An important thing to realise, which is often not grasped by people enquiring into mysticism is that there is a subjugation of the ego and in a sense the personality to some other power which then directs one's development. As such an enquiry into the other power, or ones relation to it is, or its purposes, are not important. What is important is in allowing the channel between yourself and the power to flow freely.

I realise that this might sound weird, but when one looks into prayer, or religious based mystical practice this is also going on between the self and God. Such interaction is an important aspect of mysticism. This is not to say that it is necessary. — Punshhh

Commenting in the hope of maybe augmenting the given expression of “subjugation”. In my current understanding, there’s often a critical difference to be found between typical mysticism and typical religion: whereas the latter often concerns an experienced relation of power-over, the former is typically concerned with an experienced relation of power-with.

This being my presumption of why mystics and mystical traditions have often been deemed dangerous heretics or heresies by those who are religious fundamentalists.

To me, one relatively well-known example of this is the obliteration of the Gnostics by the Christians which resulted from the first Council of Nicaea: The Gnostics – which I interpret to be mystics – generally sought power with Sophia as divinity; this, roughly, being the personification of wisdom and of knowledge of right and wrong – which, according to the Gnostics, JC was instructing other about … JC to the Gnostics being one in spirit with the serpent from the garden of Eden: wanting to combat the ignorance of right and wrong which the “Lord” (to the Gnostics, Demiurge) wanted to enforce. Here, “power-with” was not about gaining “power-over” in relation to others but about the obtaining of oneness with what can be interpreted as ultimate reality. In contrast, to the Christians that labeled the Gnostics heretics and disposed of them, their relation with divinity was most often one in which divinity held power over them, a power that had to be appeased via prayer, likewise a power that was deserving of fear.

From my readings, I find the same intent of oneness via power-with in Sufism, in Hindu aspirations to become one with Brahman, and so forth.

Curious to learn if this meshes with what you were expressing.

So it’s known, I uphold that consciousness is causally associated with organic substrates of matter, and furthermore subscribe to a modified bundle theory of mind. Nevertheless, I’m not here posting in relation to this but in relation the eliminativist tendency against the reality of experience.

A child has no idea what 'thoughts' are until they are introduced to the term, so you'd need at least two reasons; 1) having an experience of thoughts, and 2) being embedded in a culture which talks about such things. — Isaac

Sure, (1) is not a sufficient reason but it is a necessary reason.

“I am when I am aware of anything” to me seems to be of a very strong certainty — javra

But what does being 'aware' of something entail? That's part of what I don't seem to be able to get out of anyone. Is it just a fundamental belief for you, that there's this indescribable thing called 'being aware'? — Isaac

All that the statement entails at this juncture is that the proposition “awareness is real (for as long as aware beings are)” can be made with a greater certainty than all propositions accounting for how or why this is so, as well as all propositions contradicting it being so. Hence, for me, it’s not a fundamental axiomatic belief, but a fundamental known regarding what is. The "how is it so" is tangential to its so being.

This all hinges on the idea that awareness is a simple, an indivisible event or property. I don't think it is. I think what we call 'awareness' is a collective term for the mental processes which go on in response to some stimuli. That's how it feels to me anyway. — Isaac

I’m having difficulty understanding this. If you mean in the sense of “a first-person point-of-view cannot hold differing first-person points-of-view at the same time and in the same respect (e.g., cannot both look right and look left at the same time and in the same way)”, then yes, I deem awareness to be a unitary and thereby indivisible event. I may be simultaneously aware of different givens but my awareness of these remains unified.

Explanations of how awareness comes about, regardless of what they may be, cannot then nullify the just mentioned reality. They can only either be in accordance to it or in contradiction to it.

Yes, there are different modalities of awareness. Awareness of a seen tree is not the same as awareness of the generalized idea of (the concept of) tree. But in all cases known to us a first person point of view cognizes, i.e., takes notice of, that which it is aware of.

If you’re experiences are different, how are they so?

I'm not sure how that prevents us from postulating a model for how it works based on the presumption that those experiences have real-world correlates. — Isaac

What I’ve expressed in no way prevents us from so postulating. It does, however, entail that everything we postulate and all evidence with which it is postulated will itself be necessarily experienced by one or more aware beings. Again, this entails that the reality of experience is a fundamental known: succinctly expressed, a reality of greater certainty than our postulations regarding how it comes to be.

How do you know that what you're calling an 'experience' is, in fact, anything at all. — Isaac

This isn’t exactly Descartes’ argument of “I think, therefore I am”, but in seeking to provide an answer to the question: The only reason one would know one thinks is due to one’s experience of engaging in thoughts – i.e., due to one’s conscious awareness of the thoughts one thinks. A resulting Cartesian-like proportion of “I am when I am aware of anything” to me seems to be of a very strong certainty – notably, far stronger than the certainty with which physicalism, dualism, or panpsychism can be either affirmed or denied.

Any ontology which needs or seeks to eliminate the occurrence of experiences in order to be cogent will first need to evidence to me, either logically or experientially, that me being while I am aware is in fact a falsity – including the falsity of me being while aware of the evidence that is so presented. But then, if I am aware of this evidence and thereby experience it, then I am that which experiences the presentation of this evidence – which in turn nullifies the evidence against my so being. This, thereby, makes any such ontology false due to its logically contradicting the reality of experience / awareness / subjectivity / consciousness / sentience. And while this argument can only work in first-person, it seems to me to hold equal validity to all other beings were they to apply it in their own first-person manner. If you think I'm wrong, please explain why.

This just stipulated argument doesn’t imply that experiences are things, nor that that which experiences is/are thing(s); it simply offers a superlatively strong, if at all fallible, certainty that experiences occur for as long as aware beings are.

The aforementioned is how I know that experiences occur.

