:rofl: OK, got it now. It's been a while since I read that book. Cool.

Darn it, I'm embarrassed. Can't pin the figures. I give up. Now I'm curious. Mine remains Pink Floyd, despite my rather eclectic tastes.

One approach would be to divorce the materialist mindset from the prevailing materialist worldview. Because, materialists are materialistic. Else have no cogent reason not to be. But, yes, this is unfair: “Greed is good!” is nowadays a staple implicit slogan for most JC fanatics as well, to name just one religious group among many. Because, like, that’s what JC was teaching, right? Meanwhile, the Flynn effect appears to have started reversing since the about the mid-1990s. But our politicians are probably unconcerned about this because unintelligent/uneducated populaces are easier to manipulate and thereby control, bringing in more profits to boot. Still, it does bum me out personally, in part because I blame this reversal on why I don’t like today’s music as much.

OK, blowing off a wee bit of steam as diplomatically as I could. Less juvenilely, I don’t believe the end of the human species is near. But I do believe that when you place fire at people’s feet they start moving. Global warming will do this. Our current economic globalization will be followed by political globalization, if for no other reason, to govern cash flows. My leading concern as regards the humanity I’m a part of (regardless of how many billions it will consist of) is whether it will result in a globalized 1984 or a globalized republic aiming toward a non-hyperbolic global democracy. The latter I know will be laughed at by many. And for me this laughter ties into my juvenilely written portion above. Hence my concern.

For me, the leading problem is one of values held and aspired toward by the majority of humans inhabiting this earth: both those in power and those who grant them their power. And aims such as those of love, peace, and understanding cannot be obtained by coercion. (Caveat: I’m by now jaded as hell myself.)

But yea, a global awakening: good stuff that I’m all for.

ps. Haven't done hallucinogens, but I have read "Naked Lunch".

Thus, your notion of form, eidos, whole is linked to identity as persisting presence to self, substance and res extentia. — Joshs

Well, fyi, this is not an accurate representation of my view. And I have quite an aversion to the Cartesian notion of res extensa and related themes. Is an individual paradigm, which we know to be constituted from a great plurality of interrelated ideas, not comparable in its magnitude to that of an individual idea? Only a Cartesian would so assume. For the rest of us, paradigms are of course larger than ideas and, in so being, hold a greater extension within cognitive spaces, and both are aspects of cognition rather than being corporeal. A potential idiosyncrasy of mine that I couldn't resist expressing.

All the same, I was mainly claiming that awareness of wholes is primary to both our cognizance and cognition, and that awareness of parts, or of constituency, is secondary. As one generalized consequence, we infer parts from wholes, rather than vice versa. But I wasn't aiming at a metaphysics for the principle of identity, if there were to be one.

Husserl and Heidegger unravel the concept of self-present identity. — Joshs

Guesstimating here, but the notion of identity being fully relative to relations as opposed to "self-present" (if this indeed touches upon their content) doesn't of itself refute the primacy of wholes over parts in respect to awareness, to not address in respect to aboutness.

Doesn't seem you're interested in a discussion on this subject, and that's fine. Just wanted to clarify my stance.

EDIT: Also, I want to note that I'm open to other approaches with respect to "to be" -- while I'm using a notion of Quine, I'd like other notions put forward and used to analyze or have a better understanding of holes. If you have such a notion aside from quantification I'm all ears. — Moliere

Interesting. Not 100% on this, but what about: that which is is that which stands out as a whole, and thereby stands out as an entirety which is other than its context, else other relating to that which is in relation to it, such as its parts. A hole stands out as an entirety which is other than its ground, and thereby is. There are parts to a hole (e.g. its left or right boundary or quadrant) but it nevertheless is cognized as an entirety and thereby stands out. Fairly confident there will be drawbacks to this approach - which, acknowledgedly, assimilates being with existence - but its an idea.

Edit: Maybe obviously, this approach to a hole's being does not however preclude quantification. The quantity of "one" would abstractly represent that which stands out as an entirety.

But how is it that we are able to experience an object as a singular unit , separated out from a
multiplicity of which we deem it to belong , such that we can proceed to perform these feats of logic? Husserl’s fist published work , the philosophy of arithmetic, offers a fascinating genesis of such seemingly irreducible concepts as that of the discrete , self-persisting object from mix more basic acts , wherein there is as yet no concept of formal object.

For instance, according to Husserl, the basis of any sort of whole of independently apprehended parts(a whole in the pregnant sense) is the collective combination, which is an abstracting act of consciousness uniting parts. — Joshs

This perspective seemingly differs from mine and it intrigues me. First, to be clear, I acknowledge that I have not read Husserl and so cannot offer a firsthand judgment of his philosophy, that I don’t know the extent to which you uphold Husserl’s ideas, and maybe most importantly, that I’m not fully certain as to this quote’s intended meaning.

