The facts it discloses are registered and understood by beings - by human beings.’ But we don’t notice that, because of the ostensibly objective and observer-independent nature of scientific observation. We think that these facts are entirely observer-independent, which in one sense is true, but in a deeper, philosophical sense is not. — Wayfarer

I get the point and it interests me. Reality is constructed for us via an intersubjective human experience. This seems to me to be a similar point Nietzsche makes when he argues that truth is always interpreted through the lens of individual perspectives. He takes it further and says that there is no objective or universal truth that stands independently of human interpretation. While you would accept the possibility of something approaching a Platonic realm. Nietzsche also subdivides perspective into both cultural and individual blindspots. His somewhat brutal visual approach to this struck me as apropos.

It is true, there could be a metaphysical world; the absolute possibility of it is hardly to be disputed. We behold all things through the human head and cannot cut off this head; while the question nonetheless remains what of the world would still be there if one had cut it off.

- Nietzsche: Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

it amuses and surprises me when people think an obedient servant to corporate power, a conservative like Biden is significantly of the left. Just goes to show how muddled political thinking can be.

So, I am asking to what extent does the existence of 'God', or lack of existence have upon philosophical thinking. — Jack Cummins

The problem is how this might play out cannot be separated from how such beliefs may be held. It depends entirely upon what kind of theist or what kind of atheist one is. Many people in either camp are completely ill-equipped for any kind of critical refection, let alone a philosophical discussion. The critical issue associated with any position is how it is applied.

Problem is people focus on Dawkins etc, which distracts us. Remember atheism may just be a lack of belief in gods, but embrace any manner of 'supernatural' positions such as idealism, reincarnation and astrology. I've known many such atheists. And there are theists whose notion of god is so removed from anything personal and knowable that they are virtually atheists and are skeptical of any supernatural ideas.

Understand. Thanks.

Indeed. That is a salient question. I often ask something similar when I hear the old 'both parties/leaders are equally shit' trope. Things are rarely equally bad. I practice harm minimisation in politics. Clearly some options are far worse than others, even if the less worse is still fundamentally flawed.

Kant's is an epistemological, not an ontological, idealism. — Janus

Looks like it to me. I assume you mean that Kant's project is concerned with the nature and source of knowledge, and emphasizes the role of the mind (structures of human cognition) in shaping our understanding of the world. Kant is not (as far as I can tell) arguing that reality is dependent upon mind as Berkeley would hold it - 'immaterialism'. I have not read Kant on Berkeley but I am assuming this would be instructive.

I hear the Existentialists are mighty fond of him, too. — Joshs

What are your thoughts on the existentialist reading of Nietzsche? Is this illustrative of his fecundity, or is it a partial misreading in your assessment?

I have deleted my earlier, less than generous response.

You are doing your best and there's no real merit in my debating your presuppositions here. Go well.

I will leave you with this. The Ubermensch, as I understand it, transcends all foundational thinking and values. FN, though a shy, respectful and sensitive person in life, was like a one man demolition crew in print.

I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity.

― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

:up:

But I do know that the concept of God is incoherent — Ludwig V

Have you got a breif sketch of why you might argue this? I take a similar position, but I am curious how others see this.

If anything, violent video games might provide an outlet, an occupation of otherwise idle time. Take away violent video games and idle hands my find worse things to do in our shit world. — Nils Loc

Indeed. Which is why some also say sport is a sublimation for aggression.

Hence George Orwell's famous observation:

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.

I am aware that evolution works by killing off the majority of life that is not most highly adapted. — Brendan Golledge

No, that's not my argument. I said nothing about evolution. I said that god/s built a creation largely dependent upon cruelty and predation.

It is mostly Christians who are concerned with "Do I envy?" "Am I lusting after my neighbor's wife?" for their own sake, rather than as a part of an external moral system. — Brendan Golledge

No. Islam does this. Sikhs too. Bahai. Parsi, Jews. How many other religions do you know well?

From arguments such as these (many of which I worked out as an atheist), I realized that Christianity already said many of the things that I came up with by myself. — Brendan Golledge

I suspect that you come from a Christian culture, so it would be a challenge for you to differentiate your ideas from notions already formed by encultured Christianity. This is something which effects all of us born into a culture shaped by centuries of a specific worldview.