A question in turn: Is not all evidence something which one or more people either directly or indirectly experience and are thereby aware of? And don’t we know about neural firings and related phenomena due to such evidence?

Your post reminds me of an oldie I like. Man, time flies.

I am not even interested in a fairer distribution of wealth as most people are. I do not care if 10 people ended up with 90% of the wealth...SO LONG AS EVERYONE ELSE HAS PLENTY. — Frank Apisa

How do you square that with greed? Can those who profess “greed is good” (which seems to be the main economic motto of the day) ever obtain what they consider to be plenty? To me needless to say, this being how most of the 1%-ers got there.

Then there’s greed-based competition* to be top-dog winner where everyone else is a looser of the so-conceived game of life. And the end-state of this greed-based competition in which one finally obtains happiness is in fact an illusory reality: an untruth or self-deception. But it does produce a lot of losing parties out there, and correlated misery.

* Loosely understood, there are other forms of completion: for maximized knowledge, understanding, wisdom, good social standing, physical and mental health, etc. But many such forms of competition are a) often ones where one competes against one’s own perceived limitations rather than against other beings for that which is desired and b) where what is gained is then in turn often shared with others via community for the maximized benefit to oneself, as well as to others. Point being, there’s very little winner-looser dichotomy, if any, in many such alternative forms of non-greed-based completion. As one example, scientists compete to discover stuff, but when a discovery is made it doesn’t (typically?) turn the discoverer into a victorious winner and all other scientists into losers. Rather, the whole community benefits.

It has nothing to do with doubt. It has to do with how we obtain conscious knowledge of our decisions, thoughts, and feelings given our supposed unawareness of them, as well as our supposed unawareness of ourselves as actively deciding, thinking, or feeling.

And if you will recall the two initial posts you took issue with, my entire argument pivoted on decisions, thoughts, and some certain emotions not being perceptions – hence on our knowledge of these not being empirical. It would be a strawman to claim that I’ve been presenting these as perceptual.

We seem to be talking past each other. — Ciceronianus the White

It seems to be so to me as well.

If this is of any help, cognition has a lot to do with cognizance, the latter being defined as “notice or awareness” by Wiktionary for the context here addressed. Being cognizant of (e.g., one’s introspections) is thereby interchangeable with being aware of (e.g., one’s introspections).

I'm saying I think it's inappropriate to treat our own decisions, thoughts, feelings as if they were like objects or things [...] — Ciceronianus the White

In your worry about reifying decisions, thoughts, and feelings into objects or things – something which was never once done nor would be by anyone with any amount of reflection – you might in fact be reifying awareness. As if it’s customary for a person to say, “I’m aware of (alternatively: I know, I discern, or I realize that I am) seeing a tree,” instead of just saying, “I see a tree.” Or worse, concluding that because the former expression is not ordinary (this on grounds that it is implicitly understood and thereby redundant) the person is therefore “neither aware nor unaware” of seeing a tree.

I know when I’m thirsty; so were someone to tell me that I’m thirsty when I’m not, I will be disagreeing on matters of fact, not on matters of semantics or of opinion: matters of fact regarding what I hold direct awareness of and the other doesn’t. I might be dehydrated, but if I’m not thirsty, I’m not thirsty. The same applies to major decisions in my life – for which I might feel pride or regret precisely due to knowing what decisions I’ve taken. And so forth. The just mentioned is common practice wherever I’ve been ... with the exception of this forum.

And in your likely reification of “awareness” you seem unable to provide an account of how we arrive at the conclusion that decisions, thoughts, and feelings occur in the first place. Something I find extremely lacking philosophically.

Not to sound too pretentious (nor to deny that I am), but expressing personal opinions in reply to logical questions that are left unaddressed is not philosophy. Its fine as far as it goes, but I'm here to engage in philosophy, myself.

Thus, we don't often hear someone say "I perceive (or realize, or know or discern--or am aware) I've made a decision." — Ciceronianus the White

So I take it that you would say you don't know (edit: or cannot appraise whether you know or not) what decisions you make or have made, nor what thoughts you contemplate, nor what feelings you have. I call bs.

Well, it seems to me to be the case that we simply decide. We don't become aware that we do so. [...] The fact that we might in very limited circumstances become aware we did something doesn't mean that it's accurate to say we are aware that we decide, or think, or feel. — Ciceronianus the White

Your point of view is very curious to me.

If we’re not usually aware of our decisions, thoughts, or feelings (I don’t recall using the phrase “become aware”, which alters the common use meaning of the term) how is it that it can be concluded that these usually occur in us in the first place?

You mention:

Someone else may become aware that we've made a decision, but we don't. — Ciceronianus the White

But if an individual that is contemplating others does not him/herself hold direct awareness of making decisions, of having thoughts, of sensing feelings, and the like, on what grounds would such individual discern others as factually having the capacity to engage in these activities?

Thanks for the replies. I see what you are elaborating on. Though I approach things from a somewhat different perspective, I don’t find much to disagree with. If anything, there’s this nagging issue of lesser animals, sometimes solitary and very primitive, also being emotive beings. But, again, I’m in overall agreement.

‘To be aware of’ is not the same as ‘to experience’. Often what we experience, we are aware of only as sensory events - even though we integrate the information at the level of experience - that is, as a relation of value or potential to act. — Possibility

I acknowledge that there are nuances to the two terms, but can you elaborate on why you find the interchangeability of these two terms inappropriate within the contexts here addressed? Both terms have relatively imprecise definitions, and I so far find that they can both be used to reference the same given attribute of conscious being. To approach this differently: to be consciously aware of X entails one’s conscious experience of X; conversely, to consciously experience X entails one’s conscious awareness of X; such that one cannot be had without the other. If you’re using the terms “awareness” and “experience” in specialized senses that makes the aforementioned usage invalid, can you point me to the literature where the two terms are thus differentiated?