That acknowledged, I find that wholes, forms (rather than shapes), or eidoi (I so far find no meaningful difference between the three terms), though cognizable to be the summation of parts, are primary to our awareness of what is, rather than being second-order abstractions from some more rudimentary awareness wherein wholes don’t occur. (This without denying that in adults many are indeed abstracted from immediately experienced wholes previously encountered.)

If this doesn’t conflict with what the quote is intended to imply, then I’ve misunderstood. My bad in advance. But to try to make myself clearer:

When we conceptualize the parts which constitute particular wholes, any cognized part, when focused upon, will itself be cognized as a whole, an eidos, onto itself. This though each part may itself be deemed to be constituted of yet smaller parts. Given current physics, this until we arrive at zero-point energy, wherein we again address wholes, eidoi, these either being specific fields or specific quanta, or, alternatively, the quantum vacuum field as itself being a whole, i.e. an eidos.

For me this ties in with the principle/law of identity: any identity we can be aware of is itself an eidos and, as such, is cognized by us to be a whole give that, most always if not always, can be abstracted as being constituted of parts, with each identifiable part then itself, again, being an eidos.

As one concrete example, we infer a whole rock to be constituted of rock fragments (themselves constituted of sand particles, and so on) but we hold no inkling of what these particular rock fragments might actually be until we take a hammer to the rock to break it apart. At which point the particular whole rock ceases to be, now being replaced by a multiplicity of whole rock fragments.

Else, if the development of object permanence is being addressed, I'd likewise argue that infant awareness innately consists of eidoi as primary. The relations which these wholes, eidoi, hold is what is learned via a conflux of experience and innate reasoning as the infant matures.

Alternatively argued, one cannot intentionally act if nothing is identifiable, if there is no identity of which one is in any way aware. Intention (aboutness) presupposes cognizance of identities; again, with each identity being a whole onto itself.

At any rate, if there in fact are disagreements, I’d like to learn more about where these disagreements take place.

I think that this way of thinking about the external world does raise the question of a singular actuality. Subjective aesthetics plays such a critical role of perception, to the where we can query the underlying objective one. — Jack Cummins

This would depend on the metaphysics espoused. In Platonic Realism, for example, the Aesthetic is as much a singular universal Form as is the Good. Hence, while in the eye of the beholder, so to speak, all beholders of it will experience some or all of the same universal attributes of this Form.

Photography is not really looked at in the book, but we can wonder about whether photographs are the most accurate forms of visual art. — Jack Cummins

Interesting phrasing. Accurate in terms of that reality which is common to all, right? I'm myself biased in interpreting art as a conflux of a) ideas expressed x b) quality of expression x c) audience's understanding of both (a) and (b), with the audience including the artist her/himself - such that if either (a), (b), or (c) is null, no art can take place. So interpreted, I can't describe art as accurate, other than, maybe, being an accurate representation of the artist's intentions. But this would address both subjective and intersubjective realities to a far greater extent that the singular objective reality.

One aspect which I wonder about in the experience of reality is the role of mood. That is because I believe that it does affect the whole interpretation of reality. I believe that it affects perception and understanding in various ways. — Jack Cummins

I do agree. To fall back on the terminology I've previously offered, this for ease of expression, we all experience equi-subjective reality via our own momentary intra-subjective reality which is itself always in large part formed by the intersubjective realites we are participants of.

Fair enough. Wanted to clarify that I offered Peirce’s metaphysics as one possibility that I personally envision could facilitate a constructivist notion of equireality, so to laconically speak. This idea I threw out regarding equireality in general was not, however, to my knowledge explicitly stated by Peirce … although I’d love to find references in Peirce’s works that would corroborate this notion. I’ll check back in tomorrow, though.

I think that your categories are useful, but reality is something which expands outside of us, and includes us, with our own interior consciousness. — Jack Cummins

I'm in agreement with your comments on intra- and inter-realities. I am interested to better understand your critique of category three, which, for the time being, could be labeled "equi-subjective reality" or "equireality" for short: that reality/actuality which equally applies to - hence, is equally shared by - all subjective beings regardless of what we think, believe, perceive, etc.

I intentionally left its description open ended. To the physicalist, equireality would not be contingent upon awareness in general; it would remain in the absence of all awareness. From any number of non-physicalist metaphysics - with CS Peirce's notion of physicality as effete mind as one variant - that which is equireal would itself be contingent on sentience in general: such that, for example, it would naturally emerge from a plurality of individual sentiences as that which is equally shared by all. A cumbersome metaphysics, granted, but nevertheless one avenue of approach.