I think you have to choose one of these 3 options:
1. There is an ultimate beginning
2. Existence is infinitely old with no beginning
3. The causality of existence is circular (like maybe somebody will go back in a time machine to create the big bang) — Brendan Golledge

Actually there's a 4th option which I go with. We don't know. There's no imperative to choose a placeholder explanation we can't demonstrate.

They are speculation that I find interesting and meaningful, but they are in the end, speculation. — Brendan Golledge

Sure. Speculate away. :wink:

Granted that some lack the ability, but again, that's no reason to reject the reality of the conditions under which the sky is seen as blue. — jkop

I’m not a philosopher, so I make no claims about what is real. It’s common sense to believe what we observe is real but anything common sense is worth questioning. I tend to hold that it doesn’t matter either way, since almost all of us behave as realists the moment we engage with what we know as the external world. Even the idealists.

Yet being insignificant in physics is not a failure in being real in biology where colours are significant. Hence colour realism. — jkop

But I don't think this helps us much. Colour isn't real in biology either. The colours we 'know' are created by our biology. Other animals see different colours, less or more than humans. Or none. If this realism, it is not external to human experince.

Plato: "You're stuck in the cave! You're busy dealing with the shadow of the forms. True knowledge is in the world of ideas."
Aristotle: [Your answer] — dani

Get out of my light.

But it is frustrating to me that most secular people do not take morals as seriously as Christians do. — Brendan Golledge

I would say secular thinkers are often way more obsessed with morality than Christians. Partly because Christians often think morality is simply doing god's will, so no deliberations required. Whereas secular people often focus on justifications of morality outside of any magic man (god). Hence the multitude of secular moral systems philosophy has spawned and keeps generating.

Here's one problem as I see it. Religious people actually have no grounding for morality. All they express is personal preferences. Subjective interpretations of god's will. Which explains why on any given moral matter, Christians (since you raised them) are utterly inconsistent and divergent. If what god wanted was truly clear then there would be no debate about euthanasia, stem cell research, abortion, capital punishment, gay rights, trans rights, the role of women, war, etc, etc. Religious folk make personal subjective choices on what they think their version of god would want us to do.

You express statements which are just claims - to be an ubermensch I think you may need to do some purging of such romantic claims as:

Christianity is the religion most concerned with the heart. — Brendan Golledge

A creator God, as-such, seems to innately require omnipotence (there are also other arguments for this too), so I don't how claiming that God is omnipotent is an arbitrary claim. — Brendan Golledge

I don't think it's arbitrary, I said it was just a claim. If there are gods (how do we know there is just one), how do we know they or it are/is omnipotent? We can't just accept the claims of classical theism at face value. Would an ubermensch take cues from traditional theology?

So, looking at nature ought to be a good way of inferring the nature of God. — Brendan Golledge

That's just a claim. But if I did this I would infer from nature that the god who made it is an evil and cruel monster. Imagine creating an entire ecosystem where the suffering and death of most animals and insects is built into the model. Animals eat each other alive in order to live. An omnipotent god could have created any kind of self-sustaining realm it wanted, so why settle on one where predation, suffering and eating the living flesh of other blameless creatures is a prevailing reality?

So, I share with the Christians their concern for proper orientation of the heart, and share with secular people a great respect for science. — Brendan Golledge

Which Christians do this exactly and how do you demonstrate this? I am secular. I think of science as a reliable tool that furnishes tentative answers which are often subject to revision. It does not make proclamations about truth.

How exactly does one go about finding the 'proper orientation of the heart?' This romantic notion is pretty opaque to begin with. What does it actually mean? 'Proper' and 'heart' in this sentence can be defined in a multitude of potentially contradictory ways.

I think the main point of the Ubermensch is to be able to generate one's own values — Brendan Golledge

And I would have thought jettisoning all the ghosts of magic men, goblins, spirits and the supernatural is where that might start. You're not generating your own values if you consciously start with tradition.

I do not share with Christians faith that any particular text or teaching was directly inspired by God. — Brendan Golledge

Fair enough.

I notice that you didn't mention anything in my post at all until I got to God. I wonder if you are just caught up on the word "God" instead of the actual content of what I'm saying. — Brendan Golledge

Fair comment.

God seems foundational to your OP and it stuck me as the most interesting part of what you said.

