There's an excellent essay on this very topic by Galen Strawson, called Red and 'Red'. It's available online, but it's very expensive, so not worth it. I wish I could find it online somewhere for free. I'll keep trying.

EDIT: Nevermind, found it. It's quite tough in some areas, but it covers the topic pretty well.

https://www.academia.edu/397789/Red_and_Red_1989_

And mathematics is just a language. It's certain to itself by definition. — Zophie

Mathematics being a language is metaphoric. It doesn't have the same properties of natural languages such as syntax, tenses, verbs, etc. as well as most aspects of ordinary language use. It's similar to calling cooking a "science".

So what's the difference? — Zophie

Common sense changes when science tells us something about the world, such as, we are not the center of the universe, the sun doesn't rise and set nor does the sun go around the Earth. Apples fall because of gravity, not because they want to go down, and so forth.

But we can't help seeing the sun rising and setting, nor can't we (often) help think that we are the center of the universe. Common sense is stubborn in these respects.

Also key to the model is the assertion, yet to be verified, that many forms of quantum process such as entanglement and superposition produce qualia at a fundamental level. Essentially, it is intrinsic of matter to perceive and feel, or at least contain fragments of perception and feeling, and these quantum resonance properties will be as objective as shape and size. — Enrique

Does your model follow certain aspects of Penrose's and Hammeroff's theory?

It's hard to say if quantum processes produce consciousness. It's plausible. We now know that physical stuff is far more sophisticated than what is initially apparent in common sense thought, so in some vague sense, the potential for consciousness and for everything else, can be found at bottom level of the universe. On the other hand, it may not be necessary for these new properties to arise.

If it turns out that it is not the case and that consciousness arises much later in evolution, then we have to look at the issue by way of emergence, which is a real phenomenon, but one that doesn't say much. There's also a huge leap between experience, such as the type of experience we attribute to say birds and self-consciousness, where we can reflect on this experience. That's also a very hard problem. At this stage, it's worth pursuing all options.

Phrased like this, this question is terminological. We can say that a machine "knows" to recognize our voice the way a calculator "knows" what the answer for 32578+97722 is, as elevators knows which floor we want to go to.

For that matter we can say ants know where the queen in the colony is and bees know how to defend themselves. But these examples of know don't have much to say about knowing in the human case, or so it seems to me. It's analogous to asking whether airplanes really fly as opposed to glide (in Hebrew, apparently, they glide) or if cars fly as opposed to race. You can choose whatever words you'd like to describe such occurrences.

But asking what "knowing" is in the human case is very difficult, it's still very much debated. But I don't think looking at AI helps much at all, it's better to continue studying people for these matters.

Depends what field of philosophy you are talking about. If it's philosophy of mind, then yes, some aspects of the field are similar to ideas found in empirical phycology. There's also a new trend of trying to incorporate aspects phenomenology to psychology. The thing is, psychology deals with an extremely difficult topic, human beings, so there's a lot of room for development in the field. So there's going to be some connection between the two fields.

On the other hand, things like metaphysics, logic, aesthetics and so on, don't seem to have a direct relationship with psychology. These distinctions between different areas of knowledge often are arbitrary and most of them started as being part of philosophy. But sill philosophy encompasses more areas than empirical psychology.

I can't resist adding some more comments here, this really is an inexhaustible topic. People have different sensibilities, preferences, perspectives, biases and perceptions. I can't substantiate this claim with any evidence, but I suspect a minority of people may not have felt as impactful something analogous to what mysticism may be, which can be loosely associated with spiritualism and the like.

But I have a hard time believing that even this minority has never felt, at least one time, a feeling that this moment here is extraordinary. One aspect of mysticism would be those situations which can be put in words (inadequately) and made manifest, such as being in nature and suddenly feeling how sublime and impactful the world around may be. In this sense there is the external anchor, meaning, we relate the mystical experience with something in manifest reality, the world "out there", to speak loosely.

Another instance would be that of an internal nature. I remember once walking in my city, listening to music, I don't remember what kind. I suppose I was feeling good, or at least I was untroubled. As I was taking my usual route, quite suddenly, my body disappeared from the planet. What follows can only be an aberration as put into words. But it was if my body ceased to exist. I was only consciousness. I suppose a very rough analogy would be to think of the phenomenon of ball lighting in the mind's eye, all there was was thoughts connected to other thoughts, waxing in and out seamlessly.

