In fine, courage used to be overcoming fear. Now it is succumbing to it. — Leghorn

Nah. It's not that uncommon even for top athletes to drop out of big competitions. But the narrative about sports have changed over time. Listen esp. to the interviews with athletes after an event, where they explain and justify why they won or lost. It's pop psychology, carefully tailored for PR purposes, going with the spirit of the times.

I think Biles' explanation of why she didn't compete in all the events is in line with the currently popular sports narrative, although I think she took it even a step further; or perhaps this was simply how it came accross, given that it happened at such a high-level sporting event.


Note: If she said she needed to take a break from competing due to an injury or some physical problem, this could mean the end of competing for her for these OG altogether (because the doctors wouldn't give her a pass for continuing). But the mental health defense was a strategic way to take a much needed break and to recover, so as to be better able to compete in the final competitions. She could have said "I need to sit this one out, and save my energy for the final performance", but this would be bad for her PR, and I'm not sure it's even allowed by Olympic standards.

A terrifying new theory: Fake news and conspiracy theories as an evolutionary strategy (Paul Rosenberg, Salon, Aug 2021) — jorndoe

Of course. It's the old conman's art, taken to the next level. I've been saying this for quite some time now.

Other than wishful thinking and human anthropomorphism there is absolutely no reason to assume god is omnibenevolent or for that matter omnipotent.
Given the assumption of both omni's (all Christian apologetics and other theological hand waving aside) there is no convincing or satisfactory response to the religious "problem of evil". Thus it becomes a major problem for religion and a major source of disbelief in any form of deity, sacred, holy or numinous entity. — prothero

If we drop our humanist sensitivities, a whole new world of opens up, a world of new ways of conceiving goodness and justice. Capitalism has been teaching us that for a couple of centuries now, it's time we learned the lesson.

Think of God as a capitalist business owner. It's simply in his best interest to make the world run as he pleases, and he also has the power to make it happen.

It's actually strange that so many secular people have been conceiving of God in, basically, socialist terms; ie. that God should be a socialist, or he doesn't exist.

Pity God's inactive on infant leukemia. — Tom Storm

That's because the children must pay for the sins of their parents!

I believe that if God exists, he is a Trumpista. Seriously. It took me a long time to get to this point.

If God has to allow pain for a greater good, there is still the problem of predestination. Why create people who will go to hell or not ensure that they go to heaven? — Gregory

If one is a massive badass -- excuse the language -- motherfucker, then one can do so.

We humans tend to judge God by our own standards, as different as they might be. So those people who have a humanist worldview tend to be appalled by the idea that God should be viewed as omnibenevolent _and_ omnipotent, given the massive suffering that so many people must endure already here and now (to say nothing of the prospect of eternal suffering). But people with a more Darwinist outlook might be better able to incorporate the way things usually are in this world with the idea that God is omnibenevolent _and_ omnipotent.

It's only for the select few. So you have nothing to fear

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it ... For many are called, but few are chosen ... (Matt 7:14; 22:14) — Apollodorus

This, however, points at the inherent unfairness of the situation.

So God created mostly scrap?? In his infinite goodness and wisdom, he chose that most of his creation should go to waste??

Yes. I would have thought human emotional connection to sound and beat helped to build our original impulses. Not hard to see how sounds of nature, bird song and animal calls (representations of threats and pleasures) would have led to music which allowed us to intensify our sense of the numinous, hence chants, sacred song and hymns. — Tom Storm

These things are culturally specific, though.
For example, we can't relate to Indian or Japanese music the way the natives do, the way they intend it.

And Mahler.

As interpreted by which conductor?

Then you're doing it wrong. There should be some use to them.