I very much don't intend to turn this discussion into one of metaphysical debate on various monisms.

I am, however, interested to find any logical problems that might be apparent to the third category of equireality, as that - by necessity, singular - actuality which is common to all and which we ordinarily simply term "reality".

Thanks for the input, btw.

I haven’t read most of the thread, and by now there’s a lot to read. Wanted to throw out an interpretation and see the critiques.

Building on this:

In many ways, even though we have shared realities, I do believe that each one of us has a unique reality. — Jack Cummins

“Reality” can hold two meanings, that which is actual, which to me can apply to at least three levels, and that which would strictly be the third level in the following categorization:

1) (Intra-)subjective realities: e.g. mine was a real dream, and not a fictious dream that I lie about to you. Or: we each dwell in our own (intra-subjective) reality, here referencing an individual’s epistemic awareness of what is ontic as itself being an actuality.

2) Intersubjective realities: e.g., that is a real culture, and not a fictious culture that someone wrote about in a science-fiction novel. Or: a Young-Earth Creationist's reality (emphasis on this being a shared reality among many, here with reality/actuality in the sense given in (1)) is different from an evolutionist’s reality (with same emphasis as before).

3) that reality, else actuality - often, “reality” for short - which is equally applicable to all coexistent sentience, and whose being is therefore not contingent upon any intra-subjective reality or any intersubjective reality: e.g. this is a real table, and not an illusion of one. Or: evolution is real (irrespective of what anyone might believe). And so forth.

Of note, here all three levels, or types, of reality are defined relative to sentience.

I'm frankly getting tired. — javra

Beat you to it. :-) — Wayfarer

:rofl: Yea, point taken.

Adjective
inherent (not comparable)
Naturally as part or consequence of something.
Synonyms: inbuilt, ingrained, intrinsic; see also Thesaurus:intrinsic
Antonyms: extrinsic; see also Thesaurus:extrinsic — https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inherent

What definition of inherent are you using?

Then again ...

If by reality of purpose you're suggesting that things inherently have purpose without anyone assigning it to them then, not only is that not even incompataible with materialism (just say that the matter itself has purpose, your original option b) but it's also, again, absurd in my view. If you think things have inherent real purposes then please tell me the "real purpose" of a PC. Is it to chat on forums? Answer emails? Play games? Which is it? — khaled

See my answer below:

That difference doesn't exist here. Replace X and Y with what we're actually talking about. You're suggesting a difference between assigning a purpose to a rock and a rock in fact having a purpose. The idea that a rock can "in fact" have a purpose outside of the assigned purpose is absurd. Do you actually defend this idea? — khaled

Was this written material purposely written by you? I'm not asking if your existence has "a purpose". I'm asking if you were purposeful in what you typed. If I'm to assume this text was purposefully written by you, then you were goal-driven in so writing. Were the goal(s) that drove you assigned to you by some other the way you assign purpose to a rock? If not, how was your purpose, your goal-driven behavior, in writing this text not inherent to you? Inherent relative to your brain, if you prefer.

Likewise, is my purpose in replying obtained due to some other assigning purpose to me?

-------

Ah, I won't erase this, even as I recognize there being too many questions in this post. And I'm frankly getting tired.

We disagree. I'll leave it at that.

It isn't inherently. Some matter we assign purpose. Some matter we don't. Which is identical to saying that some matter has purpose and some doesn't, respectively. — khaled

You are in essence saying that the "we" you're addressing is the "second sort of thing". Does a quark assign purpose? You and I might both agree on a "no". Yet we're built from quarks and such, and we assign purpose.

No, to me you're not getting the difference between assigning X to Y and Y in fact being X. As one difference: The first can be wrong. The second addresses what is factual.

So you're suggesting some sort of monism in the first sentence. Then asserting that materialism doesn't do it. So idealism? I'm losing you. — khaled

I'm not here intending to provide a coherent alternative metaphysics to materialism via the soundbites of of a forum. I'm simply saying that materialism fails to account for the reality of purpose, and that only a non-physicalist metaphysics can do so.

"Goal oriented" is a human construct. Nothing is inherently goal oriented. Humans are what see purposes in things and people. I think we can agree so far. — khaled

While I think I can see the commonsense understanding you're likely espousing, I also see an inherent logical contradiction in terms of the monism which is materialism/physicalism. If:

If "closest" then maybe not quite it. In which case do you believe there is a duality between non-purposeful matter and purposeful matter — javra

No — khaled

And, if matter / the physical is of itself purposeful, then purpose would logically be ubiquitous, in which case inherent goal/aim/end/completion-driven processes would obtain for everything.

Again, we're currently working with the premise that purpose is real, and not merely an illusion which we assign to others as well as to ourselves.

