Love is important because, without it, the popular music industry would collapse. — Ciceronianus the White

I take this to be a good example, though maybe not all that popular:

The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return

Why is it (love) so important if you never grew up with the sincerity and genuineness of it in the household. — Danny

Adding to a lot of what has already been said in the thread:

Love is important because—when things don’t short-circuit and turn into idolatry, possessiveness, or animosity—love in due measure emotively unifies oneself with other(s) such that the other(s) become of equal value to oneself.

It’s an “all for one and one for all” mentality that can only honestly be when it subsists on an underlying emotive drive that in English goes by the term “love”. This could be between two romantic partners, between children and parents, love of one’s community, the camaraderie of very earnest friends, the list is very long.

Without this emotive convergence of selves with other which love brings about, we wouldn’t have compassion, harmony, understanding, etc. for each other—ever. Instead there’d only be hatred for others occasionally sprinkled with utter indifference to their states of being—this being something which makes most of us miserable ourselves.

Romantic love is quite wonderful when you have it due to its immediate intimacy—applicable to newly formed lovers just as much as it is to people yet happily married after 50 years together. I nevertheless think this form of love is neither the pinnacle nor core of what love is or can be. It is only one manifestation of it. So if one is only addressing romantic love, its good when it happens, but I don’t believe it’s indispensable for living life with love.

Thinking about it here, what is lurking behind my objection to this reasoning seems to be Hume's guillotine: that one cannot derive an ought from an is. So my objection is that one cannot go from the claim "being is intrinsically good" to "therefore, one ought to procreate."

If Hume's guillotine fails and it is licit to derive an ought from an is, then I will have to admit that procreation is a supererogatory good (morally good, but not required, as in a duty), assuming that being is good. I don't assume that, though. — Thorongil

Here is a metaphysical resolution to Hume’s guillotine. I emphasize it is only outlined.

Hypothesize, first, that there is an ontically certain end-state to being, by which I mean all being everywhere, which grans being with a perfect cessation of all suffering. As laughable as this hypothetical might be to some, I deem it better than BIV hypotheses and the like. Next, hypothesize that this end-state of being can be envisioned by any self to take a number of different forms—but that out of all these alternative projections of what this end-state of being might be, only one possibility we can fathom will be ontically certain—and, hence, correct and right—whereas all others will be illusions we dream up—and, hence, incorrect and wrong.

Using these hypotheticals as premises, it can then logically be appraised that acting in accordance to, conformity with, alliance with, etc. this metaphysical, ontically certain end-state of being in which the suffering of being is obliterated—this to the best of one’s capacity given’s one’s environment—is what is right, correct, and ethical. This conclusion, then, resolves Hume’s guillotine by deriving what what ought to be done from that which metaphysically is.

As to what such possible end-states of being might be, examples include: that of nonbeing (what suicidal people most often seek); that which is often enough addressed by certain spiritualties as a perfectly formless/selfless awareness devoid of first personhood (e.g.s include Nirvana and “the One”); that of a perfect stability of selfhood, meaning the immorality of unchanging self/selves; and that of a perfect supremacy over all else. Each imagined end-state of being then holds its own means of best alignment with its fruition. For example, while a supremacy of self end-state will ultimately entail making everyone else an instrumental means to one’s own supremacy of being (and thereby relieve everyone's suffering), the technically perfect equality of a formless/selfless awareness end-state will entail things such as compassion toward others as though they were parts of you.

Because none of us can unequivocally prove the ontic certainty of any end-state of being, we thereby hold a choice in choosing which end-state to pursue--and often do so in emotive ways. All the same, there will be only one possibility which is an ontic certainty and, hence, indifferent to what any of us think or believe. And, it will be this ontically certain end-state which is that then determines which oughts are right and which are wrong.

Though only an outline of my beliefs, it, for example, here illustrates that were this end-state of being to in fact be that of nonbeing, then antinaturalism would be right and correct—this due to being a logically valid means to the end-state that is here believed to be (an ought from an is). However, were the ontically certain end-state of being to in fact be that of a selfless awareness/being wherein perfect equality of being is obtained, for example, then striving for a cessation of being/awareness would be a wrong and incorrect means of actualizing what is best (again, this ought being derived from the metaphysical is of this particular end-state’s factual being).

In this set of hypotheticals, justifying which end-state is ontically certain, i.e. true, would be a completely different issue. Nevertheless, it does resolve Hume’s guillotine.

The thing is, were one to believe this end-state of being to in fact be nonbeing, it would resolve nothing of ethics save, well, the striving to end all life ... if one can call this ethical.

To me, that obliterates meaningful distinctions between different motives. If all actions are selfish then no actions are compassionate. The latter becomes a meaningless category. — Thorongil

Once on gets past the often materialist mindset that self, that ego, is a bag of organized flesh, it then becomes both feasible and quite obvious that selfhood can be quite expansive. The nationalist’s self is intimately entwined with the selfhood of his or her nation as the nationalist interprets it. The lover’s self is and becomes ever more intimately entwined with the self of the beloved and vice versa—if love persists. These extensions of non-flesh bound selfhood can become more abstract, such as a scientist’s concern for all scientists at large—this being the selfhood of a community into which the individual’s self inheres into—or more concrete, such as a lifelong friend’s concern for his or her lifelong friend. Needless to say, healthy relations between parents and their children will exhibit this same extension of selfhood in-between.

As to how, I’ll stick to the workings of our mirror neurons.

Yet in all such cases, what can otherwise be identified as the other here becomes to some meaningful extent, often enough reciprocally, an inherent aspect of one's own self. And, in so becoming, the other then becomes something of intrinsic value to oneself. This shouldn’t be odd to anyone. When a loved one—friend, romantic partner, family member, a member of one’s community one greatly esteems, etc.—dies, we sense that a part of us dies and, hence, a personal loss … this in due measure to the love held. Not due to loss of instrumental value, but due to a diminishing of what we hold intrinsic value for.

Yet to call such empathy based relations selfless is—when philosophically addressed—a category error. They are all contingent upon the presence of selfhood and its wants, be these wants individual or communal.

So while I concede that there cannot metaphysically be such a thing as a non-selfish motive for a selfhood to do something, the motives one has in mind are the very foundation upon which the ordinary dichotomy between “selfish” people and “selfless” people is founded. When we as selves ego-centrically pursue an expansion of intrinsic value for everyone, when this is our motive for our choices and actions, we act (more) “selflessly”. When we as selves ego-centrically act and choose with the motive of increasing all other’s instrumental value relative to ourselves, we then act (more) “selfishly”. Though not even Stalin was a perfectly selfish bastard. I’m using scare quotes because this is the same equivocation between technical reality egos interacting with themselves and of common usage you disagreed with in a previous post.