‘Envy’ in relation to core affect has an unpleasant valence and is distinguished from ‘jealousy’ by a relatively low arousal. — Possibility

Envy can sometimes in some people be of a very high arousal, from my knowledge of the world - at times being concurrent with visceral hatred for those envied, with theft, or worse. As to its unpleasant valence, yes, but are there sensory receptors for the interoception of that which is experienced to be unpleasant and for what is experienced to be pleasant? Or do these attributes manifest only cognitively? Please read my next reply to @Ciceronianus the White to better understand where I’m coming from (last I recall, interoception is defined as a perception resulting from physiological sensations within the body, which in turn initially obtain from physiologic receptors located within the body)

I'm not sure what this means. I find it hard to conceive of any decisions we make (or, for that matter, thought, reasoning, beliefs) that aren't related to what is taking place, or has taken place, during our lives, and our lives consist of our interactions with the rest of the world. Are these decisions, thoughts, beliefs you refer to then something that we become aware of in some manner sua sponte (of its/their/our own accord) as it were? What is "non-empirical awareness"? — Ciceronianus the White

I’ll do my best to better explain. (no need to visit all the links; just given for those who prefer references) First off, though the term perception can be used in a variety of ways - including the “conscious understanding of something” (e.g., perceived value) - in the sciences it is interpreted to be the “organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information” which, as sensory information, originates with physiological receptors – in animals, as these sensory receptors pertain to sensory neurons. This applies to both our exteroception and interoception, both being types of perception thus scientifically understood. Secondly, empiricism is in contemporary thought understood to be "a theory stating that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience", with sensory experience being in turn understood to result from the physiological senses, and, again, with the latter necessarily incorporating sensory receptors.

In short, to consciously perceive is to gain conscious awareness of givens via sensory receptors. And that which is empirically known is known due to such perception, hence due to sensory receptors’ initial obtainment of information. The details are vast, and sometimes debatable, but none of the details contradict the just mentioned, at least as far as I am aware.

As regards decisions:

You’re faced with a choice between A and B. You know of A and B empirically. Say you decide on A at the expense of B. You know what you decide at the moment of the decision and you will be able to recall this decision at least shortly thereafter. You consciously know of your decision because you are, or were, consciously aware of so deciding (if consciously unaware of what was decided, or if a decision was made, you’d hold no conscious knowledge of what was decided, or of whether a decision was made). The decision you make is however neither the empirically known A nor the empirically known B. It is instead your intention upon which of these to choose. If your awareness of the decision taken is obtained from sensory receptors transmitting physiological sensations that are then interpreted by you via perception, this awareness would then be empirical knowledge of your decision. In which case, it seems cogent to affirm that sensory receptors would somehow physiologically transduce you as a conscious-self in the act of making a decision into physiological sensations that you as conscious-self come to perceive - thereby resulting in your awareness of your decision. If this is not what happens, then your knowing what decision you make, or have made, is not empirical knowledge - for it is not acquired via perception as scientifically understood. Nevertheless, you know of the decision because you are aware of what decision you’ve made. Hence, in the later scenario, your awareness of your own decision taken would be non-empirical, but instead strictly cognitive.

I've given what to me is an extreme interpretation in attempts to better convey what I interpret as being empirical awareness of gives (e.g., things perceived) and non-empirical awareness of givens (e.g., givens that occur only within cognizance). The same roundabout perspective would then apply to your awareness of your propositional attitudes, of the concepts you analyze, or of the reasoning you engage in.

As one counterexample, otherwise one could validly claim that a visually imagined unicorn is empirically known to oneself on grounds that one has seen what it looks like (this with the mind's eye).

Not sure what you may be implying by mentioning bodily states emerging from cognitive states. — praxis

I didn’t intend the term “emerge” as in philosophical understanding of emergence but as in “coming out from.” At the time it seemed more appropriate than to say “caused by” (thinking it minimized the metaphysical implications). My use of the term was not optimal.

What I said has a lot to do with my understandings of top-down and bottom-up process of mind. I recognize this is not mainstream, and I don’t intend to here argue for them. I only want to offer a more meaningful reply.

I take it for granted that we’ve been addressing voluntary imagination. The example of envy to me is in this situation farfetched. Why would someone imagine themselves envious in order to so become? It’s an unpleasant emotion to experience. But to imagine oneself calm when one is turbulent and vice versa is common practice in some meditation schools of thought I’ve read. (It is even claimed that those experienced in such practices can, to varying degrees, alter their metabolic rates at will.) Calming one’s body when feeling anxious, this by voluntarily imagining oneself to be calm, would be something willed by the conscious self. Hence, in short, if successful it would be an effect consisting of bodily states caused by the intentions of the conscious self - this then being a top-down process of mind.

However, this is not to say that the conscious self is not resultant of subconscious process from which it emerges (here in the philosophical sense of emergence) - these being bottom-up processes of mind.

Again, though, if possible I’d like to currently abstain from debating how mind can be simultaneously composed of both bottom-up and top-down processes.

it involves subconscious prediction — praxis

To be honest, I find it hard to fathom how a mind could possibly work without these.

Ought to be going, but wanted to say you bring up a good point, if I interpret you correctly. Fear, aggression, and fun are three conceptually distinct emotions that can all result from bodily sensations of immanent peril. So it’s said, by “fun” in here thinking of activities like rock-climbing or roller-coaster rides. There’s the body’s production of adrenaline, this being the core affect in response to sub/unconsciously perceived peril. How one reacts to this core affect cognitively - here trying to keep things as simple as possible - then results in fear of, aggression toward, or a sense of fun. Notwithstanding my previous posts, this to me is one example of how cognition can at times interact with bodily sensations to produce specific emotions. Myself, as per Dewey and contra James’ thesis, I yet take the resulting emotion to temporally precede and be a causal factor to the behaviors that then unfold: e.g., fear resulting in flight, aggression in attack, and fun in bodily states of pleasure.