Of course! One of the things I've regretted in my adult life, is the paucity of my education in the classics of ancient literature and philosophy. I was always a poor student, for various reasons, but aside from that, hardly any of this material was on my curriculum. Later in life, I've come to realise just how profound the classical philosophical tradition is, even though my knowledge of it is fragmentary. In my view - which is shared with Pierre Hadot, who is a scholar of the history of philosophy - most of what passes for philosophy in today's world, has nothing to do with philosophy as understood in the classical tradition. Philosophy proper is a transformative understanding of the nature of life. — Wayfarer

Oh, how fresh you sound! How romantic!

The upshot of being born and raised in old-fashioned Europe is that one did get a classical education. But it's also an education that kills one's interest in the Classics. (There is a cynical saying -- "The Classics are those that everybody knows and nobody reads.")

evertheless if you practice it - and really Zen meditation is neither easy nor entertaining and very easy NOT to do - then those insights can become integrated into your outlook. Through that you can begin to understand the meaning of those teachings in a kind of embodied way. — Wayfarer

But what is the use of "understanding the meaning of those teachings in a kind of embodied way"?

You said elsewhere you have attained a "greater degree of equanimity, and a loosening of self-centredness" through your practice. I don't doubt that. But what is the use of those attainments?

You mean what if these forms of personal conviction really are higher knowledge of reality? My question is how that could ever be demonstrated or known to be true. How could you ever demonstrate that you know that to be true as opposed to believing it to be true? — Janus

Why would you need to demonstrate it?

If one had truly come to a spiritual attaiment, that would be the one knowledge, the one attainment that one would not feel the need to demonstrate to others.

but merely that they should be honest to both themselves and others and admit that it is a question of faith not knowledge (in the sense of being 'knowledge that' or propositional knowledge at least).

So what are you? The arbiter of other people's reality?

I think discipleship is for those who don't have the capacity/(ies) to inquire and think for themselves and practice in their own way (s); it's valid enough for them, but won't suit a freethinker. — Janus

Yet freethinking won't necessarily stop you from falling into an abyss, or save you from it.
Freethinking is no guarantee for success, in any field of endeavor.

Your opinions are not supported by the texts. You will never find Socrates boasting of anything. — Wayfarer

Meh. Those folks mastered the art of humility.
It is the mark of a plebeian mind to take things literally, to take them as if they were said straightforwardly, and not, perhaps, diplomatically.

George Lucas set the precedent.

“Fear is the path to the dark side … fear leads to anger … anger leads to hate … hate leads to suffering.”

And suffering is the prerequisite for nibbana! For nobody gets to nibbana unless they've suffered first.

From the egological point of view, the idea of a 'superior being' is always interpreted as a claim, and a threat, or as a power-structure. No doubt religious institutions have exploited this dynamic, as do political organisations and leaders.

Not just interpreted, but this is how the "spiritually advanced" so often behave.
There's a reason why that meme of Trump's head being photoshopped onto the body of a Theravada monk took hold.

But it ought not to be forgottten that in the Christian faith, the higher being manifested as a lowly indigent, in the person of Jesus, subject to all manner of insults and punishment by death.

God can incarnate in all kinds of forms. The incarnation that Christians prefer is just one of many.

Unfortunately, in many cases (though by no means all), it becomes a pseudo-spirituality (or ersatz religion) that is just a form of materialism by another name. — Apollodorus

And these people make more money in leading one retreat than you do in a year. Or ten years.
Not negligible.

[Socrates'] knowing how to live in the face of his ignorance is what the examined life is all about.
— Fooloso4
:fire: — 180 Proof

:fire: :fire: :fire:

I'm OK with humility, but I have no truck with obedience; that is for pets and children. — Janus

We are children of the State to whom we owe obedience. Or the State beats it into us.

I think there is no reason whatsoever to believe that is true. Even if it were true there could be no conceivable way to demonstrate it. Believing that could not change a thing; you would still be run over and killed by the semi-trailer you stepped in front of no matter how enlightened you are. — Janus

It is said that the spiritually advanced are generally beyond any "very bad karma" happening to them. Rumor has it that an enlightened person could, in fact, step in front of a semi-trailer, but the semi-trailer's engine would fail or its brakes malfunction and block just in time for the semi-trailer to stop before it would hit the enlightened person.