What motive, hence reason, driven action can a self possibly hold that is in an unequivocal sense not governed by the self in question, thereby being a “non-selfish reason” for some action? Compassion is a form of empathy as far as I know, which I've already addressed in this post.

p.s. I’m no objectivist. Rather I believe in teleological causation being real, such that the telos we egos will often enough choose to be driven by--such that our motives, in other words--will make all the ethical difference in the world.

fair enough

Selfishness isn't ethical, though. This is a category mistake.

[...]

Now here's the makings of a nonselfish reason. What do you mean by mankind? It sounds Platonic. — Thorongil

Call me cynical, or worse, but I don’t comprehend how mankind could have any value to anyone outside of self-interests in the wellbeing of others. Self-interests are about the either sustained or increased wellbeing of the self and, because of this, are all self-centered when philosophically addressed: i.e., centered around the wants of the particular self or, else, a cohort of individual selves that share a common want and, hence, a common intention.

With that understanding in mind, anyone who would even remotely care for their community—mankind being about as relatively unselfish a compassion for a community as anyone can feasibly hold; (e.g. empathy for someone on the other side of the world which one learns of via news but is otherwise unaffected by, etc.)—would be solely motivated by their own ego’s self-interests. Empathy in general works this way: when it does happen, another’s welfare becomes converged with one’s own; mirror-neurons within one’s self that in turn affects one’s own being via the events that unfold for some other, if one would like to address this physiologically. Those who hold such a concern for the wellbeing of mankind are often termed humanitarians—concern for the general being of the species of which one is a member of (I didn't want to imply just males by the term). Global issues such as a reduction in global warming, increased global justice, having fewer kids in the world starve to death, this sort of thing. The future generations which would be impacted by global warming, global injustice that doesn’t immediately affect one’s own life where one lives, and the starvation of particular children one only knows about in abstract ways have nothing to do with the wellbeing of one’s immediate self—save for this empathy based self-interest in the wellbeing of humanity at large. I’ve heard of plenty of humanitarians who are atheistic and, due to this, non-Platonic. So I don’t find any connection to the ontologies maintained.

What is it about mankind that it needs maintaining? — Thorongil

Who or what might be “maintaining” mankind if not mankind itself, which is itself an aggregate of all individual humans? Societies historically tend to turn tyrannical when the individuals within it don’t communally do anything to maintain the society they partake of. Yes, first me and my own, then I help if I can those others that surround—this just as they tell you on airplanes of how to best proceed in case of an emergency, and this for very good reason. Nevertheless, society is now global—more applicable to the species at large than ever before.

Am I missing something here?

Thus, the best choice of all is never having been. — schopenhauer1

I’ll be forthright. My mindset is that we’re all selfish, we all want something; and we all get irritated or worse when we clash with those whose wants are mutually exclusive with our own.

As to it being better to never have been, this too is a self’s want. We can first address an individual’s want to have never been (it happens), then the generalized want that humanity would have never have been. But there is no valid reason to stop there if this is our resolution to suffering. Hence, we progress to it would have been better if life in general would have never been anywhere. And lastly, we concluded with it would have been better if being itself would have never been. For either via materialism of other ontologies, turns out that when being is there is either a good likelihood for life to eventually develop and hold presence or, otherwise, its just accepted that life is a brute fact.

Since no one has figured out any sufficient reason for being’s presence irrespective of ontology, though, the wish that being would have never been is as nonsensical and impractical as presuming oneself to have the capacity to turn all of being everywhere into nonbeing.

Being is; life is; humanity is. The only proper question to be asked is “what now?” Encouraging a global suicide of all life, or worse, doesn’t sit well with many, including me as concerns, at least, my own transient being and that of my loved ones. I haven’t yet heard you advocate for this aim, so let’s agree to put this hypothetical out of existence.

I’ve never claimed or meant to insinuate that if someone doesn't want to have children they should have children nevertheless. This scenario generally doesn’t make for the best of childhoods--sometimes far worse. So this only tends to increase suffering. But if you want all people to stop reproducing, my guess is that those who unthinkingly reproduce with the least amount of concern or compassion for new lives will continue to do so via unprotected sex in bathroom stalls and the like without paying attention to your arguments or anybody else’s. Thereby again increasing total suffering in the world.

Again, humanity is, just as we all are. So, if there is agreement on the aforementioned, which way forward to best resolve this problem of global suffering?

It's still a voluntary choice, though. — Thorongil

Especially when it comes to humans, there’s more procreated than just flesh. Humans being a sexually reproducing species, we amalgamate two separate bodies of flesh to create a new one that is a hybrid of both parents. As a generality, the child also inherits an amalgamation of the two parent’s worldviews, including heuristics for the living of life and a prioritization of goals to be pursued. It’s a lot more complex, I know, but this can be stated to be the general norm worldwide.

Then there’s base and elevated selfishness. Base selfishness has children to do all the hard work around the farm/abode and to ensure the parents are well off in their old age—possibly with more territory. Elevated selfishness, in one of its many abstract forms, has children to propagate virtue and wisdom—hey, it’s very elevated here—thereby propagating a hybrid of the parent’s identity. Were only base selfishness to reproduce itself, humanity and the planet would go down the drain quicker than otherwise. Conversely, were only elevated selfishness to propagate itself such that no base selfishness remained, well, that blasphemous dream of utopia by comparison to where we are now would become objectified/manifest.

Again generally, base selfishness is not the kind to give a hoot about the wellbeing of the offspring, never mind of the community … ultimately, the global community as an influence upon what occurs locally. Hence, it’s generally those who are not of a base selfishness that contemplate whether or not there’s any virtue to bringing new life into the world. But if all these non-basely selfish people were to stop reproducing, human life would then become a hell on earth wherein some degree of elevated selfishness yet occasionally rears its ugly head into the world—random things sometimes occur—only to be humiliated, tortured in one way or another, etc., etc., etc.

Arguable, I’m aware, yet the conclusion of all this is as follows: it is only ethical for elevated selfishness to reproduce itself in the world—given that the conditions for raising children of like elevated selfishness can be safely enough established by the parents.

Because some would rather term elevated selfishness “non-selfish”, this then presents one non-selfish reason/motive to have children: yes, laughable as it may seem, for the benefit of mankind (a category which does not exclude the very parents of elevated selfishness/selflessness which given birth … nor the very offspring themselves).

There are also the unexpected conceptions of a future human life. The same overall argument should still apply.

Hey, it’s a feasible reason, I’m thinking, one that most would acknowledge to be close enough to non-selfish to fit the bill. Also, I don’t have children as of yet, so I can feely allow myself to indulge in this idealistic, theoretical mindset. Who knows, there might even be some truth to it.