Then my bad for having misinterpreted the emotive tone.

Here. An number of regions are identified.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053811916303792 — Isaac

I hope I don't need to link to definitions of "interoception" given how long this thread is and the term's repeated use, nor need to make a distinction between first hand experience and the fMRI readings of what's going on in a brain.

To state the obvious: regions in a CNS associated with envy do not address what first hand experience of core affect can and cannot be interpreted via emotion-concepts to result in envy.

What I'm interested in is how you came to your conclusion. Obviously if you feel envy (or imagine yourself feeling envy) you don't have an fMRI scanner wired up to you, so what was your line of thinking that lead you to conclude there were no core affects? — Isaac

This is a bit staggering. Do you need fMRI results to be aware of what you are looking at, what you hear, or what you sense as emotion? I and many others don't.

BTW, the "how" carries the term of introspection - fallible thought it is.

You have still not addressed what interoceptive core affect you'd claim cannot accompany envy. (But if you're going to talk about need for fMRI results to do so ... I will not be replying, for reasons that I find obvious.)

How would you know? — Isaac

I gave one example of envy. What set of core affects correlate to the cognitive state of envy? If any and all, then my conclusion is there is no necessary set of core affects.

Curious to find out what core affect you'd claim cannot accompany envy.

I should have been clearer in trying to point out that in using just imagination to become angry or envious the corresponding bodily stimuli are produced in the body. I imaging that curiosity, for example, corresponds to a bodily state of higher arousal. Whether that means a slightly higher heart rate or whatever I don't know, but there is an altered interoception. — praxis

No denying that. This is a good example of what I'd frame as top-down effects upon bodily states emerging from cognitive states.

I don't believe that the theory of constructed emotion makes that claim or relies on such a notion. — praxis

Haven't read a lot of various constructivist views, only summations of them. Still, in my reading on this thread of Barrett's take, I've interpreted her position to necessarily make use of a) emotion-concepts that are applied to b) core affects of which we become aware, i.e. to interoception. If I'm wrong in so interpreting, I'll do an ol' SNL skit remark of "never mind". Still, what I've been upholding is that some emotions take place in the absence of core affects ("feelings" thus interpreted as interoceptive) being interpreted via emotion-concepts. Some emotions emerge simply from cognition; the example of imagining oneself to be emotion-X resulting in oneself so being then serving as one example of this. And, if this is so, then emotions are not necessarily a conflux of the (a) and, more importantly here, (b) aforementioned; i.e. they don't necessarily emerge from our awareness of our own body's states of being.

Otherwise, you're right. I probably over-generalized.

I could produce the bodily stimuli associated with anger using just my imagination and no external stimuli. I could do the same with envy. What's the difference? — praxis

In respect to imagination (here broadly understood to not literally regard only images), I'd say very little if any. One can become thirsty (an interoception) by imagining oneself to so be just as one can become curious (not an interoception) by imagining oneself to so be.

I can't help thinking how inextricably interlinked the mind and body are, however. — praxis

I'm not denying the interlinked nature of mind and body, but am disagreeing with the physicalist-like notion - or predisposition of interpretation - that all cognition emerges from bodily states of being ... this expressed in my notion of simpleton talk. More correctly expressed: brain, more accurately the CNS, is a bodily organ [edit: in case this needs to be said, that depends on the workings of the total body for its functioning]; but the brain's states of being don't uniformly all emerge from the brain's interaction with the rest of the body's states of being - here taking into consideration that all awareness obtained via sensory receptors are of the latter relation. I don't want to overly-repeat the examples I previously gave, but examples can include our awareness of decisions, of the reasoning we engage in, and of certain emotions.

At stake in this is the status of emotion: is it an 'origin' - a brute biological given that is simply 'activated' in certain circumstances - or is it instead a 'result' - a bio-social 'production' that helps orient one's actions and is the outcome of an evaluative process? It's this latter view which I want to outline and discuss here. — StreetlightX

"Conceptual information about emotion can be thought of as “top-down” and core affect “bottom-up” constraints on the emerging experience of emotion. — Feldman Barrett - Solving the Emotion Paradox

While I concur that emotions are often formed at a conscious level of their manifestation via retroactive application of emotion-concepts to that which is perceived via interoception (what Barrett terms "core affect"), I find this to be a partial, and likely derivative, truth: it is accordant to some of what is, but not all.

For clarity, some working definitions:

• Concept: a generalized idea – commonly understood to be abstracted as such from multiple concrete instantiations.
• Emotion: that which produces or influences movement within the psyche, i.e. cognitive action – often resulting in bodily movements, i.e. behaviors – but which can manifest in the absence of correspondent behaviors. For example, a pang of jealousy can be sensed by the conscious self while being shunned by the conscious self as wrong or inappropriate to act out on – this judgement being a cognitive action rather than a behavior – thereby here being an emotion that is experienced to influence without resulting in corresponding behaviors.
• Experience: awareness of that which is lived through
• Empirical: addressing awareness that is gained via sensory receptors

If “to be aware of” is “to experience” then not all experiences are empirical. As one example, I can enactively experience my decisions (illusory or not) at the instant they are made by me, for I hold awareness of them, but will not gain this awareness via sensory receptors. My awareness of the decision I make – here strictly addressing the decision itself, rather than the alternatives I was aware of – is not obtained via interpretations of what is gained via interoception or exteroception. The same non-empirical awareness may be claimed for many things introspected: thoughts, reasoning, beliefs, and so forth.