I answered this in my original post:

Right now I think that if God were truly omnipotent and omniscient, then he made the universe exactly how he likes it, and that the universe does not need further tinkering. — Brendan Golledge

This doesn't resemble an answer to me, it is a claim heaped upon other claims. I was trying to unpack why you might have arrived here. It's so Christian, which is unexpected and obedient to convention. A surprise, given this is discussion about an ubermensch - someone who transcends such foundational games.

I think deism is likely true, due to first-mover arguments. — Brendan Golledge

Deism seems to be a fairly pointless belief. If a god or gods made the world and fucked off and don't care about us, what is the point? Is all we know about some kind of gods is an inference derived from the hoary old argument from contingency, then we really have nothing to go on and no real reason to care. We also have no way of knowing what this deserter god thinks about morality.

Even if there were a creator being, you also have no way of knowing what this being's relationship to morality is. Is this being the foundation of morality, or does this being reside separately to morality? We simply can't say.

If many people could be convinced of these moral frameworks, then they could build a community around that. — Brendan Golledge

We can build a moral system and community around any number of moral systems. The issue is finding agreement. But morality seems to arise out of a historical process and is a changing conversation over time, I doubt it can be imposed over us all based on some fresh reasoning.

So, I believe that everything that positively exists is pleasing to God, and I try to see it. — Brendan Golledge

You seem to know an awful lot about an anonymous deistic god who fucked off and has no contact with people. Where does this come from? How did you rule out that this creator isn't evil (in human terms) a monstrous being who made a world that seems to produce suffering and hatred?

:cool:

The natural sciences are observational-experimental methods, force-multiplied by mathematical techniques, for the manifest purpose of publicly correcting "common sense" experiences (e.g. folk psychologies, customary intuitions (i.e. stereotypes, clichés, X-of-the-gaps stories, etc), cognitive biases, institutional (dogmatic) superstitions, etc) in order to testably explain aspects of the natural world and ourselves. — 180 Proof

With the right woman, that kind of gorgeous language will get you laid around here. Better than any sonnet….

The authors propose an alternative vision- scientific knowledge is a self-correcting narrative made from the world and our experience of it evolving together. To finally "see" the Blind Spot is to awaken from a delusion of absolute knowledge and to see how reality and experience intertwine.

Sounds very interesting. I've read some essays by Thompson and Varela and seen a few lectures. I've been particularly struck by how humans co-create reality together. I suspect this approach might disestablish notions of God and the transcendent, along with notions of absolute reality held by some scientific positions.

:up: Nice quote and thank you. Is there an essay, perhaps, on this you can think of that might be readable to a layperson?

I'm trying to understand the creative parameters, the innovation in this process of 'bringing forth' or 'productive seeing'. He makes it sound as if ordinary life could be riddled with innovation and originality.

:up:

The definition, as with most words used in a philosophical manner is always the stumbling point. When I say essence, I mean it from a poetic sence. — Rob J Kennedy

There's an important use of essentialism in philosophy and critical theory discourse.

From Wikipedia:

Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity.[1] In early Western thought, Plato's idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In Categories, Aristotle similarly proposed that all objects have a substance that, as George Lakoff put it, "make the thing what it is, and without which it would be not that kind of thing".[2] The contrary view—non-essentialism—denies the need to posit such an "essence".

An example of this idea being parsed is in gender identity discourse. Is gender a case of essentialism or is it performative (e.g. Judith Butler)... that kind of thing.

But others argue that thrownness has more to do with how the future comes toward us than how the past constrains us. In other words, thrownness is our creative muse, whispering in our ear, opening up new worlds of possibility. Even what we consider to be autonomously willed choice is something we are thrown into. — Joshs

I've never heard this take on thrownness before. Interesting.

I always understood thrownness as a limitation or boundary that might impact upon our anticipatory sense making. Are you suggesting the more salient dimension to this is how we are thrown into adaptation?

I'm new here and from Australia, where philosophy is a non-subject. — Rob J Kennedy

Welcome

Not sure about that. There are a number of Australians here, including me. The others know more than I do about philosophy. Philosophy has come up a lot in discussions I've had over the past 30 years, but I guess a lot of this is comes down to where you live and who you kick around with.

Is human biology considered to be one part of human essence? — Rob J Kennedy

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean is the nature of what is human constrained by our biology?

I've been long interested in the "existence precedes essence" debate — Rob J Kennedy

It was a debate back in the 60's-70's; is it back in fashion? I'm assuming you are referring to Sartre here.

The idea (if I remember correctly) being that people are born into a world and have to make choices, creating their own meaning. Which means that humans do not have a fixed nature or essence they have to follow.