Speaking as a philosophical skeptic myself, there’s some important qualifiers to certainty that are too often left implicit. Are we addressing that which is ontically certain? That which is infallibly certain to our subjective being? Or that which we are quite certain about though in acknowledgedly fallible ways? The three are not the same. Doubt, btw, is not identical to uncertainty: e.g. the future may be uncertain when addressed in a long enough term, but then saying that the future is uncertain is not the same as saying that the future is doubtful. To doubt is—as the term is always used—to hold an uncertainty about something which has already been established by someone somewhere to be certain. To be in states of wonder and curiosity, for example, is to be in states where one is not certain about all the pertinent aspects of that regarded—i.e. is to hold uncertainty about that concerned—without there being involved any doubt in respect to that regarded.

So we minimally have three types of certainty: that which is ontic and indifferent to our appraisal; that which is an infallible appraisal of what is (… of what is ontically certain); and that which is acknowledgeable fallible yet nevertheless an appraisal which we hold with certainty (again, concerning that which ontically is).

To have infallible certainty that there is no infallible certainty is a blatant contradiction—and, hence, an error of reasoning.

The philosophical skeptic, however, can quite cogently maintain a fallible certainty that no infallible certainty can be evidenced—including the infallible certainty that infallible certainties are impossible.

This then makes Yadoula’s comment correct (here overlooking any possible intermediate arguments): the only way you can be infallibly certain of anything is if you hold infallible certainty of everything (tangentially, this to me speaks of a non-dualistic awareness and its infallible certainty of what is, if such a perfectly formless awareness can ever be actualized).

As to repercussions for knowledge, it can easily translate into the fallibilism proposed by Peirce.

Heck, there’s been disagreement among philosophical skeptics in the consequences of this position for quite a long time. Still, to be clear in a general audience sort of way, no philosophical skeptic can ever be a Cartesian skeptic … for it’s by the very definition of philosophical skepticism already apprehended with fallible certainty that there is no infallible certainty to be obtained via methodological doubts.

I’ve been earnestly trying to break away from the forum for a while now—this for the time being. If there isn’t a robust refutation of what I’ve here posted, I might not reply. My bad. (Hopefully there’s more agreement than not.)

:up:

So then one is left with an irreducible moral and aesthetic component to psychology, I think, in answering any question of the 'proper functioning' of the human psyche, or a supposed irreducible human nature. Which will be the less debilitating the more it is explicit in a theory. — unenlightened

Couldn't agree more.

I’ve never, never, liked Freudianisms. Anything that is remotely worthwhile in Freud can be found in William James’s “Principles of Psychology”—a lengthy book which incorporated Darwinian evolution with James’ honest accounts of what we’d term spiritual accounts, of course staying true to all experiments known at the time concerning both physiology and established accounts of behaviors. My favorite Freudianism to criticize is his Oedipus/Electra complexes; cuz if the kid were to have only one parent of the opposite sex then they’d be chasing their parent all day long for tail. Besides, it’s a damned blatant justification for pedophilia no one ever seems to want to address (the preadolescent kids want to have sex with their parents, apparently). Freud is what you get when you mix atheism, mythologies, an authoritarian complex, and good decade’s worth of cocaine use. But Victorian people lapped up his talk—doctors miraculously curing “hysteria” with dildos and orgasms (telling I think)—because it spoke a lot more to being human than did the Behaviorism that quickly took over academia. Which is not to diminish the data on classical and operant conditioning. Cog.sci . is one form of psychology I hold esteem for: as with any other science, it theorizes, but all these are checked and balanced by needing to remain aligned to the empirical data acquired.

As to everything from exorcisms to New Age-isms that go haywire and the like, all this is detrimental when—and because—it forsakes the physical logos of the world as though it weren’t there (this to continue using the terminology I’ve previously made use of in this thread). Sorry, you may not like gravity and might want to fly off of tall structures because of some novel insights … but evolution as we know it will still have its say (the biological too is an aspect of the world’s physical logos).

You raise complex topics that I don’t want to belittle—for they’re quite pertinent. Nevertheless, I don’t believe that insisting on physicalism can serve as a remedy to them. Should of worked by now, I would think.

We share many views in common. Best of luck with your endeavors.

Hm. It’s not that the philosophy of mind is directly formative of the psyche it seeks to explain. Rather, the ontology I subscribe to facilitates the significant possibility that there can be such a thing as formless awareness; this at what I hope is readily understood to be a metaphysical level of being—for both the physical and the mental are endowed with form(s). This would be a perfectly selfless being/awareness devoid of first personhood—due there being nothing other relative to it by which first personhood can be established. In using this significant possibility as a premise of what is metaphysically ontic, then it can be inferred that all selves are, if one likes, fragmented or divided parts of this formless awareness in various proximities to this ideal state of being. An ant would be further away from it than a human. But this gets complex very quickly in any number of different ways.

Information as I’ve tried to express it is then virtually the same as Heraclitean notions of logos (better translated as “reason in the form of causes and motives” than as “word(s)”). And the formless awareness addressed could be compared to Neoplatonism’s “the One” or the Eastern concept of Nirvana—neither of which are minds—as well as to Aristotle’s first (teleological) cause.

To be very clear, I’m not trying to argue my case. Only want to illustrate how this outlook doesn’t suffer from the dilemma you’ve address—illustrated by the analogy of space, time, and matter being created by the theories one upholds (that is, if I've understood your criticism correctly). The data points remain the same regardless—in terms of psychology, physics, and everything in-between. But yes, the metaphysical explanations for them will often be considerably modified from the typical physicalist paradigm(s). (I nowadays prefer the term of a “dual aspect neutral monism” for this perspective since it tends to better convey to others what the ontology implies.)

Suggestions are welcome. — Galuchat

For what it’s worth, the broadest sense of communication I can currently speculate of is “to impart form to”—this where “form” is interpreted in the broadest sense possible, hence encapsulating both the abstract and the concrete. One example would be that one meaning holds a different form from some other meaning; even more, a paradigm is larger in form when compared to an idea since it’s a collection of many ideas—and talking is roughly a bidirectional imparting of ideals/abstract forms which then in due measure in-forms each individual awareness. As another example, the hammer imparts form to the rock—or in-forms it—by colliding with it.

I’m as of yet not personally comfortable with using the term “communication” to express such “imparting of form to” in all its usages. Still, to my mind, one could establish a dual aspect monistic ontology by interpreting all stuff, mental and physical, as information—here basically meaning, “that which endows form to”. Such a broad interpretation of information could thereby maybe be used to make the case that all information transfer is communication.

Well, interpreting information as a dual-aspect monistic substance is an approach I take but, to be honest, there are some other components at work as I’ve so far made use of this understanding. Things like various causal influences or mechanisms by which information works. Also of information yet being other than core non-dualistic awareness even though information in-forms awareness—i.e., endows awareness with its form of first person selfhood, including that of its very being as an individual awareness within the universe. This being my take on the self/no-self motif. To further clarify this last part, this in-forming of awareness certainly occurs in large part via the operations of the living, organic, physical substrata—such as brains for vertebrate life—as well as via this then formed awareness’s interaction with its environment by means of subjectivity. But this is an entirely different ball park.