While some emotions are commonly understood to be correlated to interoceptive stimuli – e.g. disgust with some degree of bodily nausea – other emotions hold no such correspondence whatsoever. Envy I think is a fairly common emotion – and is one such example of an emotion that is not gained via interoception. Unlike anger or sorrow, there is no set of bodily stimuli obtained via interoception that corresponds to envy. The same may be said for other emotions such as longing. Then there are more atypical and more complex emotions that likewise are not correlated to any set of particular interoceptive instantiations: “sweet sorrow” as one example.

This is to say that not all emotions are associated with interoceptive feeling, i.e. core affect. Some are in no way empirical but, instead, strictly manifest within cognition via non-empirical awareness – same way we hold non-empirical awareness of the reasoning we engage in. We nevertheless metaphorically speak of “feeling” oneself to be envious. But in this case “feeling” is strictly metaphorical; as is the case with “seeing” what something means, or something “chiming” true, or a “hunger” for knowledge and a “thirst” for life.

Since not all emotions are (or are conceptual interpretations of) interoceptive feelings – again, what Barrett terms “core affect” – this to me then indicates that there is something more primary to emotions as a class than what constructivist views of emotion such as that of Barrett maintain. And there are other modern schools of thought as pertains to emotions.

In short, that all emotions are conceptual interpretations of literal feelings obtained via interoception is imv a false premise – in part falsified by emotions such as that of envy. This is not to deny the interplay between conceptual understandings of emotions and the emotions which we enactively experience – via interoception of otherwise – and which we convey to each other as holding. But it does address a need to reappraise what the class of givens we term emotions are – rather than accept the aforementioned premise as addressing a fundamental truth.

It's not worth my time. — Baden

yea, ditto

That death is the obtainment of non-being is a false premise? I don't think that's what you intend. So spell out the false premise to my question.

Bunch of non-sequiturs and red herrings.

Here's the claim: There is no evidence for an afterlife.

Here's the way to refute it: Show me the evidence. — Baden

Intellectual honesty would have addressed my question.

And yet none of this affects the hypothetical of reincarnations. For instance, some CNS gets produced in the far future whose nurture in the formative years results in an ego whose attributes – wants, aversions, metaphysical beliefs, and the like – present the same persona you hold in this lifetime.

I’m not saying this is a sure deal, and there is the issue of working memory not here playing a role between lifetimes, but the scenario doesn’t get nullified by life being an emergent process. Or even by physicalism’s tenets, for that matter. What it pivots upon is what one is to make of the notion of personal identity.

So, it's merely intellectual feebleness to posit an afterlife — Baden

No need to disparage. As it turns out, were death to be the instant cessation of all worry, strife, and pain via the obtainment of non-being, committing suicide would be the only rational thing to do for an overwhelming number of humans on this Earth. Why? Because they are in extreme pain and don’t want any. Do you then hold suicidal individuals – and suicidal murderers to boot – to be endowed with superior intellectual prowess? "No" is an easy answer; but why not, rationally speaking, if death actually is the obtained non-being of self?

It's just a new and kind of disturbing thought that human culture may generally have a natural tendency to devalue the development of virtue, and not just that particular cultures may have that tendency. — praxis

I greatly admire the ideal of the USA founders: a checks and balances of all power. Given human imperfections and tendencies, this imv best stabilizes what would otherwise become competitions for supremacy over others. But our drives to be superior relative to others are most always at a crossroad with our drives to find a home in a community of individuals that all honestly affirm something along the lines of “liberty, equality, fraternity”.

I don’t know, maybe I’m being unrealistically optimistic in this case, but I hold that societies (and thereby cultures) can either move toward the first mentioned structure of interaction, one of slave-master and slaves, or toward the second. Given a checks of balances of power, both political and economic, one that is actively maintained rather than undermined, I think that a society can be structured so as to maximize the social cultivation of virtue. I’m saying this while recognizing the chasm between such possibility and the actualities we are currently living in. And, to further complicate matters, such checks and balances of power would nowadays need to be implemented globally for it to hold any import. Otherwise one power will subjugate the rest – politically, economically, or both. Despite this, I don’t think that all possible societies are inherently antithetical to the development of virtue in individuals. My two pennies’ worth, at least.

societies may have a tendency to devalue the development of virtue. American culture, for instance, doesn't train us to pursue well-being in the eudaimonic sense. It trains us to pursue a good career, wealth, status, etc. The fifth level felt rabit is heaven, nirvana, or whatever. All these dangling carrots are dependent on others, which isn't nessisarily a bad thing, but it does leave us open to West World-like manipulation. — praxis

Much of current American culture, which is spreading worldwide, subsists on insecurities. From Orwellian fears of other that hold no tangible resolution to the feelings of inadequacy which compels us to buy things we don't need and wouldn't otherwise want, this because some commercial so tells us to. Having problems with romance, buy this car; it will change the quality of your life. "Fun food" I still don't get as a concept, but it sells. Were most in society to cultivate virtue and feel more integral by so doing, economy as we currently know it would be devastated.

I very much agree with your statements. Just wanted to complement them a bit.

The development of virtue can be countercultural in the sense that it leads to independence. — praxis

I agree, but believe it would be an empathetic form of independence, rather than a form of self-isolationism. Hoping that makes sense as expressed.

People want scapegoats and saviors. — ssu

Both of which are an evasion from personal responsibility.

All this to say you have essentially covered all of this with your statements that you would rather be in hell anyway instead of a heaven which you feel like you didn't earn, (is that right?) — TheDarkElf

Well, I wouldn't use the term "earned". If some Heaven is filled with brown-nosers who don't give a damn about what is right and what is wrong ... um, they really wouldn't want me there anyway; if it would be eternal (as in no actualization of non-being) I'd likely be causing eternal trouble for them. Besides, I'd much rather be with those that maintained a sense of integrity. So if Hell is filled with those who have, I'd then have earned that which I'd want - in this Cartesian-like hypothetical, to be in Hell. :cool:

and that you can be happy with your own efforts to be living virtuously. — TheDarkElf

That's about it.