So is your question are humans subject to biological imperatives which override their ability to make choices as per Sartre? Is biology essentialism? Do we have a nature that defines us? Sartre would have said no.

So, if we consider biology as a part of our essence (I'm not stating that it is), doesn't essence precede existence as our biology is determined before birth? — Rob J Kennedy

Maybe Heidegger is more helpful frame as he posits the idea of thrownness. We are "thrown" into existence, born into a specific time, place, and cultural context, without any control over these matters. We are also human animals, with our own experiences which powerfully shape who we are, how we make sense of things and what we choose. We then have to make the best of it all, subject to contingent factors.

The great thing about a hard run is the feeling you get after you shower. Your whole body feels utterly new, like it’s been taken apart and re-assembled, in a good way. — Wayfarer

This made me contemplate running for the first time in my life. I ran to catch a bus once or twice in the 1980's... Too late for me now, but what a wonderful description.

Congratulations on getting there. But I have to say that there doesn't seem to be much benefit in being an Ubermensch if your account is definitive. Can you explain what the benefits might be?

I know this Schopenhauer quote well. But does it stand up to scrutiny? Is there an evidential basis for it? A priori I would have thought it more likely that the opposite holds: that intelligence enables a greater understanding of one's pain, which might in turn mitigate its emotional effects — mcdoodle

No idea if it stands up. It's one of those observations that can't really be tested empirically. I think you're right that the opposite may also be true. I'm not sure of the evidence for this either.

I suspect that a sophisticated or intelligent mind conjures all sorts of ways to magnify suffering, worry about things which may not happen, speculative anxieties galore; and is probably less likely to gain succor from off the rack solutions (folk mythologies, religions) which may appease a less sophisticated mind. But I recognize this is all pretty woolly. I do know my friend John (who is a Catholic priest) is fond of saying that the minds of the simple faithful are always more at ease about the state of the world than those of the more deeply read and considered Catholic. Setting aside some implicit elitism in this, I guess the simple are often certain, while the more nuanced thinkers may be more prone to doubt and festering - the building blocks of suffering and pain. Thoughts?

Have you heard the one about Schrodinger's cat? Ridiculous! how anyone can be scientist after that is beyond me. — unenlightened

Absolutely ridiculous! Science is clearly nonsense and more fool you for even suggesting it might be useful.

Sorry Chet I am unable to make sense of your answer to me. Might be best if I bow out.

I find it to be 'intelligent'! Adam and Eve ate the apple, marking The Beginning of Sin. Does intelligence cause inequality? — YiRu Li

It's an allegorical or fictional story about obeying god and the consequences of not doing so. Yahweh being a Mafiosa-style, don't-fuck-with me deity. This is a story that has nothing to offer me personally. Me being a crass, contemporary, secular humanist type who is comfortable living in the present era and holding Western worship to be pointless nonsense. :wink:

Ha! I try never to be sarcastic. Your response was helpful and resonated.

:up:

Everytime I see a mention of Trump, I am reminded of several Buddhists who are his avid fans. It's a peculiar combination of being fluent in an arcane religion devoted to the complete cessation of suffering, and to do so in an obscure ancient language, and yet be steeped in such populism as Trump's. I can't quite make sense of it. — baker

Now that is interesting. Do you have any theories why he appeals to them?

No one can crack the automobile/oil stranglehold, as it is part-and-parcel of the modern economy since the early 1900s. It is entrenched fully and inextricably. It would literally be a social revolution if everything was interconnected through various high speed rails with little use of the personal automobile. — schopenhauer1

Well said. Yep, the car and the world we have created to facilitate our dependence on it is pretty dreadful. I've long disliked cars and our addiction to them. I have often lived without one and recently got rid of another one. Now I am a public transport commuter again. PT in my city is reasonably good. It's a shame suburbs and outer regions are often designed with an assumption that everyone will need a car. I made a decision a few years ago that I would never live anywhere where I couldn't walk easily to amenities and shops.

A person cannot be evil. Only their choices are. Likewise a person cannot be good. Only their choices are. — Chet Hawkins

There is no such thing as a person. Only choices exist. Discuss...

Why happiness? Surely some people may be happy doing the wrong thing, or may be happy in suffering. If you are saying that we need to assess what that happiness consists of to demine if it's a 'good' form of happiness, then you are saying we need something external to happiness to determine if our happiness is the 'right kind'.