I had no legs, no arms. The world was gone, in the sense that it receded so far into the background, it was inconsequential and totally negligible. Kinda like when one goes to the movie theater and is so engrossed in the movie, that you cease to notice the seats and people around you, but magnified to maximum capacity.

This must have lasted, I want to say, somewhere between 7 to 10 minutes. As soon as the world left, it came back. And I was immediately cognizant of the fact that something absolutely extraordinary had happened, feeling like a cloud of blissful thought. This kind of mystical experience I'd call "internal", in the sense that the world per se was not the object of amazement. I've never known what it meant, nor how to get that feeling back, if it's possible at all.

I reached no theological conclusions, nor did it vindicate or eliminate any previous views I my have had about the world. Only the trivial statement that the power of the mind is beyond words, by far.

I can only say that I do feel sorry for that potentially few percentage of people who deny or pay no attention to such experiences. But I understand that this type of personal evidence should not be taken to make theoretical postulates about the world.

Sorry for the long post, but I feel I should've shared that, if only for my benefit.

Well, there's a lot to your post. Lots of good information.

It's very interesting. I'm simple minded, so forgive my misunderstanding, if there is any, which is likely. Who says that someone can be completely justified in believing X? A person can be more or less justified in believing a proposition or an event, but absolute certainty is not attainable, with (perhaps) the exception of mathematics. We can then speak of, say, religious fanatics, but that type of belief doesn't make much sense to an otherwise rational person, so that can be put aside.

As I understand it, science is provisional, always subject to further revision. Common sense is different. If we see grass outside our windows and other people say they can see it too, then one can be relatively confident that one's belief is true, in so far as our statements mean anything in ordinary discourse. But common sense can also change, as it has done in history.

As for realism being false, if you mean by that word that there is a mind-independent world which we can know, maybe, maybe not. We can only see as far as our cognitive capacities can take us to and no further.

The only real point of potential contention would be that I'm unclear what you mean by rationalism being false in this instance.

The rest rings true to me, in so far as ethics and systems go. This very much reminds me of Nelson Goodman's "irrealism" as expressed in his Starmaking, which is a fantastic book. It's with people like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett which you might get an argument. But it should not be too controversial, unless I'm missing some big point.

All in all, well explained and expressed. :)

The other day I read a tweet by a woman, sarcastically and rhetorically wondering aloud how the (then) “most recent mass shooting was going to be blamed on pussy.” — James Riley

Yes, it's a complex topic. I hope it's not connected with extreme political correctness of the postmodern variety. If it's simply feminism, then there's a lot to discuss.

But I would like to have an answer to the question just asked, above. If philosophy does address sex, how is the line drawn between that which is philosophical and that which is another discipline? — James Riley

Well, take this with a grain of sand as I am a Schopenhauerian, but Schopenhauer has some interesting things to say about this, I'll link an article below. As for other philosophers that speak about sex, it's not the most common topic sadly so far as I know.

https://www.samwoolfe.com/2020/08/schopenhauer-on-sex-and-romantic-love.html

I always fall back on my favorite platitude - There is only one world. We're all describing the same thing. Your question seems like the silly old "do I really see red the way you do" argument. — T Clark

There's good paper on the "red" argument, surprisingly, but that's a topic for another thread.

What you are describing reminds me of Susan Haack's "Innocent Realism", it's very interesting. This one I can share publicly, as opposed to Chomsky's essay, because this one is available online. I'll post it here in case anyone want's to take a look at it, I think it's a promising framework, and seems to follow from what you are saying:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305505412_THE_WORLD_ACCORDING_TO_INNOCENT_REALISM_THE_ONE_AND_THE_MANY_THE_REAL_AND_THE_IMAGINARY_THE_NATURAL_AND_THE_SOCIAL_2016

Hmmm. It's certainly possible.

Then again, when Democritus was talking about atoms was he talking about the same atoms Bohr was talking about? It's not evident to me that they were talking about the same thing. Likewise, when Descartes spoke of bodies, was he referring to the same notion we use when we speak of bodies? There's a difference in that idea too. Maybe in essence, we are speaking of similar ideas?