Have you found some proof that shows that there is no afterlife? — TheDarkElf

Generally speaking, isn’t this one of the logical entailments of physicalism? But since neither can physicalism as metaphysics be proven with infallible certainty – the fallibilist in me questions if any metaphysics can – my own take is that what occurs subsequent to death is a fundamental unknown. Make peace with this unknown – everything from it possibly resulting in non-being to it resulting in any of the many hypotheses of an afterlife which various cultures have proposed – and the living of life will unfold without this issue of death being any form of problem.

For example, if I live my life virtuously and death results in my non-being, I won’t be bothered by anything subsequent to death, for I will not in any way be – so why not endeavor to cultivate virtue as best as I can while I’m here? There are pleasures to it that cannot be obtained via vice. If, however, I live my life virtuously and (here contemplating a worst case scenario) am placed into some Hell that’s eternally divided from Heaven after death, I will be there on account of having a clear conscious. Consequently, to hell with Heaven, then: I’d only want to be where those who made an effort to have a clear conscious go, future demons though we all are (and to be an angel in such topsy-turvy Heaven would be an absolute nightmare for me). The resulting conclusion: live life more virtually than not and one won’t be bothered by what occurs after death, regardless of what might actually occur.

That said, my own sense of trust has it that it will likely neither be non-being nor a Heaven/Hell divide. But it’s still and unknown to me in terms of what will be. To each their own beliefs.

But this is very Schopenhauerian as I see it. [...] We are in constant need of being alleviated- both of things which befall us, and things we want but do not have now. — schopenhauer1

The part you quoted wanted to make a distinction between pleasure and eudemonia. Namely, that pleasure is of a transient nature whereas eudemonia is not. I gather my example was unsuccessful in so doing. Yet Stoic texts, for instance, speak of this distinction.

As one aspect of eudemonia, being at peace with oneself is not something that can be quantified. Nor does it bring about a cessation of all desires and of all dolors. Yet I reckon that once obtained it persists regardless of what befalls one, unless one were to squander it by willfully engaging in one too many vices. Here, then, is an example of an actualized goal that is not subject to an endless cycle of striving to alleviate frustration followed by more frustration. To the extent it is obtained, it is an end in and of itself and, as such, it breaks free from the cycle of endless frustration.

But then this can lead to Eastern notions which Schopenhauer overlooked despite being embedded in the overall Eastern metaphysics he translated for a Western culture. Notions of Moksha or of Nirvana come to mind. These have a lot to do with what in the west would be termed eudemonia gained via virtue and wisdom, as well as with an obtained awareness of what the self ultimately is. Or so are my best current understandings of these traditions.

I understand that we probably still disagree on issues of pessimism, but I’m thinking this disagreement hinges on basic metaphysical presumptions. All the same, the samsara which Schopenhauer addresses in his own ways is nevertheless something I readily acknowledge.

In this story, it's revealed quite a lot actually. First - running in circles, chasing. This is huge part of the self-actualization process. Chasing goals, again and again. — interim

I'm replying more to my overall impression of the OP in total than to any particular thing, and this will be a bit of a ramble as well:

Can’t remember ever desiring to self-actualize myself or recommending to anyone other that they do, and I haven’t seen Westworld (though you’re making it sound interesting).

I could easily see how at least some Buddhists would insist that the point to it all is to actualize no-self – i.e., to become utterly selfless being, and, paradoxically, that only there can non-hyperbolic equality reside. But this would be an about-face from the self-actualization motif as most interpret it. Still, it maybe could yet be interpreted as in tune with the “know thyself” dictum.

At any rate, I thought of a counter-example to the Schopenhauer-like generalization of an endless and unsatisfying striving: Itches. Its crude, but I think the example is concrete enough that all might be able to relate. If you feel an itch, it’s bothersome, and you hold as goal the disappearance of that itch. Scratching the itch can be in itself pleasing, this as a process toward an end. But it is not the case that one longs for new itches once the current itch disappears due to having been scratched. One instead would rather that no future itches reoccur. And, in a very diminutive sense of the term, in satisfying the eradication of the itch one obtains a state of (a very minor form of) eudemonia – i.e. a flourishing of being. The cessation of the itch allows you to better do that which you want done, rather than being persistently distracted, and hence hindered, from such (again, very minor form of) flourishing. So, in recapping this thesis, the scratching of an itch may be pleasing, but it of itself is not the obtainment of eudemonia, instead being a transient happiness; unlike the pleasure here referenced, it is the disappearance of the itch which grants the (minor) obtainment of a lasting eudemonia.

Some goals are held with false projections of how their obtainment will result in just such state of increased eudemonia – e.g., the desire to have the coolest car in town, to be richer than others, or the want to be seen by others with a romantic partner they all covet and envy you for. I think these are typical examples most are familiar with of how some approach a desire for self-respect and peace of mind (an untroubled inner being). Maybe pertinent, what is portrayed in these examples is often termed materialistic. Unlike these, though, the obtainment of other goals can actually result in eudemonia – as example, in an honest self-respect and peace of mind – such that it is lasting, often regardless of the material losses that might further occur somewhere down the line. For some, like the ancient philosophers that used the term “eudemonia”, the obtainment of eudemonia is pivoted around conformity to virtue, be it applied to ethics, to reasoning, or to anything else.

I believe that once we get into discussing the very nature of outcomes such as self-respect and peace of mind, things can get very complicated and debate might be non-stop. But I again stipulate that a basic physical itch can amply suffice as counter-example to a pessimistic understanding of life as endless struggle without the possibility of lasting satisfaction: The obtainment of some goals manifests something within us which is of value in and of itself, which is held irrespective of other’s opinions, and which is lasting rather than fleeting (sometime to the effect that we take it to the grave).

