What might apply to the "Young Hegelians" does not apply to the master

It was mentioned above about how Kierkegaard felt about Hegel, and it common knowledge that he called on spiritual beings to save him from anxiety

Kierkegaard claimed Hegel was confused by his own identity, yet Kierkegaard himself was always looking for supernatural agents to save him. Perhaps they were equally sure of themselves

I've read about 20 pages of his work all in all. Ye not much but many talk bad of Hegel although they read maybe a few paragraphs from him. Kierkegaard probably read less Hegel than I've read of Kierk. Hegel doesn't define his terms upfront, so often you have to read a whole book of his before you get his point. I don't see Kierkegaard's thoughts going anywhere and that's just how it is (I'm a very abstract thinker)

Possibly, but Kierkegaard doesn't present a philosophy that I find philosophical. He went to lectures by Schelling (as did Engel) who was arguing that Hegel stole his philosophy and Schelling was probably right about that. However Schelling and Hegel present avalanches of thought that create many dimensions in my mind. To me that is true philosophy, and I don't think Kierkegaard learned very much from Schelling at the end of the day

No full works, just extracts now and then. I never get anything from them, and for me that's rare with a philosopher. Sorry if I put him down. This whole thing about "superiority" is good to address, since we all feel it. I don't mind if straights feel superior to gays, if men feel superior to women, or if Germans feel superior to everyone. It just depends on how far they take it, and usually someone's sense of superiority will eventually be tested and the truth revealed

I despise Kierkegaard and not just because he hated Hegel. I've seen no intelligence in any of what I've read from him. For me he is just a small minded Christian trying to he profound, like Chesterton but without the literary skill. As for Heidegger, he is not Sevitri Devi or Miguel Serrano. His philosophy stands on its own and the Nazi stuff should be buried in history. Many Germans have believed their language is especially adopt at presenting Greek philosophy and many considered Hegel to be the greatest of the new generation because he made philosophy speak German. I don't have a problem with these ideas. (Lots of cultures think they are special)

Well you have a lot of people's opinions about your comments now

I don't think free will (as free) comes from the dense and solid aspect of matter

Humans folllow one of two principles: their ideas (reason) or their heart (will). They choose one of these or both with their "will power. I think humans identify mostly with their thoughts but I'm sure others may disagree

Free will is something we allow to come to the forefront only on occasion, it seems

I think he clearly meant something spiritual instead of a process by his exclusion of the physical. He can clarify is he wants

I think randomness wasn't understood in previous eras. Modern probability theory, stats, and all that opened our minds to it. When Aquinas speaks of randomness, he clearly didn't know what it was. The OP puts the will in something non-physical which by definition is what we call the spiritual. I believe matter itself is spiritual and therefore there is none of this dualism in my system

Ok. If we imagine (like the OP) a few billiard balls which move by determimistical laws, I don't see how it could be AI. To think is noncomputable, so only a random subject can be, eh, subjected to the emergence of consciousness

A four year old does have free will, although like us, as you imply, they might if ever only take it out for certain occasions (holidays). The German idealists call randomness and free both spontaneous, but classical matter and in fact all substance (material or not) cannot be warped into a free will properly. Only randomness can be so transformed

It seems clear that consciousness can't come from determined matter. It also seems clear that consciousness comes from what amounts to the matter of the brain.

Consider a cup. The cup is not just matter formed in a shape. The emtypness is essential. The same goes for evil. It is not just a privation of good, but a positive substance we can feel. Emptiness, formlessness, nothingness, and darkness us how we picture randomness, and I would say the pictures you posited in your first post did not contain the necessity that consciousness not be a part of physical reality.

The only thing science doesn t know yet in how to create consciousness is as to what configuration of quantum randomness makes consciousness emerge into reality

Human consciousness is primarily uncomputable because it arises from the randomness of the quantum level through microtubules into neurons which communicate chemically with each other (electrical activity is a modular). It's the harnessing of randomness that allows will to be free. You can't think abstractly until you are free, and once you are free you come to indentify with the rationalizing side of your nature.

Only a brain can write a great paragraph like yours. The will is free because it feels transcended ( "from a simple principle") but that doesn't entail that it is transcendent

The Stoics with their Stoa (a word I found in Nietzsche with respect to them) are like Greek Daoists to me. They are good but they don't tell the full story.

What I meant above about "imposing morality on ourselves" is that we seem to contain an infinity of potentiality inside us and are forced by something elsewhere inside us to impose some of these potentials on ourselves in the form of "laws". I realized this fact when I was studying Fitche. A relevant quote to this is from Hegel: " The will that is genuinely free, and contains freedom of choice sublated (canceled-while-preserved in new form) within itself, is conscious of its content as something steadfast in and for itself; and at the same time it knows the content to be utterly its own."