On the other hand, when it comes to trying to articulate what is mystical, it might be correct that Lao-Tzu and Wittgenstein and many others have in mind the same thing, because so little is known in this area, or at least that's how it looks like to me.

It depends on what you mean by "reality". Reality, so broadly construed, is the combination of your senses interacting with consciousness. If we had no senses at all, it's plausible that we'd still have consciousness, only that the "external world" would be significantly or maybe totally impoverished.

It would be hard to argue one would be able to acquire knowledge, wisdom and the like, though logic and mathematics are different. You said if we "maintain" our awareness. If that presupposes we once had senses, then I believe we'd still have an image of the world in our minds, but that would likely atrophy as more time goes on.

If we never had any contact with the world through our senses, it's hard to work out what would happen in consciousness. But whatever remains would be "reality". There's nothing more such a word could mean in such conditions.

Banno is one of those young fish. But Banno proceeds to the conclusion that since "we" don't know what the hell water is, the older fish who uses that term doesn't know either. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to respond. You quoted me, but I'm not Banno. I'm sure said person will have something to say.

In the context of the speech, which is much longer than what I quoted, Wallace indicates that the older fish does know what water is. At least, it looks quite clear that that's what the author intended to say.

I'm in a planet in the andromeda galaxy in space, or so the evidence indicates. Saying what "here" means exactly, is not so straightforward. Currently I'm in a city, in my room. To my right is a window, to the left there are two mirrors. I'm towards the back of the room, more to the side of the mirrors than the windows.

I can see my feet If I look down and I don't even need to move my eyes much to see my fingers. Where am I in my body? It seems as if "I" am somewhere behind my eyes, for some reason.

I'm a temporal seeming.

There are two definitions of philosophy that I know of, both of which imply strangeness.

One, told to me by an important figure, is that philosophy has never had a proper definition, it simply deals with the issues that come out of a certain tradition. Thus, philosophy is, whatever people who engage with this tradition do, and this includes almost everything.

The other is somewhat more straightforward: philosophy is the study of mysteries. Throughout history, we've managed to give answers to a small fraction of what the Greeks had questions about. These answers developed into modern science. Most of the big questions however, have not been answered and may never be answered by anyone, so that's still philosophy.

All aspects of life deal with evidently strange, counter-intutive, difficult and complex issues, which are strange. Studying mysteries is strange almost by definition.

And yes, I think you are right, we use concepts all the time we don't fully understand at all, yet we have relatively little difficulty in talking to other people most of the time. It is strange.

I would be interested in the essay. If you post it, I'll take a look. — T Clark

I can't find it online, save for it being pay-walled. I have it as a PDF, thus I can only send it through email. It's called "Mysteries of Nature: How Deeply Hidden?" by Chomsky.

As Lao Tzu wrote - The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. — T Clark

Very much so. It would be interesting to discover if all these mystical teachers, philosophers, people, had in mind the same thing, or something slightly different. Alas, it's clear words can't do it justice.

Very much so. The curious thing about this is that there seems to be no direct way to communicate mysticism, we have to elude, circumscribe, reveal, retreat and then make manifest what was already there. It's a bit like running in a straight line all around the world, just to find yourself where you originally were, but this time everything is different, more illuminated and transcendent.

Another quote:

"There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”

.........

It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:

“This is water.”

“This is water.”

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out."

- David Foster Wallace

Given the immanent catastrophe of climate change, I think many of these aspects of totalitarianism are going to become quite real.

Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will. As Gramsci said.

Careful. This sounds a bit new agey. I read somewhere that a mystery is a part of us we have hidden from ourselves. I think it may have been in Alan Watts. That makes a lot of sense to me. There is no mystery, just things we're not aware of. The Tao, God, enlightenment, reality, whatever - it's sitting right here in front of us right now. — T Clark

Well, I mean, I think there's good actual evidence for this view. I could send you a very good essay about if you are interested. But, in either case, point taken.

There are lots of good ways to know the world. Different ways work for different people. None of these ways of seeing we are calling mystical are necessarily any better than other ways of seeing. They work for some people and not for others. — T Clark

Sure. I only would like for people who think of this stuff, not to be labeled as "wacky" or the like. I don't think it is. I have in mind people like Dawkins, for example.