At any rate, if any of this is of any use …

And yet, to say that homoeostasis, gene expression, neural stimulation, endocrine signalling, and immunomodulation are types of biocommunication, doesn't seem so far-fetched to me.

So, should the notion of communication pertain only to organic objects? And if so, at what level(s) of abstraction (i.e., physiology and/or psychology)?

For those who would appropriately refer to the etymology of the word "communication" from the Latin "communico" (share, impart, make common), I would suggest that what the process of communication shares between informer (transmitter, sender) and informee (receiver, recipient) is code, given:

1) Communication: the process of encoding, transmitting, conveying, receiving, and decoding, data (form).
2) Code: transformed, translated, or converted data (form).
3) Information: communicated data (form). — Galuchat

I’m in general agreement with unenlightened. For my part:

“Communicate” is one of those words whose ambiguity can facilitate a number of different meanings within different contexts. How much of it applies to what is ontic and how much of it will be strictly metaphorical can largely depend on the ontology that is presupposed. As to the metaphorical, when someone says something like, “don’t press any more keys on the keyboard; the computer is thinking” the “computer is thinking” part is not to be taken literally; it’s only a metaphorical shortcut to expressing concepts that otherwise require far more words to properly express.

It strikes me that going by your denotations, a hammer that haphazardly falls can be said to communicate force to the rock if falls upon.

Were this semantic to be upheld, however, it would to my mind nevertheless be distinct from the communication that occurs between sentience which thereby involves awareness and its apprehension, its understanding, of what is being communicated. For example, I can in no way concede to the rock literally understanding that a force was communicated to it by the falling hammer.

To my mind, the two semantics would be made distinct primarily due to the difference between a) the strictly entropic interactions (or inter-paths, if one likes) that occur between entropic, inanimate givens and b) the agency-caused interactions that occur among negentropic, autopoietic, agency-endowed life.

I’m on board with bridging the gap between nonlife and life in a stout ontological way, but this would not diminish the “quantum leap” (metaphorically speaking) between nonliving things and living things.

Biocommunication specifies the contexts addressed. Maybe a term for “entropic communications” could be coined so as to distinguish it from what agents do?

The morning is not the only transient timespan when utterly new and always different events unfold despite it being the same exact re-occurrence for all of humanity’s history, but also the night.

(truth in advertising: this one's taken from a Doors song)

You know the day __________ the night; night _________ the day.

Get ahold of yourself! — Bitter Crank

As though the thread wasn’t complicated enough, you have to go and bring up an infinite regress problem of all things. Let it be, I say. Practical philosophizing can be cool too (unless one’s an asshole that can’t help but bullshit due to so being :razz: )

Emotions … can’t live with them, can’t live without ‘em.



Back to pushing myself to engage in chores needing to be done. … thereby here introducing a Munchhausen problem to rival yours.

Neither suffering nor happiness are essential parts of life, we can all live without them. I agree that we all search for and enjoy happiness and avoid suffering when possible.
But.
Love and hate, attraction and revulsion, happiness and sadness, happiness and suffering are all conditions of life. The fact that we prefer some over others does not make them less inherent in life for they are in everyone's lives whether we want them or not. — Sir2u

Myself, I take it that all affective states—emotions and moods—will hold what in psychology is termed a positive valence or a negative valence … which in humans at least roughly equates to some interpretations of happiness and suffering. With some affective states sometime being in-between and thereby of relatively neutral valence, but I take this to be rare in comparison to pleasant and unpleasent states we feel, act on account of, and react to. Going by this, I’d again uphold that happiness and suffering so understood in broad terms hold inherent meaning to us. We might be using the words differently though.

Which brings us back to the forever unanswered question.

Does life have a meaning? — Sir2u

Implicit to this is to whom. My life has meaning to me, as I’m quite certain yours does to you. Sometimes, on better days, some of our lives will also have meaning interpresonally. But no life will have meaning to a rock.

A more practical way of saying it depends with what premise one starts with.

Is there any inherent meaning to happiness? — Sir2u

I’ll argue this way: Happiness is meaningful. One emotive sensation is both discerned from others and is either wanted or shun only because it is meaningful. Upheld differently, happiness holds significance to us—and because of this is meaningful, i.e. endowed with meaning.

As to it being inherently so, this comes with prioritizing being/awareness over reasoning, imo. Here I take words to of themselves be an aspect of reasoning--and reasoning devoid of being/awareness is, or would be, meaningless. Hence happiness, as much as “soul’s” suffering (however poetically “soul” is addressed), is an inherent aspect of our being/awareness ... thereby being inherently meaningful.

Don’t laugh, and I don’t mean to compare difficulties of addiction by this, but I can relate to some of what you say on account of my own nicotine addiction. Started smoking to … alleviate my stress, as they say; went from being Mr. health guy—five miles of running a day and all that—to over three packs of filterless per day almost overnight when I first started. Told myself I’ll show everybody else that I can quit in one’s years’ time; it’s been, um, over one year now and I still pretty much choose to smoke each new day. This despite the costs to my wallet and my body. Why? I’m certain that there are reasons in my skull somewhere, but I’ll be damned if I can make out what these cogent reasons are … again, not for the by now recurrent cravings but for my choosing to satisfy them.

Between us two addicts of various sorts, I think that acceptance of this not being right is a good first step. As to figuring out the buried reasons, maybe like others, I neither have the cash nor the trust to sit around with shrinks so as to bring them up to consciousness. Even so, at this point, I figure, the reasons don’t very much matter anymore. That advice I gave previously, it equally applies to me. It’s about forming new habits and reclaiming very old ones … and then letting these old reasons for our current choices dissipate themselves away. Still, I intuitively sense that blaming ourselves for choosing what we’ve chosen on account of these buried reasons only gets in the way of a healthy recovery. In a way, if you’d like, we’ve already had our fair share of punishment—not only by what got us here to begin with but also by the respective aftermaths of so first choosing our now addictions.

Yes, there’s a willpower required to stop, but for this willpower there is also required a goal which we earnestly latch onto and, on my part at least, a kind of letting go of fears that I don’t often look in the eye … those that the addiction numbs, issues and pains that I’d rather never be aware of again.

You know, among all the talk of forgiveness … there’s a kind out there that might be more important than all others, that of self-forgiveness.

More generally speaking, don’t care who you are, you are not devoid of all blame, not innocent of all wrongs. Some don’t give a damn—else perpetually justify to themselves why they’re righteous and why this accumulated guilt doesn't apply to them. But for those of us who do given a damn, self-forgivingness might be … well, yea, difficult, but then also an important part of healing and letting go of these downward spiral habits. Still, I strongly believe, we should be just with ourselves in not blaming ourselves for more than what we deserve; not merciful as though we’re giving ourselves a hand out out of self-pity, but fair.

