e.g.

"After a long period of neglect, the philosophy of chemistry is slowly being recognized as a newly emerging branch of the philosophy of science. This paper endorses and defends this emergence given the difficulty of reducing all of the philosophical problems raised by chemistry to those already being considered within the philosophy of physics, and recognition that many of the phenomena in chemistry are “epistemologically emergent”."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1009932309197

Ironic that objectivity is one of those "foundational" concepts that essentially never emerge in ordinary practical contexts of discourse. It seems like it takes a critical-reflexion to become objective.

I think too that the external property (property?) of objectivity is probably related in a significant way to the subjective quality (ideal?) of objectivity, or "being objective."

Exactly so.

In general, the systemic approach treats "systems" as the fundamental units, so right there, subject and object always exist in a functional context. Which they kind of do anyway, being dyadic in nature, don't you think?