That is exactly right. I used the example of other people to make the point somewhat easier to conceptualize than the whole world.

I hope there is a way back, we have too little precious time left to save the human experiment and most of the wonderful life that we take liberties to destroy, with no consent. I get the intuition of what you say about "depriv[ing] of it's essence", but I happen to think that dogs are the most wonderful people. :p

:)

There's too much to say about that, that it's hard not to sound like a crazy person. Trying to be brief, I think we should keep in mind that there are different types of totalitarianism. There is the common one of totalitarian government, as can be seen in North Korea. But there are also totalitarian strains in movements, from far right movements to some aspects of the left, not that I think that both are equal in terms of actual menace in today's world.

We should also recognize that there is corporate totalitarianism, in that, corporations have this tendency too, of imposing there will, of subjecting all aspects of life to market society, that which can and cannot be purchased. This type of aspect in society is surely gaining ground, as welfare measures shrink in the name of "competition" and "having a vibrant economy". Of course, governments are the actors who are most visible, so if they take measures, prompted by concentrated economic powers, that are contrary to the public interests, it's the government that gets the blame, not concentrated wealth. So if a country reduces health benefits, clearly it's the governments fault which by implication leads to further privatization, and it becomes a self fulfilling cycle.

This aspect of society need to be made as visible as possible. Governments have plenty of faults and have committed horrible atrocities. They just so happen to also be the vehicle in which democratic will can be exercised for the good of the many. So yes, plenty of totalitarian threats from all areas, and economic crisis can't be too far away. Not the brightest of times, by any means.

I'll have to go to my "religion" and quote what I think it is:

Strangers passing in the street
By chance, two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me
And do I take you by the hand
And lead you through the land
And help me understand the best I can?

I know that the main point of the song (Echoes) is about empathy, but I suspect empathy and love are not as far removed as they may initially seem. I'm still personally struggling with my own articulation of my own philosophy, based as it is in Schopenhauer's metaphysics.

Simply put, I think that the idea of different people is an illusion, which arises from lack of adequate cognitive capacity. If we have more of it, we'd be able to clearly see that individuation is something we to do the world, that does not belong to it originally. There are problems to be ironed out here, but on first approximation, I think it's correct.

So, in my view, one definition of love would be to see yourself in other people.

I mean, you are correct that people have been doing it for thousands of years. The thing is to do it well, it helps to illustrate the point by adding some poetry, rhyme or style of some kind.

The thing is, in our current society, it's quite easy to find some New Age-ish perspective that says something like "the world is awesome, man. Feel the vibrations." Yeah, ok fine. But this type of talk can take away from the serious point:

The world is a mystery, existence is too. We have no idea why we are here, why things appear the way they do, or why we even have experience at all. Sure, you can speak in terms of the laws of physics and biological processes that lead to ever more complexification of life and that perception is merely the way the brain makes sense out of information.

I think this view, while true in so far as it manages to describe some facts, does nothing to explain why things are the way they are, and not some other way.

It's a bit of a shame that many people, if told this, don't seem to care or think it's empty or something. Why complicate everything? Well, I don't have a good answer to that. But I think it's evident.

Fortunately, it's very very short. The problematic thing is how to interpret it!

I'll have to compress even that to give the bare essentials, which is a distortion:

6.44 Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is.
6.52 We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered,
the problems of life have still not been touched at all. Of course
there is then no question left, and just this is the answer.
6.521 The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of
this problem.
(Is not this the reason why men to whom after long doubting
the sense of life became clear, could not then say wherein this
sense consisted?)
6.522 There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the
mystical.
7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

I take it to mean that the given in the world, what is self evident, cannot be expressed. Whatever we say about the world falls way short, therefore, instead of speaking non-sense we should not speak at all about such matters.

I agree with the description of the mystical here, but I still think we can talk about it while risking complete ridicule. That's my (mis)understanding about it.

Yes, I agree. That's one of the reasons I started this thread. — T Clark

I've always thought that Wittgenstein's mysticism in the Tractatus was extremely sensible and fascinating. The only disagreement I'd have with his presentation would be that, I think we can speak of the mystical as we can speak of anything else. It need not be silent nor need it be irrational or religious.