Hey, just speaking my mind. Hopefully some of it clicks with your situation as well. At any rate, all this talk is maybe helping me out with more definitively wanting to quit nicotine again, in a hopefully more permanent sort of way. Have to now push myself to do some chores, but I’ll check back in later.

Just read you’re last post. I really wish there were some way I could help out, but I get that talk if often cheap. There's a Romanian saying that sums up what worked for me at least once in my life; loosely translated: appetite [sometimes] arrives subsequent to eating. Meaning: forcing or cajoling oneself to do something one does not desire, has no appetite for, sometimes stimulates you into gaining an appetite for the activity. I started listening to upbeat music while taking my sorrow and frustrations out on a punching bag, or while pushing myself in running or biking, and eventually my appetite for life came back. The point being, maybe if you push yourself to do something you formally liked or wanted to do, it might eventually help get you out of the bad times. Whatever works, but don't give up trying.

Well supposedly there's much optimism that these so-called entheogens will be approved for clinical usage in the psychiatric field in the near future -- aiming for 2020 perhaps. So who knows what will eventually unfold, and how the pharmaceutical giants will be impacted, if at all. Within the context of the prevailing paradigm it's hard to imagine that there won't be some profit motive in play. But I try not to be pessimistic or cynical about it, as that seems to be a depressingly pointless option, and what good does that do? — snowleopard

Though I should leave your last post to be as is, but, to be clear, I fully agree that a healthy, reality-grounded optimism is always a good thing to have. It would be nice if this new avenue was to become legally implemented for society at large. I’ve heard it is an optimal remedy for alcoholism, opioid addiction, among other things, as well as very beneficial for (I liked the way you worded it) mental dis-ease / dis-order.

And ditto to this:

Ironically enough though, we're discovering that there are 'drugs' that can be effective tools for actually facilitating healing, as new research and clinical trials are showing that some psychedelics, like MDA and psilocybin, may be the key to unlocking that baggage, by allowing access to the subconscious realm were it is locked up, so as to start the true healing process, in conjunction with more conventional gestalt therapy, etc. So far the early results are proving to be very promising, with respect to bringing about profound and lasting change that doesn't just mask the suffering, but digs deep to get to the source and finally resolve it. — snowleopard

Yes, I'm aware of this from a documentary or two. I agree it would be beneficial. But then, how would the pharmaceutical companies maintain stock profits if all their patients became cured? Kind of thing. This is worthy of mention, I think, but I don't want to get into the politics of current economy.

Not sure what you have in mind, nor of how well this rough idea might fit. Carl Jung talked of synchronicities wherein one’s mental states of belief and apprehension synchronized with otherwise unusual coincidences in one’s inanimate environment—thereby resulting in new awareness of meaningful and relevant into. Were one to entertain the philosophical hypothesis that all physical reality is itself a near perfectly stable synchronicity between givens, then—I’m supposing—even the most mundane and profane of our interactions with inanimate reality could be deemed a form of communication. The world informs us of things via photons bouncing off of the retina, etc., and we inform the world back via our actions toward it. Thereby resulting in a communication between inanimate and animate. Something like this?

Gotta warn you, this roundabout sort of thing gets relative close to the notion of logos as interpreted by Heraclitus. The world’s logos, our individual logos of subjectivity, and so forth, all of it being different parts of the cosmos/uni-verse.

Generally though, I too tend to limit “communication” to meanings intentionally transferred from one sentient being to other sentient beings. For example, bees communicate to each other, but saying that sun communicates location to the bees seems to me a bit off mark.

It was as if the conscious choice to move on from it, was like permission to let go and stop holding onto that baggage, allowing it to be unpacked, sorted through, and then disposed of, so to speak. It was a painful process, to say the least, but in the end, more than worth it. — snowleopard

Man, I could make use with some of that willpower myself every now and then. Congrats. A lot easier said than done, but definitely rewarding when accomplished.

Albeit, that suffering may have inspired some poetry, as is often the case for artists of all kinds ... thinking of Van Gogh, or Beethoven, or any number of other examples. — snowleopard

A little rant:

In my younger days I used to rail against anti-depressants to anyone I could debate the subject with. “It’s in our genes and must be fixed chemically.” Bullshit. I guess just as some people are birthed without appendages some might be birthed with genetically fixed mental ailments. But when you see a bunch of people returning from war with missing limbs and proclaim that they were born that way, there’s something sinister at work. Same with depressions and the like: they a response to a long list of prior experiences. And having the pharmaceutical companies peddle more drugs to more people, now even to kids, is not going to resolve the near epidemic of depression we as a society are going through. OK, all this imo.

To me there’s suffering and then there’s strife. The two are not the same—and neither is fully escape-able for any life. When suffering becomes strife—rather than apathy or learned-hopelessness (since it hurts to not succeed, even learned-hopelessness can be a heuristic to minimize one’s dolor, I’m thinking)—a good deal of wisdom and beauty often ensues from successfully overcoming one’s challenges in life. At least the practical kinds for all of us unenlightened ones. Strife was the impetus for some of the greatest wonders that humanity has to offer: in the arts, the sciences, an in philosophy, wherever it fits in.

I can’t imagine a world where the two you’ve mention and many others would have all been given anti-depressants. Well, personally, other than imagining a zombie like humanity where nothing meaningful every gets addressed … a Fahrenheit 451 kind of reality.

OK, spewed off again about this issue; no longer as Quixotic about it but it still seems to me to matter. For the record, I agree that medications can be a very useful crutch faciliating one’s capcity to walk, and all individual cases are unique. Still, societally, our increased quantity of depressions are not due to a human gene mutation that just occurred in the last few decades … or so I maintain.

Long story short, my obnoxiousness aside, I agree. The strife propelled by suffering is often of benefit to our being human. I’ll take the Stoic depth that occasionally looks into the void over fluffiness most any day—especially if there’s some humor occasionally involved.

[...] and the consensus seems to be that life would not have meaning if it were devoid of suffering. — Posty McPostface

The term “suffering” can imply a lot of different things. I like it's etymology: roughly paraphrased, the need to support some unwanted weight or burden (under + I carry). This as compared to the approximate etymology of happiness: to be lucky in having things go as you want them to (fortunate). My etymological interpretations are obviously debatable, but thinking of things in this way helps me out.

For the forms of suffering I’m currently thinking of, suffering is merely nature’s way of telling you there’s something wrong—be if physically or psychologically, including depressions. Some of these wrong things in life can be changed more readily than others, and others cannot. Still, in my life of varying experiences, thinking of suffering in these terms has helped me not succumb to suffering in the long term … for this mindset presents suffering as a given which one can do something about, even if only in the slightest way, by remedying that which is existentially wrong and the cause to ones suffering.

Then, if suffering is nature’s way of telling you there’s something wrong, than not suffering could likely be more meaningful. As in: being on the right path is more meaningful than being on a wrong one.