Can it actually be demonstrated that, for instance, thrilling to a Mahler symphony can't happen if naturalism is true? — Tom Storm

Well, I can't see what kind of adaptive utility it provides. Can you? I often think that musical prodigies, in particular, are very difficult to account for from a biological perspective - unless you want to suggest that such abilities are like peacock's tails or a kind of superfluous effervesence. — Wayfarer

To understand this, we need to go back a bit from Mahler, to the music of the Classical period, notable composers being Mozart and Beethoven. The music of the Classical period delivered via music the classical worldview. This is exemplified, among other things, in the three-partite way the movements of a Classical piece are typically ordered: the first is a cheerful one, the second is sad, disappointed, the third is a moderate, leaning toward the optimistic, but not cheerful -- neither the cheerfulness of the first nor the sadness of the second. (The structure is adopted accordingly for musical forms that have more than three movements, but the overall ordering is the same. Also, some Classical composers, esp. Beethoven, broke this order in the initial movements, but ended Classically.) Such is the Classical spirit.

This differs notably from the Romantic spirit (and many later developments) where pieces don't end on a moderate note, but in sadness or aporia. Compare, for example, the final movements of Beethoven's 5th symphony and Tchaikovsky's 6th.

People have always directly or indirectly managed their emotions through music (and this is its adaptive utility). And via managing their emotions, their worldview.


(And as for Mahler, specifically: Without a formal music education, it's hard to grasp the sheer effort that goes into his music, so musically uneducated people tend to be overly pathetic about it. If they manage to listen to the pieces in full at all, heh)

I don't rule out the possibility of such capabilities; all I'm saying is that they cannot be demonstrated. If Gautama believes he can remember his past 5000 incarnations, how could that ever be proven? How could even the Buddha know that he is not deluding himself or mistaken? — Janus

It's not like Gautama cares what you think about him and his abilities. You know, just like you --

As I see it all it requires is not being concerned about the opinions of others and making up your own mind. — Janus

I have yet to see any argument explaining why I should believe that the purported truth of what the Buddha believes he knows can be rationally or empirically tested.

Yes, I know that and I've already explored that world for more than twenty years and found it wanting.

Are you happy with the world of spirituality,

In that case, you're still in the positions of victim or martyr in relation to spirituality.

why would you be wasting your time here in the world of logic, rational argument and empirical justification?

Thanks for the laugh!
Getting involved in philosophy, I've learned that there is no such thing as philosophy without ideology.

I don't see why you say that. As I see it all it requires is not being concerned about the opinions of others and making up your own mind. — Janus

If one is blissfully ignorant of how one's opinions came to be (and whom one got them from), then all is well in la-la land...

This is also a reason why "ancient wisdom" isn't so popular: to acknowledge ancient wisdom would be to acknowledge that one's ideas aren't one's own, but that one got them from others. Now, that's deflating.

I disagree. Sure people can make the best of bad situations, but I don't believe anyone with any self-respect would choose to live under any form of tyranny. As to being politically correct androids, I don't count failing to think for yourself as an example of fulfilling your potential and hence it also doesn't count as an example of thriving in my view.

Oh really, and how do you know that? What criteria do you personally employ to enable you to judge whether someone is fulfilling their potential?

Note, I haven't said you have to agree with my view; you should have your own view which you have worked out for yourself, if you have the capacity for that at least; otherwise you will fail to reach, or even approach, your potential in my view.

Oh, so you know what my potential is?

Come on.

And what is more, spiritually advanced people tend to resent to be put to the test and their actions judged.
— baker
Oh really, and how do you know that? What criteria do you personally employ to enable you to judge whether someone is spiritually advanced or not?