It's certainly a much, much better alternative than calling oneself "spiritual", or so it seems to me.

I think preventing pain is more important than bestowing pleasure, certainly. There is no obligation for providing pleasure, but certainly if one is ABLE to prevent pain, one should — schopenhauer1

Well, if you stick to pleasure without specifying what this entails, then the argument is obvious. But what fits under the term pleasure isn't trivial, unless you have in mind feeling good. If that's what pleasure is, then anyone can surely get very high on heroin and live a very short, but mostly very pleasurable existence. But that view is absurd. If we consider pleasure to include other things besides feeling good, such as, growing up in a nurturing, healthy environment and society, then it should be as much as an obligation as preventing pain.

OR you can not put someone in the game in the first place. However, this game is the "challenge/overcoming challenge" game which is more than presumptuous to assume OTHER PEOPLE must play. — schopenhauer1

As much as I may want to, I cannot say what other people should want in life. Sure they will not want pain, meaning unnecessary suffering, but I cannot tell other people not to have children for this reason. It should be a huge consideration, given the current state of the planet, I agree. But life isn't reducible to pain and pain avoidance alone, this should be evident.

However, if you choose not to put someone in existence, someone else is not living out the collateral damage. Also, going back to the game. Even if someone else likes the game, is it right to assume that force recruiting them is okay because YOU deem the game so good, that everyone else should play it? — schopenhauer1

Again, you only consider pain as the sole reason for games at all. It's way too narrow. What should be done is to make this place better for others now, instead of talking about pain alone. We'll all be dead soon anyway.

Just because there is no person suffering NOW, doesn't mean that the current action can't lead to a future person who suffers, which clearly it would in this case. — schopenhauer1

Correct. But this focuses on the pain side, there are other considerations. Unless you think pain is the only metric that matters in human life. It's a very important metric, though not the only one.

Does it matter if no "one" experiences a life that has a balance of pleasure or pain? "Who" exactly is suffering from this loss? — schopenhauer1

We can say anything about non-existent entities. But that can quickly turn pointless. No one is suffering the loss, and no one is is gaining the pleasure.

Ah, so you "bestow" an inescapable game on another person, one where the only way out is killing yourself. That seems pretty cruel.. Force into game that can only escape via extreme self-harm, one which is not easy to do for inbuilt fears of pain and the unknown. However, just because people don't commit suicide at the drop of a hat, doesn't mean that this is fair either. It just shows more that humans have a hard time inflicting self-harm and getting over death anxiety. — schopenhauer1

That's not the only way out. You can choose to struggle and look at the good aspects, that's always a possibility. But suicide is an option for anybody who thinks life is unbearable. And a good option to have too. Your perspective would strengthen substantially if we could not kill ourselves, that is, the only option for death is old age or injury/disease.

Of course it's not fair. Then again, if we could kill ourselves through mere strong willing, almost everyone would be dead, cause at one point in life, the option must have flashed in one's head. But people managed to find a way out of being at such depths. I'm not saying life is easy, nor is suicide, nor is pain trivial. But to assume that what you think is correct, and what I am somewhat sympathetic to (in part), is what other people should do, doesn't follow. Other people have different judgments.

If suicide isn't tenable because it's difficult, then one can look forward to death as salvation, as Mainländer argued. Though he killed himself to make it quicker.

Well, If I was not already clear, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the argument. Not completely, but I think it's not unreasonable, so I'm not sure why you frame the question as if I were attacking anything. The question of whether my values should or can be attributed to a non-existent entity doesn't arise. It only arises after a person is born.

That's just the thing, if the argument is based inherently on pleasure or pain, then these are the main metrics that will be used to judge whether a life if worth living. I agree that a lot of life consists in suffering. But that surely misses out on a lot of other aspects of life too.

Whether these other considerations are enough to justify a person having children varies. For those who do have children, or want to have them, the issue of potential pain can be answered with potential pleasure.

But there's a way out and it's a viable option for everybody. Whether people can overcome the biological imperative for wanting to stay alive, is person dependent.

I've been reading a bit more on anti-natalism. If anything, it's helpful to highlight the issue of the consequences of having children in today's age, given the risks we face as a species.