Yea, it’s a perspective at any rate.

just so ya know. Nicely said, imo. :smile:

I’m aware that anything I might say will be trite. So I’ll say this trite thing: It’s part and parcel of the empathetic life not to be dead inside, with both its ups and downs—ups and downs that most empathetic people share. To those who even remotely cherish empathy, more empathetic people are needed in the world. And it can be painful when these empathetic folk no longer are as numerous due to, well, joining the clan of the non-empathetic people that are out there. This isn’t not about cheering you up. It’s about wanting strength in you during the hard times that presently are.

A partial song lyric I never ended up putting to music: “turn you’re sorrow into anger and your hatred into love”. … anger at all that’s fu*ked up with the world; and self-loathing or antipathy can be a form of hatred.

I’ve heard of this sort of thing before, as in:



I’ve also been told it means one hasn’t become fully dead inside.

Strife can be a pain in the … heart. But then there wouldn’t be any pleasure in living life without it every now and then … at least in the before and after parts.

You just made me revisit the dictionary for definitions of “desire”. The first one that comes up on Wiktionary is, “to want; to wish for earnestly”.

What can I say? If it needs saying, I’m not a Buddhist. Still, we so far disagree.

Seems to me that you and Kym are using the word "desire" in two different ways. First, desire as "a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen." This is the type of desire the Buddhists are talking about, the kind I thought Kym was referring to in the original post; the kind that leads to consumerism, alienation, and environmental degradation. But you're also using to mean intentions, motivations, and goals. Completely different things. In a sense, opposites. — T Clark

I honestly don’t yet understand why desire as you’ve defined it in quotes is not commensurate with intentions. Much less why they should be opposites. An example:

I’m holding on what I take to be logical grounds that even the most enlightened of Buddhists will hold “a strong feeling of wanting to have [obtained Nirvana] or wishing for [Nirvana] to happen. Now, I get that a lot of so called “enlightened” gurus will state that they have obtained Nirvana; logically, though, this at best can only be an equivocation of meanings—for they still suffer from the same bodily functions we all suffer from: hungers, full bladders, and, yes, old age and worldly death. Nirvana is a literal cessation of these karmic (i.e., action and consequence) ups and downs. So, unless these “enlightened ones” are bullshiters or worse—hell, it's been known to happen—they yet desire to actualize Nirvana and, with this desire as the cause to their behaviors and choices, thereby intend to actualize/obtain Nirvana as a long-term goal. Then, in so desiring/longing for Nirvana (which need not be first-person limited, e.g. I've heard some Buddhist declare they will strive to enlighten all sentience, lesser animals included), they then choose their other desires accordingly—e.g. not clinging to worldly possessions, etc. ... or so the story goes.

But I agree that there’s a lot that’s been probably lost in translation in statements about “desire”. Reminds me of how we sometimes translate an underlying concept into “harmony between anger and calm” as one entailment of the yin-yang symbol; yet “anger” to us doesn’t translate well, often signifying bad intentions toward others in English. Doesn’t do justice to here paraphrased sayings such as “when calm is on the outside and turbulence/animation/”anger” on the inside one is alive; when all turbulence/etc. is on the outside and the inside is perfectly calm, this is death”—i.e., for example, don’t become rage-full for this is a closer proximity to a death of being: turbulence being spewed from within to the outside; instead, be like the spinning top: calm on the outside, balanced, and hard to take down due to the turbulence/etc. within (… I gained this little nugget from some Aikido teachings). Here, again, I’m only addressing issues of translation.

Ideally, I don't eat because I desire food. I eat because I'm hungry. My body has signaled to me it needs food. On the other hand, I often eat out of desire, not hunger. The desire has nothing to do with responding to my body's nutritional needs. It fulfills some other need tied up with longing and fantasy. — T Clark

Here again I so far disagree. Hunger is a more rudimentary desire/longing/intention of our mind, whose intention it is to satisfy the physical requirement of our bodies (here using common speech and not getting into dual aspects of monistic substance, or like subjects). The proprioceptive pangs of an empty stomach are perceptions obtained via physiological senses—and so belong to what is perceived by mind. One way of verbalizing it is by saying it is a desire of our more primitive mind: from the mid and hind brain (although I’m typically not big on modeling mind in terms of primitive and non-primitive). The conscious us can then become one with this diffuse desire we sense as hunger—e.g. “I am hungry and intend/want/desire to eat something”—or else choose to shun this desire on account or prioritizing other desires—the person who fasts will do so for whatever aim/goal they have in mind.

When you say you sometimes “eat out of desire, not hunger” I so far interpret you to mean that the conscious you then eats out of a desire to satisfy something like a sweet tooth, rather than the desire to quench one’s hunger. Yet either way, there is a conscious you who engages in the satisfaction of desires, i.e., in the obtainment of the end which some aspect of mind intends.

To me, in a roundabout sort of way, this speaks to Hume’s “reason is the slave of desires”: we reason so as to satisfy our desires; we do not desire so as to satisfy our reasoning. If this is too much from out in the left field, then please never mind that I just brought this last part up.

I kind’a like 's categorization of desire, myself.

Haven't had one made for myself, at least so far. We might be dealing with the same issue.

A truism: we all want for that which we want to be obtained as we want it obtained (no magic genies in bottles playing tricks with our wishes, kind of thing) — javra

I'm not sure if you mean this as a description of what does happen or what should happen. Reading on, I suspect the latter. — Kym

Oh; no, I was aiming for the former: that truism to me depicts the way thing are, hence is descriptive and not prescriptive.

As one relatively inconsequential example: If I want to pick up an object and I find that I can do so as I wanted without any obstructions to my achieving this, no problems for me; I may even be joyous in so doing. However, if there’s something that obstructs my desire to have the object in my hand—like someone else that pushes my hand away from the object while I’m reaching for it—then there are problems for me: frustration, or irritation … some form of unpleasant affect. I argue that this is so not because the truism I offered should be the case but because the truism I offered is the case at all times.

This truism I offered might then be a bit more debatable at face value than I first thought.

Now, I’m of course not denying the reality of often competing desires one chooses between and of the differences between short- and long-term intentions and their priorities. But I do argue that any choice made between competing desires will be itself made with a goal—hence, a desire—in mind … a goal which we want to obtain (to which I still think the offered truism applies).

IMO much suffering has been facilitated by the ease in which we separate events into 'means' and 'ends'. This is a false dichotomy it seems to me, that fails to insulate the ends from any dubious means undertaken: The quality of the means used seems to always infuse into that of the achieved ends. Those damned roosting chickens! — Kym

I agree with the underlined sentence in the quote. But I don’t see ends and means being a false dichotomy, at least not so far. The ends are out there in the future. The means are what we do now (else plan to do in the present) so as to get to that place or even in the future.