I'm being both cynical and not. I've noticed that people who tend to describe themselves as "spiritually advanced" or who imply as much tend to resent to be put to the test and their actions judged. (Or their fans do it on their behalf.)

Personally, I'm not sure what it means to be "spiritually advanced" (if I would know that, I wouldn't be here at this forum). But my overall impression is that being spiritually advanced might very well have nothing to do with the usual lovey-dovey notions that some people promote in the name of spirituality (kindness, compassion, empathy), but something much more Darwinian. I have this impression based on the things that the supposedly spiritually advanced people do that get described as "kind, compassionate, empathetic", and those acts include killing, raping, and pillaging.

Rubbish! Chronic and crippling doubt may lead to mental disorders, but mere acknowledgement of uncertainty is just being intellectually honest.

Your arguments are not convincing; surely you can do better?

You've been operating out of some unstated premises, it's those I want you to spell out.

But it's not just they are not obliged.. They are forcing the situation and then post-facto saying "Oh I'm not obliged". It's not obliging it's enabling the situation. That's different. — schopenhauer1

So return the favor; or disfavor, in this case.
Wimps don't win.

I simply mean.. In the Ice Cream example, you can choose NOT to pick anything. In the life example, that isn't an option. Is that just?
In the less wide-ranging example, I used work/survival instead of life itself..
You can choose from options. Most people think this is justice and freedom- CHOOSING an option amongst many. BUT the option not to choose an option related to one's own survival (except slow death from starvation as default) is not on the table. Is that justice? So you have the OPTION to CHOOSE a lifestyle in Westernized economic system, homelessness, making it in wilderness, free rider, etc. But you cannot choose NOT to do any of those. — schopenhauer1

So who or what is the instance to whom or which you can file this complaint?

Which is why I find a lot of contention over fine points of logic to be frustrating, especially when there are clearly extra-logical factors involved. — Pantagruel

Critical thinking is vastly overrated anyway.

Cultivate honesty and kindness; weed out hate and greed. The rest is unimportant. — unenlightened

Will the irony never end!!

Not only that, but even in terms of finding our own way toward the attainment of wisdom, we cannot do it in complete isolation but need at least from time to time to turn to external points of reference in order to verify that what we have found or are in the process of finding is indeed wisdom and not something else. — Apollodorus

The problem is that those external points of reference are often hostile to us, and we have to find a way to rely on and trust people who, at the very least, don't care if we live or die.

Strange, isn't it, how some people never outgrow the early naive stage of psychological development in which they anthropomorphize every thing, "seeing" intentional agents and hidden purposes every where, like toddlers in a nursery? The world is not a cradle, Freud points out; rather the world is an indifferent wilderness by turns beautiful and terrible, and yet many demand it be more secure and comforting – consoling – than it is, and via hasty generalizations and compositional fallacies they posit some "religious or idealist metaphysics" (re: ego-flattering "Providence") which, of course, collapses under rational scrutiny like blowing on a house of cards. — 180 Proof

And yet precsiely those same people who demand the Universe to be a welcoming place for them, who demand it to be secure and comforting for them get to thrive in it. Because such people, believing they are entitled to security and comfort in this world, tame rivers, kill the infidels, and pursue science, in order to make the world a safe place for themselves. And they get it done.

What if wisdom consists in ataraxia, though? What if it consists in simply following your inclinations and conscience, of being yourself fearlessly, and being skeptical of external so-called authorities and traditional methods as paths to wisdom and of any claims that we need to rely on such things to gain wisdom? — Janus

That would require one to be an epistemic autonomist, and to in fact be epistemically autonomous. Epistemic autonomy is not possible. Because, as you later say:

I agree we are not isolated individuals; we always live and think within a received cultural matrix. — Janus

However, the garden variety of what you describe in the first quote above is epistemic narcissim, which is fairly common.

I think wisdom is, and can only be, tested by action. "By their fruits ye shall know them". I think this applies to oneself; by your fruits shall ye know yourself—"talk is cheap". — Janus

No, that's not enough, because one still needs some standards by which to assess those fruits.