Having said that, I've only read a few threads, seen a few YouTube videos and the like, so I may be missing out on important themes. But, what I most see highlighted is the tension or the problem of the pain/pleasure ratio, which no doubt is important. But surely there is more to consider than pleasure and pain? Honor, honesty, struggle, sacrifice, ideals and the like do not fit in neatly to such a pleasure/pain schema, but it's not talked about much in these arguments, at least none that I have seen.

I think these things also merit mention, because they are also important in the life debate.

You are correct, in part. It's true that we don't need to understand it. But Descartes, Locke, Newton and the like expected understanding. They thought they understood how bodies worked: like a giant mechanical clock, the universe was thought merely to be a massive mechanistic machine. But Descartes realized that mechanical philosophy cannot explain mind, which is why he postulated a second substance. We are born with mechanistic, meaning, based on direct contact, intuitions that make sense to us.

And it was generally accepted, until Newton showed that our intuitive notions of mechanism, were false of the world. He could not believe that gravity worked the way it did, because it did not make any sense. And till' the end of his life he sought to reintroduce some mechanical aspect that could explain gravity intuitively. He failed in that, but that's what he wanted.

So it was clearly a philosophical problem. And you still listen people saying "we don't understand quantum mechanics, or why brain produces mind - yet." all the time! But as you said, there is nothing to understand, only something to describe. It's still a (mistaken) explicit goal.

That's a good question. It's not clear. I believe it depends on a topic for topic basis, and it depends on how far back you're willing to go. If you back to the 1950's or 60's, we still had countries that legally sanctioned racist laws and women were quite marginalized by today's standards. Cigarettes were still, I believe, advertised by doctors and animals rights were much more restrictive. So people have become more knowledgeable in these respects.

On the other hand, people took it for granted that the state played a crucial role in helping society out, and welfare benefits were much more proportionate and egalitarian. Even Eisenhower said that those who didn't think New Deal policies were necessary in society, had no business doing politics. This is of course, not mentioning Europe, where certain countries had extremely high living standards. Compare than now to "libertarians" or people who believe in Q and such madness. As you mentioned, the internet can be an excellent tool, if used properly. But since people can look anything up at any moment, no effort is made in learning things and people tend to look for info that reinforces beliefs.

If you go back further than this, by several hundred years, ignorance increases quite a lot. Though quackery has and will always be around in some form or another.

So, yes and no.

You may call me a hair-splitter, but how do you know we won't understand the answer to the hard question, once we found it? We may NEVER find it, but it's not guaranteed that it is beyond our cognitive capacity to understand it, once the answer is given or found. — god must be atheist

We don't understand gravity. We can describe it with equations, but that doesn't mean we understand it. Newton, who discovered it, was baffled by this, as was Locke, Hume, Schopenhauer, Russell, etc.

As Newton said: 'It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact... That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else...is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it.

We've just accepted this fact and moved on. Why do I say that it's a mystery how consciousness emerges from brain? We have no idea how non-mental stuff could possibly lead to mind. Suppose in the future someone says, regions X, Y and Z in the brain are responsible for consciousness, if they aren't functioning, we can't be conscious. How could a region in the brain possibly explain this blue sky I am seeing? This hypothetical theory can't answer that.

Basic biology can answer it. — god must be atheist

You can speak of chemical reactions, muscle contractions and so on, but questions of will aren't illuminated by this.

I don't think human comprehension can be tested by human questions. Human knowledge, yes, it can be, but not comprehension. — god must be atheist

This might be the answer.

Well, this may be a roughly Neo-Kantian or Rationalistic-Idealist understanding, but I believe it to be accurate nevertheless. The idea would be that what we see and experience is an interplay between whatever is "out there" with some innate capacities to structure, shape and imbue experience with meaning.

So the "external world", as it is "in itself" is not something we can know. This does not imply at all that all the ordinary things we take for granted "trees", "rivers", etc. are illusions at all, no, they are the most evident aspect of our conscious experience, but these things aren't mind-independent.

Some argue that modern science may tell us about "things in themselves", others are more skeptical and think that science only tells us about the structural aspects of reality, and not there inner nature. I tend to side with this latter view.

But I should add something which I think is important, which Chomsky has pointed out. The word "real" is honorific. So when we say "this is the real truth" or "this is the real deal", we are not saying that there are two kinds of truth or deals, we are only emphasizing our statements. In this sense the word "real" can often lead to confusion, though not always.