Saying that the ends justify the means can be very misleading, with this I'd again agree. But saying that the ends limit (and/or goad) what the means can and cannot be in order for the ends to be obtained, however, to me seems rationally valid.

I then got a bit lost in your discussion on the role of causality. Can you simplify it for me Javra? — Kym

To better do so, where is there disagreement with this:

[...] to desire/intend is to seek an end and then chose one’s actions accordingly in manners governed by the obtainment of this pursued end. — javra

It's pretty obvious that no sentient being gets to live much past teatime without the faculty of desire. So desire certainly can't be flat out bad then. But it can go bad pretty easily, especially in the absence of any checks and balances.
[...]
For us philosophical hold-outs two questions skulk in the corners like reluctant elephants:
1. How can philosophy get its hands dirty again with the lived reality of individual desire?
2. How can philosophy influence the trajectory of a culture seemingly caught in death spiral down a vortex of desire? — Kym

I agree that desire is not innately bad—no more, for example, than the very presence of living selves; rather, its ethical value would be contingent on that which is desired. I also very much like the way you bring up “checks and balances”. To be clear, for me this addresses a checks and balances of power among different and interacting selves; with “power” demarcated as “the ability to accomplish”, which can be further defined for sentient beings as “holding the capacity and desire to manifest at some future time (even if this future is measure in nanoseconds) that end which is desired, else wanted, else intended in the present”. Hence the brilliance of any government that can self-maintain an honest checks and balances of all powers concerned.

A truism: we all want for that which we want to be obtained as we want it obtained (no magic genies in bottles playing tricks with our wishes, kind of thing)

I think philosophy then needs to first acknowledge this truism as real, maybe even figure out some way of logically evidencing it to so be, and next figure out ways of addressing it in terms of logically derivable oughts (what should be)—such that this basic desire-impetus is optimally satisfied for, at least, the vast majority of individuals given their/our perpetual interactions with other desire-endowed beings.

But then this gets in a bunch of things that modern academic culture is not comfortable with. As a primary example, to desire/intend is to seek an end and then chose one’s actions accordingly in manners governed by the obtainment of this pursued end. More simply, it is for one’s actions to be teleologically caused by the very end which one desires to obtain. Doesn’t matter if it concerns one’s getting from a present location A to an intended location B or, more abstractly, if it concerns how to best obtain a state of personal happiness given one’s interactions with multiple others who each pursue their own personal happiness … in often very different ways. I’m here thinking of a mass murder’s happiness in obtained supremacy over others (along with a few other types of such people); this as compared to an altruistic or empathetic person’s happiness in contextual harmony found within her/his family, community, and society; this as compared to an ego-loving person’s happiness in an unending stability of personal being (like the want for the immortality of one’s own selfhood or, maybe less dramatically, in wanting their context as they know it to never change one way or another thereby never needing to change as an ego; and so forth. All these different beings interacting with each other in pursuit of their own type of idealized personal happiness.

At any rate, issues of politics aside, there’s a teleological causation at work with desire, i.e. with intention to manifest/obtain—the intention containing the goal which causes actions and goads decisions toward the goal pursued. This, of itself, doesn’t bode well with modern philosophical paradigms of reality—for this form of causation is neither amicable to causal determinism (its not fully efficient causation) nor to causal indeterminism (there must first be a determinate impetus of desire as cause in addition to some determinate end (be it mentally or metaphysically determinate) in order for teleological causation to occur—as one example, the previously offered truism is neither chosen by us to be nor can it be in any way done away with for as long as we in any way intend anything … i.e., it is a metaphysically determinate aspect of our constituency in our choosing activities in manners governed by some intended end. And to further complicate matters, some of our desires/intentions are sub/unconscious … but in order for them to be efficacious desires they too would work in the same way as conscious desires.

That’s my take at least. We need to think outside of the box in terms of things such as causation if we’re to have any hope of (1) and (2) which you address.

:grin: :up:

I often presume that from an Eastern philosophy perspective, the ultimate reality is taken to be that of non-dualistic being/awareness. Hence the occasional Eastern metaphor of dualistic experience—that of self and other—being “illusion” or “dream” or some such—like you said, the veil of maya. As per Buddhism, that whole “neither is there a self nor not a self” predicament.

Having said that—to be more pragmatic about things—the world of dualistic experience will likely continue for inestimable eons yet to come, is replete with facts unearthed by the empirical sciences concerning our commonly shared world, and is for us selves about as real as real can get. Besides, if one for example buys into the Anima/Spiritus Mundi motif, our world still has a lot to teach us about ourselves.

More to the thread’s topic, when it comes to what consciousness is and how it should be conceptualized, the issue reminds me of some of the lyrics to an old-time song called “Epic” by the band “Faith No More” (the song can be found on youtube):

You want it all but you can't have it
It's in your face but you can't grab it
What is it?
It's it
What is it?
It's it
What is it?
It's it
What is it?
It's it
[…]

Yup. If they're logged in.

... Wait, just checked: the @mane style didn't leave a message indicator for me. But the reply-arrow will.

Fair enough. I'll leave the issue at that, for my part.

(By the way, how can I make that lttle arrow+name link you guys all do?) — Kym

when logged in, go to the bottom of the post next to the time posted, an arrow will appear labeled "reply"; clicking on it puts the arrow+name in the post you're writing

Question. If physicalists are so on board with consciousness being illusory, why do physicalists so often gag at the notion that our phenomenal reality is an illusion (as per Eastern philosophies--and not per commonsense notions of illusions concerning what is otherwise commonly shared/objective phenomena)? Never quite got that.

Now, my argument in favour of Chalmer's position, is that experience is irreducibly first-person. In other words, it is not an object or a phenomenon, in the sense that things that we experience are objects or phenomena. So the question is not 'why do we have consciousness?' but 'what is consciousness?', which is really a question about the first-person nature of experience. — Wayfarer

I'm only nitpicking: The way I read this it might, or might not, convey an implicit assumption of the permanency of the self … even in so far as consciousness/experience not being possible devoid of something other which is experienced. I’m presuming this will be much ado about nothing new to you, all the same:

Where one to take the experiences of all those who are reputed to have had intense spiritual experiences—this via meditations or otherwise—their awareness/consciousness in such instances increase far beyond what our average commonplace states of consciousness are. Hence, were such experiences to be believed as non-bogus, then the magnitude of our consciousness can become greatly amplified in terms of both quantity and quality of awareness.

Hallucinogen-based experiences, such as those of Aldous Huxley in his “Doors of Perception”, greatly complicate matters in terms of preferred ontological explanations, but they are reported to occur all the same. When not going haywire, these again purportedly endow selves with increased awareness that is often enough coupled with a highly increased sense of selfless being (i.e., increased impartiality of awareness relative to all that is other in normal states of being, with its hypothetical zenith being that of an experienced, complete non-duality of being/awareness ... attested to by some within history).