If beliefs and actions appear to support thriving and happiness in oneself and others, then I would say they count as wise beliefs and actions. i don't claim this could ever be an exact science, but I think a sufficiently open-minded, observant and intelligent inquirer should be able to judge reasonably well as to what promotes peace and harmony and what promotes conflict and disharmony in both oneself and others. — Janus

Except that humans have developed such vastly different ideas of what counts as "thriving", "happiness", "peace", "harmony" that the above criteria are too general. People can thrive, be happy, live in peace and harmony while living under tyranny. People can also thrive, be happy, live in peace and harmony if they are politically correct androids.

The problem I see with relying on external "points of reference" is that you would need to already know that those points of reference were manifestations of wisdom. How could you know that unless you could see the fruits of those external points of reference and have the practical wisdom to recognize them as fruits of wisdom?

And what is more, spiritually advanced people tend to resent to be put to the test and their actions judged.

I think we must make our assessments in acknowledgement of uncertainty and the possibility of doubt as Socrates seems to be advocating.

Of course. But as points out repeatedely, acknowledgement of doubt and uncertainty can lead to a schizoaffective disorder.

If the Sun & Moon should doubt they'd immediately go out .

I don't want to put words into Wayfarer's mouth but isn't one of his opinions that the post enlightenment worldview, especially that of the current, post-Darwinian era holds a limited physicalist metaphysics and has rejected much wisdom that was ours for millennia? I imagine that these old books contain some of this repudiated knowledge and many other ideas besides worth cultivating. — Tom Storm

Let's just keep in mind that for many of these ancient authors, a half of the human population was by default considered lesser beings. They thought women are defective, incomplete men.

Being loud doesn't count as "aggressive" in my view. You sometimes get groups of teenage girls that have had a few drinks and are a bit loud, and sometimes women or girls may start a fight with other girls but that's very rare. I just don't think you can extrapolate from this that women in general are "aggressive". — Apollodorus

?
The extrapolation was never that women in general are aggressive. That's all on you.

The original claim was that American women tend to be more aggressive than other women.
Also, where I come from, being loud is generally considered aggressive.

So, I tend to believe that certain (anti-materialist/metaphysical) philosophical systems help to prepare the mind for this expansion process and that meditation is another important aid in this direction. — Apollodorus

And all this to what end?

Yes, I realized that the first is conviction that someone else knows and the second is conviction that oneself knows. Still both just amount to conviction. — Janus

And if one uses this conviction as a starting point, and then practices accordingly, then -- so the official theory -- one attains the fruits of the Path.

If you believe that is possible, then fine, but you should be intellectually honest enough to acknowledge that believing that cannot ever be anything more than a matter of faith, — Janus

How can you possibly know that?
The world of spirituality is a world of hierarchy and exceptionalism. Some people are said to be capable of things that others cannot even dream of.

This is a philosophy forum and if you want to claim that extraordinary knowledge is possible then it is incumbent on you to explain how that extraordinary knowledge could constitute knowledge in any sense that could be justified by logic, reason or empirical evidence.

Actually, he doesn't have to. If he did it, he'd be playing by your rules.

Are we here to find a guru?

Are you? The world of spirituality operates by its own principles. And if you choose to enter it, you need to bear this in mind, or you'll waste a lot of time.

“Human wisdom is of little or no value.” (23a)

“This one of you, O human beings, is wisest, who, like Socrates, recognizes that he is in truth of no account in respect to wisdom.” (23b)

/.../ — Fooloso4

Oh come on. These are just exaggerations in the name of humility, not statements of factuality.

Plato went to enormous lengths NOT to preach. To see him as a preacher is an injustice to his memory. His dialogues are models of reasoned persuasion. — Wayfarer

When there is a power differential between two people, we cannot talk of reasoned persuasion anymore, then it's preaching.
I don't find preaching irksome, I just want things to be called by their name. Yes, that's plebeian, but so am I.