Or whatever you want to call the "second sort of thing" that assigns purposes (which I think there is no need for). — khaled

Yes we humans, and other lesser animals, can assign purposes to things. But this is confounding the act of assigning X with the the process itself of being X. Goal/aim/end/completion-driven processes can be assigned to some object, rightly or wrongly, yes. But this is not the same as the given addressed in fact being goal/aim/end/completion-driven in what they do. And no, there is no "second sort of thing" required for there to actually be purpose.

The question is, can materialism in any way account for purpose? So far, not that much, here being very accommodating.

When? Quote it. — khaled

Please reread what I've written more carefully. From my previous post:

Also as a reminder, you’ve claimed it ridiculous that matter/the physical is of itself purposeful, thereby denying option (b), here (if I’ve misinterpreted, please clarify):

As to the natural arising part: If mater, or the physical, is that which is natural, and if this is in itself purposeful, then you are just expressing that purposeful given X arose from purposeful given Y. So there's no add-on of purpose involved — javra

Yes. That was the point of the sarcastic comment. — khaled — javra

Again, "if I've misinterpreted, please clarify".

I'll again ask from two day's back: Do you find that matter/the physical is in and of itself purposeful, i.e. consists of goal-directed processes?

You've now answered,

[option] B I guess is closest. — khaled

If "closest" then maybe not quite it. In which case do you believe there is a duality between non-purposeful matter and purposeful matter wherein the "purpose sauce" emerges?

This, though, would be a form of dualism, and not monism.

---------

Apropos, you are aware that the vast majority of materialists/physicalists would find it absurd that a subatomic quark, as well as any matter in general, engages in goal-oriented processes. Right?

Ah, shit. Fire is raging in this thread. Pardon my interruption.

Yes. I said "When did we add the purpose sauce" sarcastically to imply that there is no "purpose sauce". That there is no "guiding force" over and above the things that are moving. — khaled

So, without “purpose sauce” in a materialist or physicalist universe, either:

a) There is no purpose, period.
b) Everything has purpose, including little subatomic quarks and such; i.e., matter/the physical is ubiquitously purposeful and so AI purpose and human purposefulness are nothing but emergent aspects of matter’s purpose in general.
c) ???, but do express what option “c” might logically be as a rational option, if option (c) is needed.

As a reminder, I started off by claiming that there can be no purpose in a materialist/physicalist universe, this being option (a).

Also as a reminder, you’ve claimed it ridiculous that matter/the physical is of itself purposeful, thereby denying option (b), here (if I’ve misinterpreted, please clarify):

As to the natural arising part: If mater, or the physical, is that which is natural, and if this is in itself purposeful, then you are just expressing that purposeful given X arose from purposeful given Y. So there's no add-on of purpose involved — javra

Yes. That was the point of the sarcastic comment. — khaled

It's OK, you can say it if you want to: you're a materialist and for you goal-directed behavior - this, again, being purpose - is not real.

If it's "unmoveable" then yes (conflicts). If it's "unmoved" then no. If it's fundamentally unmovable it's not physical. — khaled

Well, for what its worth, I think Aristotle's intent was that of this ultimate telos/aim/goal being metaphysically fixed, or pre-determinate; not in a partial way (the way an effect can be partially determined by one cause among many) but in a complete or absolute manner. Its my best hunch of what he might have meant. At any rate, not "unmovable" as though it were some concrete thing that could otherwise be moved by something other. It is, after all, only a telos (aim or goal or completion/end).

I'd ask whether or not you think a self driving car has purpose. And if it does, when exactly did we add the immaterial "purpose sauce"? Seems to have risen naturally. — khaled

Wait a minute, I thought we were for the time being addressing the (now pejorative ?) purposefulness as as something material. And not as something immaterial.

As to the natural arising part: If mater, or the physical, is that which is natural, and if this is in itself purposeful, then you are just expressing that purposeful given X arose from purposeful given Y. So there's no add-on of purpose involved, because everything would be purposeful. BTW, this would apply just as well in Peirce's concept of physicality as effete mind.

As a heads up, I'm gonna sigh off for the time being.

So I take it that for you it makes perfect sense to deem material substance, or the physical, as purposeful. This conflicts with the history of materialism/physicalism, but I say, “hey, why not”. It does, however, require a metaphysical interpretation of determinants that – although hearkening back to Aristotle and his four causes – has nowadays been forsaken by most. Apropos, as a reminder, one of Aristotle conclusions given his premising of teleology what that of an ultimate final cause/telos as the unmoved mover of everything that changes/moves. Our of curiosity, would you say that this notion then conflicts with a purposeful materialism? Why or why not?