Cases such as these speak toward the possibility of consciousness becoming far more and qualitatively far different than what we take it to be in everyday life.

Having addressed the generally more pleasant, in not wholly imaginary (as many atheists will believe), aspect of the conscious self holding the potential to transmute into something much greater than ordinary human conscious being, there then are the more explanatorily accessible instances where human consciousness can become diminished, fragmented, or else cease holding presence.

To dwell a great deal on DSM examples of mental disorders would get depressing, but, in passing, there is everything from extreme cases of schizophrenia, to multiple personalities, to catatonia, to sleep walking with awareness of the external world, to states of indefinite unconsciousness. In these cases, at least typically, the awoken human consciousness becomes less and other than what it ordinarily is as a unified point of view, such that it is no longer as functional, if at all so.

Less unnerving are the ordinary transitions from wakefulness to sleep, in which our ordinary awoken consciousness becomes gradually reduced in magnitude; would be termed hallucinatory if its sometimes occurring, half-awoken experiences would likewise occur while fully awoken; and eventually cease to hold presence—until, in some instances, it then holds presence as a first person point of view during REM dreams—after which it again awakens and thereby holds an awoken presence.

In all aforementioned cases, what it is like to so be/experience still holds. But all these examples—both of increased magnitude, including instances of non-dualistic awareness rich in meaning, and of decreased magnitude of human consciousness, including that of a lack of presence—do point to there not being such a thing as a permanent conscious state of being—ultimately, not even to a necessary first person point of view in order for awareness to be.

In other words, there is no requirement for awareness to be a self as typically understood and held onto by most everybody: one which is differentiated from everything that is other and is thereby dualistic in its experienced being; one which defines itself (e.g., I am stupid/smart, talented/a klutz, poor/wealthy, etc.) and then clings onto its own self-produced definitions of what it is as an otherwise intangible awareness/self.

I get that there’s a linguistic quagmire when it comes to what consciousness signified and how the term is used; to me, though, it nevertheless seems blatant that there is a clear cut distinction between consciousness per se and being conscious of, this as a staple part of our commonsense understandings.

I tend to think you’d agree with more rather than less of what I’ve mentioned … ?

I think this is descriptive of the stance of natural sciences, is it not? — Wayfarer

Your comments seem about right to me.

That stated, to my mind, the concept of objectivity which I’ve tried to articulate does not of itself make an ontological commitment regarding whether or not minds as we know them—or even any conception of Mind with a capital “M”—are required for the physical to be. In other words, I currently believe it can equally apply to systems of idealism as much as it can apply to systems of physicalism. Notwithstanding, yes, what I previously described does very much take into account the objectivity of the empirical sciences, this due to these sciences being phenomena founded (i.e., empirical).

Yet the same principle of objectivity as impartiality can also be applied to non-Kantian notions of noumena, as in basic geometric forms and rudimentary mathematical relations between quantities which are only capable of being apprehended by the intellect—and can so be in purely abstract forms. Or to the principles of thought.

And, from the stance of my own beliefs: It would be a stretch—and I’m not interested in here arguing for the case—but one can also apply this objectivity-impartially equivalence to the notion of an objective good—in the Platonic and Neo-Platonic sense. To give an overall gist of this approach: what do all sentience desire/intent/want? This can wind its way toward what Buddhists address as a liberation from suffering—or, imo more formally, from obstructions to one’s will being fulfilled as one intends it fulfilled. Then there’s the issue of what such state of fully (or at least optimally) liberated being might ontically be and, once appraised, how it might be best pursued. As one example—a bit spiritual for the atheistic folks, I would assume—this could be a state of perfect non-duality; e.g., Buddhist notions of Nirvana or Neo-Platonic notions of “the One”. None of this is here conclusive, obviously; but, again, the impartiality/objectivity equivalence makes such sort of thinking feasible to me. For example, all subjects (or partial, ego-centric beings) are subjects of both physical objectivity/impartiality to which they conform—this being the world we experience phenomenally (e.g., truth being a conforming of beliefs and statements to that which objectivity is)—as well as being subjects to metaphysical objectivity/impartiality—this being quite a bit harder to succinctly specify in any meaningful way, but to me a) it is by definition not itself a subject, b) it incorporates the striven for end of liberation from suffering previously mentioned, and c) it is an Aristotelian-like telos/final cause via which the physical world is in large part determined in a manner fully compatible with the freewill of agents. Anyway, it’s what I’m working on … and it’s quite the headache. What can I say, a well supported value theory is important to me.

I mentioned this to try to illustrate that this notion of objectivity I’ve been working with in no way specifies what might otherwise be termed scientism—I won’t address scientific realism other than to say that any scientific realism that cannot properly incorporate value theory misses the mark, imo--but yes, imo, it is very much in tune with what the empirical sciences seek and often discover in their endeavors.

It seemed to me to especially fit into the nature of objective phenomena that was being discussed in the thread.

Apropos, having looked at the link you’ve provided, what do you make of Kant’s theorizing of the Nebular hypothesis? To me it so far indicates that he did not take the view that minds as we know them need to be in order for the physical to be. I’m speculating without any evidence that maybe he held some form of pan-something (panpsychism, pansemiosis, something) as a precursor to what we now can more readily talk about, this as an aspect of his transcendental idealism. Wouldn’t mind hearing about differing opinions on Kant’s upholding of the solar system’s formation in such manner … if it doesn’t deviate too much from the thread’s theme.

No problem here, for me. Umm, maybe one. If the phenomenal is mind-dependent, then what does "experienced phenomena" mean? — tim wood

We do not need to hold concrete particulars of sight in order to contemplate sight in abstract terms. Same applies for the concrete particulars of hearing, taste, touch, smell, proprioception, etc., i.e. to all phenomena. For example, we could contemplate visual phenomena in abstract ways as manifesting from multiple vantages—e.g. an ant’s, a cat’s, and a human’s—toward any particular object without needing to invoke particular examples of the sight all three of these beings concretely see.

Hence, by “experienced phenomena” I was intending to distinguish phenomena as it is directly experienced from the same phenomena as it can be abstractly thought about with or without concrete examples.

I understand that there could yet be confusions all the same with the Kantian notions of phenomena—as in, within Kantianism, abstractions are experienced phenomena too (although not in the original ancient sense of phenomena, in which abstractions devoid of concrete examples would be experienced noumena). Still, the experience of that which is seen is not the same as the experience of an abstract contemplation regarding the contents of sight in general which is devoid of visualized concrete particulars.

So, in immediate experience, the green leaf seen is a direct presentation of the green leaf out there. In abstract contemplation, however, my seeing of a green leaf is a re-presentation of the object out there which to me and all other like sentience results in a green appearance. The former is what occurs in what I termed “experienced phenomena”. The latter is what occurs when we abstractly contemplate the nature of phenomena.