A deeply personal decision, I suppose it affords great meaning to one's life and also gives the parent a new sense of purpose and very substantial responsibilities. Also, it's a reason to continue with the human experiment.

Having said that, I'm not sure how many people know just how bad the situation is climate wise, I'm not so confident anymore than after a certain amount of years, perhaps 8 years, perhaps less, it would be a good idea to introduce new creates to the world with no prospects of a good life at all. In fact, it looks to me to be a quite cruel act. But again, it's far from clear just how much people know about how bad the situation is, and how little time we have to prevent the worst outcome.

And virtually no one speaks about the increasing nuclear threat, which the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, not a organization to take lightly, has not shifted from using minutes to seconds, and warns us that, if we do not cooperate on a global level, we are 100 seconds away from midnight, meaning, the end of it all. Of course, this news is so bleak, it makes it easy to ignore. I think this is a mistake, just look at how we've reacted the pandemic, surely the lightest of warm-ups for what's coming very soon.

It's not a pretty picture, and questions such as the one posted by the OP now gain an existential urgency that would otherwise not have existed.

I'm not religious and I think "faith" often implies, in many, but not necessarily all cases, belief in the absence of evidence. Having said that, what your atheist interlocuter is saying, does amount to much at all.

Most epistemologies agree, broadly, that beliefs can only be considered reliable when they are backed, (somehow), by observation. — John Chlebek

This is an extreme view. First of all, which beliefs is that person talking about? People believe thousands of things, it is practically impossible to have even a small fraction of these beliefs backed by observation in any sense of the word. Where's the observation that confirms the belief that there isn't a supreme power guiding action? There is no such observation. But this example is trivial. I believe that rock is better than jazz, that blue is prettier than pink, that beaches are better than mountains, how could observations possibly justify these beliefs?

But then they could say that I'm not speaking about "beliefs", but am speaking instead of preferences. Fine, but then he's going to have to divide beliefs into rational and irrational beliefs. I believe that treating people kindly is better than treating them with contempt. Surely this must be a rational belief. How can observation possibly confirm or deny this belief absent some further stipulation, such as "it must be confirmed by evidence." But evidence in these cases do not amount for much, it doesn't illuminate our intuitions and dispositions.

Then we can speak of irrational beliefs. Consider say a poor woman, for example, who lost her good baby boy because of some crazy drug war laws. She believes that after this life, she will be able to reunite herself with her son. I don't think this is the case. But it would be cruel, to say the least, to tell that person that this won't happen. In either case, this belief is not irrational, as it allows for some measure of comfort absent abysmal life conditions.

There are irrational beliefs, to be clear. Denying evidence for vaccine effectiveness, believing the world is flat or that machines will take over the world, etc. But in most cases, it's far from clear.

Well, I have in mind people like Colin McGinn or Noam Chomsky, not some spiritualists or religious types. The basic idea is that there are many questions, that are outside our cognitive capacity to understand. Examples are plentiful, the most immediate one in contemporary circles is the so called "hard problem" of consciousness: how can matter possibly have the qualities of experience? Well, it simply does have these properties, but we have no idea why.

But there are so many other "hard problems". Why does gravity work the way it does? How is it that we give meaning to the world? Why do we have a sense of morality? Why existence? How can I move my arm or my finger? It's clear that I can do it, but I have no idea why I can do it, or how it is that I do it. And much more.

I'm not invoking any spiritual entities like God, soul-stuff or anything of that nature, that only appears to give an answer, when all it does is invoke an all defined and obscure aspect, which under closer analysis doesn't add anything to our comprehension of the world.

But it seems to me that at almost any instance, if we look at things closely, they just make no sense. Sure, many will say something like "what are you talking about?" I know how I move my arm, I just move it. Or, what do you mean why does gravity work the way it does? That's just the way gravity is. I'm inclined to say that we have no idea in either case. But we proceed as if we understood these things.

As you describe it, that's a very difficult question to answer in a straightforward manner, in the sense that this seems to me to be individual dependent. Not that thinking about yourself in a group context is wrong or anything like that, but simply that you can only try to influence your behavior and thoughts.