I've asked on this thread since the start of one thing that requires a materialist/idealist viewpoint and no one has presented anything. It seems both positions can say the same things, provided you use their respective definitions. — khaled

Here is one difference I find pertinent: the reality or unreality of a goal-oriented processes, aka purpose, aka teleology.

Minds are purposeful. In an idealist’s cosmos - regardless of type - purpose will have an ontological presence because mind(s) have an ontological presence by default. Hence, teloi (i.e., goals or aims) will be real as determinants of what occurs, at the very least in some respect. As one simple example, my moving right rather than left was determined by my aim/telos of arriving at point B (had I traveled leftward I would not have arrived at point B, and so my goal of being at point B determined my traveling rightward). In an idealistic system, because everything is deemed mind-stuff of one sort or another (e.g., C.S. Peirce’s notion of physicality being effete mind), purpose will, or at least can, apply to many aspects of what is real, if not to everything.

Other than via thought experiments of what if we apply new senses to the semantics of well engraved terms, no materialist or physicalist system will accept matter or the physical to be to any degree determined by aims, teloi. Either under the construct that mind emerges from physical substrata via emergentism such that a property dualism unfolds or, else, that of brain = mind with no property dualism involved, because mind either is fully contingent upon matter or else is matter, and because matter is deemed to in no way be governed by any teleology, mind too then cannot be teleological in any real, or ontological, sense. There can be no ontological purpose in materialism/physicalism because matter / the physical cannot be teleological and because all that is real is matter / the physical.

The first alternative lacks much explanatory power in regard to many aspects of the physical (of effete mind in Peirce’s terminology). E.g., if idealism, then why the ubiquitously observed correlations between brain and mind in regard to brain damage? And so forth.

The second alternative results in a stark contradiction between experienced reality and theorized reality. For just as we know that minds occur, so too do we know that these minds, namely ourselves, function via goal-oriented processes. Even thought the theorized metaphysics of materialism, or physicalism, insists that no such thing takes place in actuality.

In short, a consequence of idealism is that purpose in the world is upheld. On the other hand, materialism/physicalism upholds an absence of purpose in everything, for here everything is material/physical.

Else expressed, the reality of purpose in any facet of the world requires a non-physicalist metaphysics, of which idealism is one form.

BTW, since I strongly lean toward there being such a thing as goal-oriented processes in the world, I’ll say that there being teleology in the world does not in any way necessitate that the world is thereby the creation of a deity. This being a notion that I find absurd, but this latter is a topic for different threads.

My mother used to wonder how bodies would look in heaven, and I wonder the same about transhuman bodies. Would they look artificial, rather like steampunk robots? — Jack Cummins

:grin:

I here that.

For my part, I find that when people's ideas become a tangled confusion between the reality of science and of science-fiction, they do a grave disservice to the PR of empirical sciences, if nothing else.

Don't like being one of them cheerleading folk, but I don't have anything significant to add. Yours is a very nicely expressed post.

Most existing entities are irrelevant to any specific context. I've been clear,[...] — 180 Proof

:ok: I'll cease my questions. ... back to others discussing the importance of immortality, then.

Right. Just asking. So I take it that for you intent is nonexistent, else stated illusory, then. Hence making intent itself not relevant.

I confess to curiosity. Do you then find the material substrata's intent relevant to the topic. Or is intent itself not relevant?

I'm not denying anything. I'm saying I don't find it relevant (determinative with respect) to the topic. — 180 Proof

By "it" I assume you are referring to the notion of a self. Hence, the self which is specified in a situation is irrelevant to the notion of what becomes immortal?

Or is a self's desire for immortality illusory and only the material substrata which emanates this illusion is determinative with respect to the topic? If this is what you intend, I'll pass for now.

I thought 180 Proof had already addressed that adequately. — Pfhorrest

In his post about the self being contingent on material substrata? How?

Punitive "justice" is just injustice. People suffering isn't good, even if those people cause other people to suffer. — Pfhorrest

Here's one concrete example: Some humans have been known to lunge with knives at bystanders, such as in dark alleys, so as to gain cash that wasn't theirs. Lack of immediate punitive justice in such situations leads to bystanders being killed. In at least cases such as these, how would the punitive justice be injustice when it saves the lives of bystanders?

... or our current communications. But if I understand you properly, how does that deny that the self is that which intends a perfected self-preservation via the preservation of the substrata from which it emerges? This at least for selves that so intend.

You’ve overlooked this part (and the preceding argument for it), which I found pivotal to my last post:

Maybe more succinctly, immortality of self requires a stagnation of selfhood; whereas, I'm thinking, mortality of self is required for the evolution of selfhood in general. Here, one grants other selves their moment in the sun just as past selves have granted you this opportunity. With each generation learning from the last. — javra

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Who ever said it was any one individual's happiness? It's everybody's happiness. Hedonists aren't (all) egotists. — Pfhorrest

Everybody? Including the optimal happiness of all murderers? I'm not one to subscribe to this, maybe for obvious reasons. I have a hunch you don't subscribe to it either.