Metaphorically, then, all goals one seeks to accomplish are in some ways each an itch at which one scratches. Just that some of these do result in increased eudemonia and some don’t – the latter maybe being here best stipulated as “false itches” … for, their being scratched, while producing momentary pleasures, does not alleviate that which one is bothered by, this even when the goal is obtained.

With that in mind, firstly, I don't think eudemonia can be about being greater than thou. If you believe you hold it but you’re surrounded by those who don’t, you won’t be flourishing all that much – so, unlike many understandings of pleasure and happiness, hording it to yourself will paradoxically make it vanish. I believe this is one reason why the ancient philosophers wanted others obtain it. Then, secondly, as with the saying “scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” – here staying true to the same theme I started with – endowing someone with eudemonia (with a flourishing of being), if not a bs proclamation, will get the other to want to help you out in turn. This instead of having the other hold grudges about you having done so fist.

As with others, my compliments on a very nicely written OP. My main overall disagreement is that rather than the Schopenhauer-like pessimism of “the glass is half empty” I’d rather acknowledge that “the glass contains 50% water”. In other words, there’s both good and bad to life and, by extension, to struggles for the obtaining of goals; focusing on one aspect and ignoring the other will not of itself make the other vanish.

I guess "intersubjective reality" is a metaphor. — David Mo

If I’m interpreting you correctly: I know this would be a vast debate on its own. Feel free to disagree, of course. But for me, “reality” is merely the noun form of the adjective “real” which, in turn, is intended to signify “actually existing or occurring - rather than fictional”. My recollection of a dream I had last night would, given this semantic, be real - and, by extension, would thereby be a part of my intra-subjective reality: one experience among others which actually exists or occurs for me but for no one else. If this dream was real and I’d express it to you, I’d express a truth; if unreal, I’d express a falsehood. In the same general way, because English (by which I include all semantics particular to the English language) is an actual, rather than fictitious, medium via which English speakers communicate, and because the English language is not the intra-subjective reality of one individual but is, instead, an actuality whose very occurrence necessitates commonality among a plurality of beings, the English language will then hold an intersubjective reality - i.e., will be intersubjectively real.

This usage of “realtiy” is in keeping with common usage, as in, “they live in a different reality than we do” - as can be affirmed for the flat earth society. Here is not implicitly referenced objective reality - which “reality” is most often employed to express - but, instead, a belief structure of what is real via which individuals interpret the objective world and act within it. Differently exemplified, those who are Young Earth Creationists will hence dwell in a different intersubjective reality than those who accept the validity of biological evolution - the two cohorts' belief structures in essence make each inhabit a vastly different (interpretation of) cosmology relative to the other - yet both cohorts will nevertheless inhabit and be bound by the same objective reality. The YEC doesn’t deny the presence of dinosaur fossils, for example, this being a facet of objective reality - but does (I presume) believe that they were placed here by God to test their faith in their notion of God … this latter shared belief then being a facet of the YEC’s intersubjective reality.

Yes, there could be countless intersubjective realities. The reason I used the singular so far is that I was concerned with the idealised "human" intersubjective reality, i.e. what would result if there were no bias, mistakes etc. While that will never practically be the case, it serves as my baseline for what could be called "practical reality". — Echarmion

The case could be also made that each species of animal shares its own species-specific intersubjective reality. A human, a dog, and an ant will interpret the objective reality of a rock differently, given the species-specific proclivities of perception and interpretation peculiar to each. But, here again, there would not be existent just one species-specific intersubjectivity, but a multitude of these; each one relative to a different species of life. All the same, I now understand what you were getting at.

It'd be more a question of what you think the order is: do the objects develop subjectivity, or do the subjects develop objects? — Echarmion

In case this question wasn’t rhetorical: My own understanding of ontology addresses this question in horrendously complex manners. Currently, I’d rather be remain a mute about it - though I will simplistically express that, to me, subjectivity is ultimately conditional on objectivity.

There was another prominent idealist whose name I forget. — Marchesk

You mean that Evolog guy? Maybe the bloke changed his avatar name to something less fancy, and changed his mind about terming things “objective idealism” to terming things “neutral monism”, thinking it to make the same difference anyway. The same way that “non-Cartesian skepticism” and “fallibilism” do. The tyke might still be around, I’m guessing. No offense in calling him a tyke, btw: my own avatar name “javra” translates to “mongrel”, in case it wasn’t known. But, then again, you might have had someone else in mind.

Noticed that you’ve so far only addressed intersubjective reality in the singular. Although all this might go without saying, I wanted to make it explicit that each and every culture is its own intersubjective reality; as is each unique religious worldview, here including atheism; each unique language and its embedded semantics; and so forth. I have extreme doubt about such being anything but a practical joke, but the flat earth society, if their proclaimed belief is real and not mere deception, would be just one intersubjective reality among many. On the other hand, our tangible objective reality - if it is deemed to impartially effect (causally) all coexistent sentient being - can only be singular by entailment.

I’ll add that, to me at least, if these categories of “personally subjective realities”, “intersubjective realities”, and “the singular objective reality” are taken to be valid, they’d then retain the same properties regardless of which ontology happens to be the correct one: e.g., they’d apply just as much to idealism (it’s all psychical stuff in different forms) as they would to physicalism (it’s all physical stuff in different forms). The only main differences would be the metaphysical implications.

moral realism insists that there is a true good, a real good, which is *not* dependent on your or my or anyone’s viewpoint, opinion or even consent; it simply *is thus*. — Wayfarer

Given my (maybe peculiar) interpretations, this could be else worded as that which “just-is” (in the sense of being sans cause) … also, with “just” in part meaning “right, correct, impartial, and fair” – a notion from which the notions of both justice and justification - as well as the aesthetic (fair as that which is both pleasing and moral) - are derived. For instance – here imperfectly expressed - when we justify a belief we seek to evidence that that which is believed is impartially, factually, so - and, in so doing, imv we seek to align our beliefs to that which “just is” (rather than to our egoic wants or needs of what is; i.e., it’s not because I or you so say it is but because it is an impartial given that thereby is aligned to perfect impartiality, to that which just is).