I think one can try to pass judgements on oneself on occasion, but not too frequently, because in my experience it tends to paralyze or sends me into circular thinking that doesn't do anyone any good, neither me nor the goals or ideas I may want to concretize. As strange as it may sound, I think that the question of rationalizing one's existence in relation to the idea of life being meaningful need not be connected at all. Which is to say that, you should do what you consider to be correct under your own understanding irrespective of the meaning you think your life has.

If you start with the premise that your life must have some meaning, intrinsic meaning that is, you are adding an extra burden to what already is a very difficult situation for anyone, as it brings forth the idea that you must do X, Y or Z for your life to have had any meaning at all. But what if X, Y or Z aren't attainable or your interest change or your views change? If you don't manage to fulfill any of your pre-established goals, then by definition you're going to conclude your life is a failure. I don't see how that helps you.

As for the idols, yes, that's more or less the idea. Comparing yourself to others is often a big mistake. Each person has there own baggage and there are things you simply can't do that others can do, and vice versa.

I think we'd need to distinguish between the principle of charity vs. suspending judgement. I think we should be charitable to most people, they may be asking questions that aren't properly formulated, or more likely, they are thinking about issues we've thought about in a different manner, which can be quite beneficial.

Sure, one could object that looking at someone ask "what's the meaning of life?" or "how can something immaterial touch something material?" have been asked ad infinitum, but given the field this is, it's inevitable. And for some reason many of these oft-repeated questions can get us into interesting conversations.

What I think is problematic about Millers Law, as presented in that link, is that I don't think it's possible to suspend judgment altogether. We may try to be as "neutral" as possible, but this "objective" view of people and there opinions, doesn't exist, I don't think.

Absolutely. In fact, this is what we do: we start with basic terms which we don't fully understand, but can speak about them in a manner that makes sense. Also correct about dictionaries, though they only give us the most superficial idea of a word. My personal puzzle if that, if we do stop and think about what a rational act entails, it all gets complicated very quickly. But if we don't stop to think about it, we are apt to using the word with less mistakes, or so it seems to me.

1) Rationalizing one's existence is arduous and painful, and there are no unequivocal answers - only uncomfortable, and affirming ones.

2) Rationalizing one's existence, can only be undertaken with a finite set of constraints (time, mainly) - rendering that one can't philosophize endlessly, before convening on a decision.

3) That a decision or appraisal emerges, after some length of time, is what accords all meaning to the exercise (to commence with).

In light of these three propositions (if you accept them), is it at all worth rationalizing one's being? — Aryamoy Mitra

Well, there's a lot here to talk about. I very much like, and have vividly felt, your second proposition. That we are pressed for time in coming up appropriate judgements and reactions is a big problem. I'm unsure if an infinite amount of time would make it better, because then we'd simply postpone everything, but the time factor is crucial.

In order to give a better reply to what your asking, I'd have to know a little bit more about what you mean when you say "rationalizing one's existence". Would this imply passing judgments on oneself, or does it imply trying to give adequate reasons for having done X or y? Or is it something in between, or is something else?

Absent a clearer idea of what type of thing you have in mind, I'd guess that thinking about oneself is OK so far as it makes you better, in some very broad manner. Otherwise, the option remaining here would be to conclude that most of the time you think about yourself, you feel like crap, so why exist?

I don't think we need be that severe on ourselves. We really, really have to get red of the idea of "role models", Gandhi, King, etc., etc. Such people did acts of supreme good and helped many people reach a more just society, but they had significant negative aspects about them. I'm not suggesting that you should not find a person or persons you admire, but keep in mind we're all human.

That's my general view, unless I'm missing something important.

I very much agree with the sentiment and the conclusion that if it goes away, we might as well say random words or stare at a wall or something.

The problem would be, what do we do with terms like "irrational" or "sensible", etc.? Sure, you can pick out edge cases and say that is irrational, but outside these cases, one of these words are easy to develop.

If everything is the result of a complex interplay of randomness, how can any decision be truly rational? Do we make rational decisions, or is everything just arbitrary? — Cidat

There must be if anything is to make sense whatsoever. In fact, I'd say that even asking such a question presupposes that there must be rational actions. After all, you'd expect (mostly) reasonable replies.