... the notion of a perfected preservation of the *self* and, hence, immortality of the self. — javra

It's not "the self" that is "immortal" – ageless or unaging – just the substrate upon which mind is instantiated. [...] "Perfect preservation of the substrate", I think, is what "immortality" consists in and thereby enables the continuity of self-awareness (mind). — 180 Proof

How does stipulating the self to be contingent on material substrata deny the self's intent to preserve the substrata for the sake of the particular emergent self’s immortality (or perfected self-preservation)?

As a non-Indigenous person who's only had a very passing introduction to Indigenous philosophies, I'm just wondering if anyone knows any good books/journals/thinkers that may be relevant to my search. — Grre

Partly due to being peeved at some former poster (who's been known to ask false questions :grin: ) some roundabout input that I hope might be of help.

Both Joseph Campbell and Micea Eliade are known to have addresses pre-Abrahamic religious beliefs in general. I don't recall either focusing in on the female aspects of indigenous peoples of the North Americas, but they both hold notable interpretations regarding what we'd term nature-based religious practices. Despite his faults, for some reason Eliade's book "The Sacred and the Profane" comes to mind as a good introduction to perspectives of indigenous peoples. It's been some time since I've read it, but I found an online synopsis of it here. And at under 260 pages, the book itself is not too long of a read. BTW, briefly skimming through the synopsis, I can find parallels to the Native American notions of a Sky Father and Earth Mother.

Hope this might inspire some ideas for your project. But yes, now that I think of it, a good sum of authors that I've read on this subject have a European ethnicity ... and those that haven't have been from the East.

The peak experiences I have had, which are what I imagine is more in the ballpark of the aim of transhumanist mind-alteration, feel the opposite of what I imagine a lobotomy would feel like, assuming a lobotomy would feel something like drunkenness or sedation. During a peak experience I not only feel more calm and happy and tranquil and accepting but I also feel smarter and more aware of both myself and the world around me, I take passionate interest in everything and find it all wondrous and fascinating, and I want to learn and to create, to find and build connections between everything. It's both peace and joy. — Pfhorrest

I grant what you're saying. What I was alluding to, through both examples, is that what you are grateful for experiencing and seem intent to further experience is what a layperson might term a heightened, or raised, consciousness. Which encompasses far more than mere happiness and longevity of lifespan. And without which happiness and longevity, I'll argue, lose their value.

The ideal of manipulating brains so as to invoke heightened consciousness, however, presupposes that one already knows a) what the zenith of this heightened consciousness (if there is one) consists of and b) how to biologically alter brains to produce it; rather than, say, producing something akin to drug-induced altered states that deviate from such heightened consciousness. So, were one to have one's brain preserved in some manner after death and then restructured at some future point in time when such understanding might be obtained, the transhumanist brain-alteration that would occur would render the person to not be the you which you are now. Like altering the brain of a particular frog (for lack of a better example) so that it obtains the awareness of the average human, the being in question that would emerge from the operation would not be the initial being that craves immortality as the self it knows itself to be.

Maybe more succinctly, immortality of self requires a stagnation of selfhood; whereas, I'm thinking, mortality of self is required for the evolution of selfhood in general. Here, one grants other selves their moment in the sun just as past selves have granted you this opportunity. With each generation learning from the last.

Murderers are making other people unhappy (the people who get murdered, and anyone who might miss them), even if their crimes are never discovered. It's therefore better that they not murder [...] — Pfhorrest

I of course agree with this. But if an individual's happiness alone is the goal, on what grounds would it be better for the happy murderer - who obviously harms others - to not murder?

I'll again aim at raised consciousness being a good that excels the goodness of individual happiness. Nebulous as this notion of raised consciousness likely is, I'll nevertheless argue that it in part is where one finds portions of oneself in others and treats these others as extended aspects of one's intrinsic self. This raised consciousness thereby leads to empathy. But empathy can lead to one's suffering when others suffer. The greater one's general empathy, the greater the number of people whose suffering will impact one. So again, a mere individualistic happiness doesn't seem to suffice as an objective, for the happy murderer is far more happy than the person who holds empathy for not only people on the other side of the world (like children in Yemen) but for future generations yet to come (think global warming as an example).

okay, let's make ourselves a different type of brain, and in the mean time survive long enough to do so. — Pfhorrest

I was struck by this and related comments in your posts.