Stoics speak of purpose and such in nature, and of us as nature. They are not as specific as the Catholics though (Feser) for whom contraception is forever forbidden and masturbation a mortal sin

Secularism can be seen an animism in its infancy. To me, animism regards animals as gods and nature as THEIR home. We are intruders who must show respect, who feel like we don't belong here. I think pure pantheism morphs into animism, and modern secularism too perhaps. The two heavens conceivable by the intellect are 1) the beatific vision of Aquinas (you can listen to "99 essential Gregorian chants" of youtube to get the flavor of this vision) or 2) the Houris of paradise (Islam). If you don't have faith in one of these destinations, I feel like all you can have is a vague hope for something unknown, which is what most secularists have. Animalists don't conceptualize the afterlife, and since securalists don't either, maybe the future if the West, in religious terms, will look more like the onto-theology of the Huns and Mongols instead of some kind of Christian Renaissance

I get where you are coming from, or at least it sounds like Stoicism to me, which is much like my position. Do you yourself see similarities with your thesis and Stoicism?

Feser argues that the only proper function of sexuality is the spill in your wife's vagina. Everything else is against purpose. People are willing to watch porn (not you guys) for 2 hours but don't take the time to think of this stuff.

I agree. I thought his point was that we know morality from the purpose of functions. If this is true, than we would know the morality of sexuality from its function and thus the position advocated by Dr. Feser would seem to infallibly follow. I don't śee how the idea of "purpose" can be anything but subjective, but maybe Pfhorrest has a more subtle point to make

teleology is taken to be the study of purpose in a prescriptive, moral sense, as in the ends toward which we aim our actions, the good that we seek to bring about. That is the sense in which I mean the term here. — Pfhorrest

Saying we apply morality to ourselves refers to my second my point. My first point was that Greek teleology leads directly to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rynlfggqAcU

Teology is a blurry question. Do you believe homosexuality bad and straight sex good?

In a moment of conscience the "law" is objective, but maybe everyone has different situational experiences

Whereas in techno-culture, 'how things truly are' is devoid of value, meaningless, as 'what truly is' are the elemental particles or forces of physics, within which the individual has emerged due to fortuitous circumstances. — Wayfarer

Why this widespread prejudice against "the composite"? Why isn't matter magical and spiritual? Why assume a soul separate from matter is better than matter? All these are assumptions from dualism

"Saint" Augustine was a worm. He was all "I think babies committed sins thousands of years before they were born and are therefore evil. If they die before we splash water on them they burn forever in Gehenna". What a sick dud.

I am not going to get into details with you because you can't think philosophically yet. Go read a Bible instead, bc that's were you mental bent leads to

I didn't go back. You keep asking questions you already had the answer to. I am no longer a Christian BTW. Im a materialist atheist, as I've already said. And I wouldnt want to be in your head

You really can't figure out that your logic is calling you to Christianity? Jezz
I've already been down your road

False on every point. All your questions on this thread have been answered. As for emergence, dead matter makes the subconscious mind and then consciousness. Matter is magical but you're just mad because you dont get it

I've already told you that you won't find answers in Spinoza. His view of God is to ambiguous. Also, I think you dont understand emergence because you dont know how to philosophize properly. This thread has become ridiculous

Nobody knows what Spinoza would have said the the "hard" problem. I don't think it's a hard problem to begin with. Why shouldn't concsciousness come from non-consciousness? Could you please write a paragraph explaining it's onto-logically impossible for consciousness to come from matter which has formed into a brain? New things arise. Red and blue make a brand new color (purple). What in the world is no difficult about consciousness coming from energy in the brain and spinal cord? I don't get it. People nowadays fixate on consciousness and ask "why this instead of nothing? What explains it". I don't think they will ever get an answer by fixating on it from that angle. Better to give up the problem and come at it from a different place latter in life

Why are you trying to find your philosophical position based on the esoteric writings of a long dead Jewish writer? Just wondering

Nobody has mentioned the Stadium paradox. If the two moving columns are made of 3 discrete parts each, and pass another other column from opposite sides in a discrete second, is the relative time between the moving columns even a thing? Wouldn't the relative time be less than a pure instant then? How does modern physics theory on time and motion deal with this? Maybe I should start a new thread. I've read that "A History of Greek Mathematics" by Heath discussrd this neglected paradox of Zeno in Chapter VIII. I personally haven't thought of it in awhile

Baden is a tough guy to debate

I have 95 current thread but quite a few of others have been deleted because they were not fleshed out well enough. I wish they would have at least sent me back what I had written in them, but you have to learn get along with people. Then you will find this to be a place of intellectual pleasure. I don't think you're out of here yet, unless you want to

Does Spinoza name the category error involved in asking about God's self-awareness?

Capitalizing the pronoun "Him" clarifies you are referring to God. I listen to the "Him between" my conscious and unconscious mind. But I am an atheist. Spinoza is spiritual reading for me, but I don't take it literally, and I don't think I am far from Spimoza's views anyways