They sometimes contain exhortations and obviously have a religious aspect to them, but characterising him as a preacher looses the very real distinction between philosophy and religion. I think we tend to characterise it like that, because we tar anything religious with the same brush. — Wayfarer

Not I. I have my own reasons. I think philosophers are generally given way too much credit and assumed to be more different than religious preachers. It seems that in a mad rush to create a world and society of their own, secularists have adopted some old thinkers for their secular purposes, while downplaying the actual religious agendas of those thinkers. Like Descartes, for example, that Trojan horse.

Don't you find it odd that people who supposedly were so skeptical about their own abilities to obtain proper knowledge, nevertheless had so much to say, with utter certainty, about gods and ideas and a number of other things?
— baker

If by 'people', you mean those who speak through the Platonic dialogues,

No, I mean people like Socrates who goes on saying how little he knows -- and yet he's so sure about so many things!

many of their utterances were not at all marked by 'absolute certainty'. There is much weighing up, arguments for and against, doubts raised and not always dispelled.

It's more likely that this is just for show, the Socratic method. Not real doubt or uncertainty.

Plato himself is very diffident in respect of his arguments about philosophical ultimates. He's no tub-thumper. Of course for subsequent generations Platonism became absorbed into the Christian corpus, and then it began to assume a dogmatic character that it originally didn't have.

I think you're painting the ancients as more rosy, egalitarian, skeptical, humble then they really were.

Nor can these states be transmitted or even described to others. If nothing else, this suggests that we should not dismiss things just because science cannot find them and put them under the microscope. — Apollodorus

But why should we accept them?

I think "religious preachers" is a bit exaggerated. Plato, in any case, is working with religious ideas that were already current at the time. Like other Greek philosophers, he is simply trying to make those ideas acceptable to thinking people by supporting them with rational arguments. — Apollodorus

But did he arrive at his certainty about those religious ideas by those same rational arguments with which he's trying to persuade thinking people?

Plato's idea of the Forms was already present in latent form in Greek culture, religion, and language. Plato's theory is a logical development of existing elements.

Which is all the more reason to suspect that he did not arrive at his certainty about those religious ideas by those same rational arguments with which he's trying to persuade thinking people.

Similarly, Socrates does not reject religious beliefs, he merely wants thinking men to examine their beliefs and only accept those that can be supported by reason.

So he was doing something similar as Descartes in his Meditations?

You don't have Asperger's and you know damn well what I'm talking about.

Nothing wrong with being loud if they are being themselves, is there? Even Spaniards and Italians can be loud but, again, because they are being themselves. — Apollodorus

So this is not an aggressive dog, he's just "being himself"?

You are easily outraged! The quote is with regard to his ignorance. His knowing how to live in the face of his ignorance is what the examined life is all about. — Fooloso4

That's bizarre. Nothing in what he says suggests he had such ignorance. Rather, that like a good boy scout, he was dead sure of right and wrong, good and bad.

I don't think I quite agree with that. Louder than other English-speaking women, e.g., English, Irish, maybe. But definitely NOT aggressive, they are just being themselves. — Apollodorus

By my dinosaur standards, they _are_ aggressive, and this isn't mutually exclusive with "being themselves".

I would say Japanese and Chinese women can sound aggressive. And, above all, Arabs. But none of them sound as aggressive as the men.

I find that generally, it's the women who are more aggressive.

So why read those old books?
— baker

As I said before, I posted the link for those interested. There's no penalty for not being interested. — Wayfarer

No, I want to know what use is there in reading those old books. Don't just brush this off idly, it's not an idle question.

Is there anything more to it than nostalgia?

They talk, I listen. — 180 Proof

IOW, a hierarchical one-way relationship in which you are the underdog.
IRL, you'd get tired of such an arrangement quickly.