What, if anything, then makes lobotomizing oneself bad, granted that it will lead to greater degrees of unperturbable happiness for the remainder of one’s days? Assume that the lobotomized individual will be well taken care of and will live a longer than average life. Else, that they will immortally live as such.

Simply being happy to me seems to be an insufficient goal. As another type of example, mass murders who've committed and continue to commit "perfect crimes" can also be said to live happy lives, and if they obtain immortality while so doing they'd be so much the happier. Should we then change our brains into such mindsets?

... what greater quest could there be? — 180 Proof

For the physicalist, I don’t know. Although I could envision a quest for global harmony a la good old fashioned humanism, one that is accordant to nature as-is.

For the non-physicalist, such as for them Buddhists that maintain self to be a metaphysical (rather than physical) illusion, the experience of a self can be conceived of as that what brings about - hence in some sense causes - samsara, the latter in part being unending vacillations of pleasure and pain that equate to dissatisfaction. Here, the ultimate quest can be the liberation from this unending dissatisfaction via, for lack of better words, some means of transcendence, whereby the experience of a self ceases - this while not leading to oblivion. Yea, I know, not to be taken seriously by physicalists (although physicalists can also maintain the self to be an illusion). And this is just one person’s interpretation of Buddhist aspirations. Nevertheless, here the ultimate quest precludes the notion of a perfected preservation of the *self* and, hence, immortality of the self. Arguably leading to more selfless behaviors while in no way being nihilistic.

With the people who really seem to wish to live forever,I do wonder how this would change in the face of adversity. Regarding the transhumanists, I can't believe that the truly extended life is not going to come with a few nasty side-effects. — Jack Cummins

Yup. Personally, I never understood the quest for immortality.

Suppose transhumanism is obtained by a group who eventually become the only living group of individuals. This group thereby perfects the ideal of self-preservation at the individual level, such that there is no destruction, decay, or ill that can naturally occur for any individual within this group. How would this resolve the problem of interpersonal conflict, including activities such as sabotage, betrayal, manipulation, enslavement, rape, theft, and so forth, to not mention the yet viable possibility of murder - even if it only occurs through the extermination of a program that was once an uploaded consciousness? To unendingly live with the possibility of such activities, if not their actuality, doesn’t seem to me to resolve anything.

The notion of salvation via immortality of the self - even if the goal were to not be illusory, this as transhumanists claim - doesn’t seem to remedy the issue of undue suffering. I’m reminded of Sartre’s “No Exit” here. (For the record, I’ve never been able to buy into the notion of heaven as a place devoid of suffering for similar reasons. Nor am I an anti-natalist.)

Even an "immortal" is mortal as well as finite and uncertain — 180 Proof

:100:

Can’t say it’s a favorite, and it’s certainly not upbeat, but it’s pith still stands out to me. A thought experiment in ethics:

Without your consent, you will be placed in a desolate place, say on the moon, where you’ll be estranged from all of humanity and thus live for all eternity, and this with an eternal view of Earth’s inhabitants, who, together with all your loved ones, will fully forget you as though you’d never existed. This predicament of yours could be created by gods, through the teleportation and other advanced sciences of aliens, by the magic of demons, it doesn’t matter. It just sets the stage for the thought experiment proper. Given this predicament, you are forced to make a choice between two alternatives. Either A) you will eternally suffer and, in return, the entirety of humanity (hence, including all loved ones) will live in a utopian bliss of peace, love, health, prosperity, wisdom, etc., for all eternity, with you being aware of this state of humanity throughout or, otherwise, B) you will yourself experience eternal bliss with the price being that the entirety of humanity (hence, including all loved ones) will unendingly suffer miserably, again with you being aware of this throughout.

If you choose the latter option, you won’t suffer any while watching all of your loved one’s suffer, but will instead find great pleasure in so watching. And if you choose the former, you will suffer in any number of ways despite your loved ones’ obtaining all the happiness you could ever wish for them to have and you being aware of this.

Which of these future realities do you choose for yourself?

If the thought experiment sounds childish, it’s because it was concocted by a teenager while he was contemplating the extremes of morality. Embarrassingly, yes, me. But, its immaturity aside, I still find the thought experiment poignant as regards which choice would be good and which bad, and for what reasons so. (Would one's reasons rely on moral relativism, moral idealism, something other?)

Man, just saw this.

Seems to me there are two arguments here:

1.) God does not exist, and therefore life is absurd.

2.) Life is absurd without god, therefore god exists. — darthbarracuda

If existence is absurd because its being is beyond the principle of sufficient reason, and one seeks to make existence meaningful by deeming it the creation of God, who is beyond the principle of sufficient reason, then that would quite naturally entail that God is absurd. And, if God is absurd, how would anything God creates not be?