Of course one virtue of the good is forgiveness. The wise forgive everything and as near to perfect in forgiveness as can be chosen. — Chet Hawkins

How do you know? Sounds like a value from Christian religion. It's a presupposition; how would you demonstrate this?

I'd like to also conjure, BC and @Tom Storm and to wax brightly in the dim night of the black Locrian stage of madness.

After reading these passages, and your reflex to say, "That's just your opinion, man" bubbles up to the black miasmic surface of your thought-forms, what is value and axiology in light of pain, suffering, and the awareness thereof? — schopenhauer1

Sorry?

I haven't been following this thread. But I agree that life is a bucket of shit and that there's a menu of distractions or tools we can use to try to override the void and the suffering.

It is this idea of something wholly different in the human evolution, something "uncanny", that I would like to explore. The main philosopher he draws parallels to is Zapffe. Zapffe's themes are similar in that he thinks that humans have an "excess" of self-consciousness, that though allows us to survive in the ways we do, brings with it the existential excess of being too aware. And that over-abundance of awareness is really what separates humans from the rest of nature in the sense that we are existentially divided and torn asunder from the rest of nature in our awareness. Unlike other animals, even clever ones like certain corvids, or domestic animals, or even elephants, dolphins, and apes, we seem to have something totally different in our existential orientation. Whereas Schopenhauer's dissatisfaction personified as "will-to-live" is much more in the "now" and "immediate" and the "being", we are much more in the self-reflected now, the analysis, the planning of the future, the angst, the anxiety, the what ifs and what did I dos, the regret, the isolation, the inability to "turn off" for large portions of time unless dead asleep. We have exited Eden, and to gain some sanity we provide for ourselves stories and narratives, mainly to soothe ourselves that this situation is not so bad, but those are just salves, protective hedging. — schopenhauer1

Sounds reasonable to me. Our reflective speculations and ruminations bring with them additional forms of suffering and dread. Many people accept that that our preference for narratives of transcendent meaning are all attempts to deal with anxiety. Our capacity for metacognitive experince enhances the pain. This observation by Schopenhauer has often resonated with me (is it from The Wisdom of Life?):

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

If may be so much easier to endure ideas of negativity in physical comfort and wealth than in conditions of poverty, austerity and physical suffering. — Jack Cummins

That's one of those common sense observations, isn't it? Not sure how accurate it is. Rich people feel a sense of hopelessness and also commit suicide, so there's that.

So, to what extent do pessimism and optimism have a determining role in the conjuring of our own life experiences and circumstances? — Jack Cummins

Some, but one wouldn't want to overstate this. The person who wallows in 'it's all hopeless' is unlikely to overcome their challenges, whether those be great or small. One's attitude and the inferences one makes will have impact upon how one lives. That is obvious. But one can't cure cancer or end war just by positive thinking. Getting out of bed, making plans and taking action is foundational to change or transformation.

Alternatively, to what extent do our experiences and circumstances determine our philosophical outlooks? — Jack Cummins

We are our experiences and circumstances, but how far this extends and what else there is (genes, personality) is an open question.

I hear you. I got lost amongst theosophists, New Age types, mystics, Gnostics, Buddhists and Hindus for much of the 1980's and early 1990's.

[ It’s not hard to find enthusiasts for any kind of therapy or pseudo scientific practice, from crystal channeling to psychic healing.

My experience confirms my conceptual understanding that it is a placebo-based psychological practice with some efficacy around stress and self-understanding but has next-to-next medical efficacy beyond what has been developed along side Western concepts (such as diet and exercise - minus the Qi concept. As metaphor, perhaps). — AmadeusD

Nice. Did you mean ‘next to no’ ?

Pleasure may be possible in the midst of the most bleak views of life. — Jack Cummins

Naturally. Most nihilists I’ve known have been optimistic. I personally don’t see a connection between inherent meaninglessness and despair. I see meaninglessness as opportunity.

Are philosophies which encourage 'hope' and 'positivity' amidst harsh outer circumstances, mere ideologies? — Jack Cummins

Ask a Stoic. :wink:

Despair, and hope, are constructed in subjective and intersubjective ways; this may mean that the spectrum between hope and despair is a continuum. — Jack Cummins

I suspect that some people have a gift for suffering and despair and are attracted to this as a demonstration of authenticity and superior character.