This general notion then stands in contrast to the idea that that which is just will be the effect of one or more psyches (as can for example be stated of mainstream monotheisms, wherein that which is just is the product of a singular all-powerful deity's will - but, in fairness, for example excluding some of the more mystical facets of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam … Sufis, for example, here come to mind)

The first notion makes that which is good objective - as you say, impartial to the wants or needs of individual psyches. The second notion makes that which is good contingent upon, and thereby relative to, the wants or needs of one or more psyches - such that what is good is the creation of psyches.

Furthering this a bit, in the “is thus/just is” interpretation of the good: Affinity toward this state of being is what produces moral thought and behavior. Fear of this state of being, from where are produced aversions of various types, then results in immoral (bad or evil) behavior. This then can bridge to the rather archaic - and extremely laconic - notion of ethics being reducible to either love or fear (here, implicitly, for that which just is ... unless one further equates a perfectly impartial justice/fairness/etc with love, in which case there is then either affinity toward (universal) love (and its instantiations) or fear of it).

I guess my realism is showing.

People who take “objective” to mean “physical” just introduce unnecessary confusion and baggage to discussions about the objectivity of things other than reality (like morality, for example). — Pfhorrest

Since I’ve recently had the issue of governance on my mind, wanted to embellish my previous reply to this with something that is of interest to me - though, no doubt, which will be a highly dubious use of semantics to others.

As with the multiple meaning of “objective” - e.g., from that which is impartial to that which as noun is a goal – “to be a subject” too has its multiple meanings.

With that in mind, as an at the very least metaphoric appraisal of nature at large: Given the interpretation of objectivity which we so far agree upon, all subjective beings can thereby be further concluded via this mode of thought to inescapably be subjects to objectivity as ultimate authority - a power which the power of all subjects is conditional upon. Waiver too much from that which is objective, i.e. fully impartial, and the individual perishes. Stay accordant to objectivity and the individual holds the potential to flourish.

Of note, though, objectivity is in no way a psyche - nor can it be. We as psyches can be more objective by comparison to others or to other personally held states of mind - but our very nature of being individual selves precludes us from actualizing a perfectly impartial state of being. Hence, in this interpretation, we are above all subjects to a collectively shared, impartial reality - rather than being subjects to some monarch, some other leader, or some superlative incorporeal deity. No physical or spiritual sentient being to bow down to here.

You touched upon notions of an objective right and wrong - at least as possibilities to consider. To me, this too would then be a perfectly impartial, here metaphysical, reality. What some have termed, “the Real,” and what Plato termed “the Good” - this then, imv, being a metaphysical objectivity which holds at least some overtones to the neo-Platonic notion of “the One,” from which physicality was stated to emerge. But again - even when a neo-Platonic frame of mind is considered - I fail to fathom how “the Good” could in any way be a psyche and, hence, a deity. For, again, as that which is fully objective, it would need to be perfectly impartial in all conceivable ways. And a psyche always remains to some extent partial toward that which is good for itself, if nothing else.

With all this briefly mentioned for the sake of some background, that we as sentient beings are all subjects to, first and foremost, objectivity as ultimate authority is to me something that has a rather aesthetic appeal.

At any rate, since I started off with poetic mumbo-jumbo in this thread, I figured complimenting it with this take on the subjectivity/objectivity dichotomy can’t by now hurt too much.

Does that answer your question? — javra


Yep. — frank

Glad to hear you acknowledge so. Meanwhile, you don't happen to hold a monopoly on the semantics to the term "democracy" do you? Little old me - we've had our talks before - do not subscribe to your meanings of the term.

If you're American, I can tell you why you think that. — frank

BTW, think what exactly on account of my being "American"? A quote from me would make this statement of yours other than arbitrarily vague.

So can people who don't care about science arrive at decisions democratically? — frank

Strictly speaking, it all depends on the semantics we have in mind. So, three tyrannical brothers that don't give a fuddle about what science says who vote between themselves on what to do in reference to the populace they rule over, under the semantics you've simplistically articulated, do engage in democratic governance.

Given the same semantics, the same then can apply for a whole entire global populace who shuns science - and the scientists via which it manifests - as devils work.

Does that answer your question?

Suppose you have a community of people who don't particularly care about science. Could they not arrive at group decisions democratically? — frank

This to me has funny implications. I take democracy to be inclusive - this as an ideal it strives for. The Orwellian propaganda of "bringing democracy to the middle east" and the like aside. You are here asking about an exclusivist democracy, of a democracy for us but not for them, the other(s). Oligarchies work this way. As did many aspects of Hitler's regime. Neither of which fit what we (most of us at any rate) interpret to be democracy - to not even mention democratic values.

To my ear “objective” always means “impartial”, and what makes physical stuff objectively real is precisely that it can be impartially determined to exist, vis our common (and therefore unbiased) experiences.

People who take “objective” to mean “physical” just introduce unnecessary confusion and baggage to discussions about the objectivity of things other than reality (like morality, for example). — Pfhorrest

Fully agreed. To add: Culturally, this can often get confusing due to the commonly understood semantics of "objects" - despite, for example, concepts being objects of awareness. We're often habituated into thinking that objects are always necessarily physical and, as a result, end up thinking of objectivity as being the physicality which applies to (physical) objects. Whereas, as you say, each physical object holds an impartial existence to all coexistent sentient beings - and is (or at least can coherently be conceptualized as being) thereby objective precisely due to its nature of being impartially applicable all subjects.