I think everybody from Tristan Tzara – a prominent founder of Dadaism - to folk such as Eugene Ionesco and clan - playwrights of the Theater of the Absurd - would approve. :halo:

… and yet there’s meaning within existence, such as in some of the posts on this forum, arguably excluding this one. :naughty:

As regards the ineffable nature of Nirvāṇa - it has always been understood that there is no way to understand it short of actually reaching or realising it. It is referred to in some texts as ‘the inconceivable’, and much of the language about it is negative, saying what it is not, rather than what it is. Of course, some here will say that this amounts to nothing or nonsense or suchlike, although this fails to account for the fact that Buddhism is one of the primary sources of civilised culture. However there are also positive descriptions in terms of its blissful nature, ultimate peace and final release. — Wayfarer

I’ve been under the impression that Nirvana is a literal, non-hyperbolic, non-dualistic awareness - hence an awareness not limited or bounded by anything: a limitless awareness. Hence, a state of being wherein a literally limitless awareness occurs sans any semblance of selfhood; the latter requiring a duality between self and non-self/other, which would logically cease occurring upon an actualization of complete non-dual awareness. This, in part, since all semblance of “objects of awareness” - be these physical things, or mental things such as desires and particular thoughts of which one is aware - cease to occur upon actualization of non-dual being … this state of awareness thereby being deemed to result in an unfathomable state of bliss. Maybe obviously from this description, a state of being wherein samsara thereby ceases.

One then can either actualize an awareness of Nirvana’s being, in which case one still remains in states of dualistic awareness while aiming to actualize Nirvana itself, or actualize Nirvana itself, in which case, again, duality ceases.

I don’t have references for this interpretation so much as this being the general understanding of Nirvana I’ve gained from my former readings.

To what extent am I misinformed?

But if one’s system of explanation functions as a unity, like a scientific paradigm , then it wouldn’t be a question of seeing certain truths and then making a decision to foresake them , but of not having a coherent glimpse of them in the first place. — Joshs

I so far don’t find a necessary contradiction between your statement and mine. As adults we all dwell in our own paradigms. A Young-Earth Creationist will build museums exhibiting a time when dinosaurs and humans coinhabited Earth, because this aligns to his paradigm. That he “forsakes the truth of biological evolution” else “doesn’t have a coherent glimpse of the truth of biological evolution in the first place” seem to me to go hand in hand for all purposes here intended. Likewise with the reality that we experience goal-directed behavior, this just as much as we experience physical reality. That we hold firsthand experience of goal-directed behavior is an unequivocal truth. But the belief that no such thing as a goal-directed processes can metaphysically occur forsakes this truth, denies it, fails to glimpse it as such, on grounds that it is deemed contradictory to the paradigm one upholds and via which one’s adult awareness of reality is filtered.

Kuhn said that events that fall outside of the scope of a paradigm are not experienced as evidence. — Joshs

Yes, but were this to have been pivotal for Kuhn, he would have never addressed the reality of paradigm shifts in physics.

I would say that what is meant by teleology isn’t properly grasped in the first place by the group rejecting it, because they have no framework in which to make it coherent. — Joshs

I would concur. If X contradicts one's system of explanations, either one's system of explanations is wrong or X is wrong. Unlike with young enough children, we adult humans will almost without exception choose the alternative that X must be wrong, rather than question and reevaluate our own system of beliefs. But then, so habitually doing leads to dogmatism, as per the Young-Earth Creationist previously mentioned.

Are you saying there is an alternative to this ‘bias’? If sense-making is a bias , what is the alternative to sense-making? — Joshs

Hmm, by “truth filtering” I was referring to forsaking certain truths that don’t cohere into one’s system of explanation in favor of those truths that do. And not to "sense-making". As one possible example, that the human mind is inherently teleological, goal-driven, thereby granting teleology an ontological reality, is a truth that is filtered out of the picture by all those whose system of explanations holds no place for teleology in the cosmos. To the latter, teleology is bogus, fictional, illusory, and so forth, even though they have goals in mind in so conceiving. Such as that of establishing what is and is not real.

As to an alternative, it's difficult if at all possible to establish, but it would be that of not denying the reality of truths which don’t fit in with one’s currently held system of explanations - regardless of how much damage this would do to one's presently held system of explanation. Fallibilism, what the ancient Greeks termed “skepticism” - which, unlike Cartesian skepticism, is in no way contingent upon doubts - can help to better establish such state of mind.

The reason that theories of everything end up getting replaced is that ‘the ‘ everything’ they are describing isn’t a static set of facts but is constantly evolving, because we are a part of this everything and are constantly evolving — Joshs

Even by this account, their so called explanation of everything failed to explain everything: here, failed to explain the evolution of everything. Thereby in fact not being explanations of everything.