EDIT: Also, I've noticed that people who have depression often emote in a lively and animated way. But then, after having done the performance necessary for them, they return to a place where they can charge up to do it again. — Moliere

I've worked with many dozens of people experiencing chronic depression over the years. While everyone is different, it's clear that those who ignore the diagnosis and refuse to seek help often suffer the most and many do not survive. You're right, one can't pick the depressed person from their performance on a forum or even how they seem at work.

What have you found helpful? Has contact with others and activity helped or deepened the experince?

Well thanks, wasn’t sure I was going in the right direction.

Do you perceive/discern the speaker's intent differently if you think of them (the speaker) as usually conservative or usually liberal? — David Hubbs

Perhaps. I guess it would depend. Many of my leftist friends dislike woke culture just as much as my conservative friends do, so perhaps they would both be using the term ironically to describe their inability to fully commit to their former beliefs or to the political opposition.

ou're certainly right that we can give more detail about what we like and don't like. But it seems to me it just moves the question down a level. Why do we like or dislike the details?

It's strange sometimes. I like bread. But I like both a soft, fresh loaf, and a multi-grain like Arnold's or Killer Dave. — Patterner

Interesting. I avoid bread, rock music, Russian novels, and sport. I've never been able to engage with them, despite valiant experimentation. It's dispositional, no doubt rooted in some kind of affective relationship with culture and value. The truth is, I find rock music and sport ugly, and bread and Russian novels boring. But asking why quickly drags us into an infinite regress, each reason presupposes another, and eventually we’re probably left circling back to temperament and taste.

Approaching ethics from my own perspective, I find the field deeply problematic. Unlike other branches of philosophy, a systematic and formal treatment of ethics seems impossible. — Showmee

Morality/ethics doesn't strike me as a particularly exciting area. For now I see all our ideas of right and wrong as contingent; historical, cultural, and emotional in origin. So I suppose I’m a relativist, and I think most of our moral positions are grounded in sentiment not a transcendent source.

But we can cobble together a kind of quasi-objective morality if we agree on a shared subjective aim, say, the minimisation of suffering. Once that aim is chosen, we can evaluate actions against it. But the foundation remains chosen, not discovered.

Beyond that, I’m not especially concerned. Morality is, to me, a conversation that a society has with itself. We can trace where that evolving conversation has led, on questions like women’s rights, LGBTQ+ equality, the status of slavery, or capital punishment. These are negotiated over time, producing cultural consensus, always knowing that complete agreement is unlikely, if not impossible. And we can also go backwards - as we have seen.

The standard comeback always seems to be: "If you're a relativist, then you can't be against murdering babies." But in reality, most relativists aren’t murdering babies. That argument is a bit of a strawman. Yes, historically and across cultures, infanticide has at times been accepted. But as a social species, we determine right and wrong through the practices we choose to support or reject. Personally, I’m good with being against baby murder. Moral relativism isn't the same thing as moral indifference, it means recognising that our judgments are grounded in human values not objective absolutes. A relativist can condemn baby killing from within multiple moral frameworks, each based upon different ethical commitments. The search for the one absolute foundational "this is wrong" seems futile.

Here's AI on the subject: For Kant, disinterestedness means that when we judge something as beautiful, our appreciation is free from personal desires, practical motives, or any interest in possessing or using the object. The interest is “pure” because it’s not tied to anything outside the experience itself—no stake in its utility, no emotional attachment, no pursuit of gain.

Does that work?

h man, then I'm in trouble. My thought is it's highly theorized interest, in the sense that I know what I'm interested in and I know what other people are interested in and I can separate the two.

Though.... I can see a place for untheorized interest using the same locution, now that I think of it. The first time I watch a movie because a friend recommended it is untheorized interest: let's see what this is about, then. — Moliere

Most of my interests are untheorised. This is simply a personal disposition. :wink:

So if you had to summarise what disinterest is in relation to art, can you do it in two simple sentences? I am assuming you have an openness and no commitments to influence your appreciation?

I tend to think of disinterested interest as untheorised interest, a term I've often used. Untheorised means responding to something without frameworks or training, intuitively for pleasure and, I guess with disinterest - if by this we mean minus theoretical investment. But maybe I'm on a differnt track.

experiment with alternative schemes, trying them on for size. One way to do this is to take on a role, like an actor would. The technique is minimally threatening because the person can remind themselves that it is ‘only’ a role, and if it turns out not to useful they can abandon it. — Joshs

I'm reminded of the cliché, that a change is as good as a holiday.

Thank you

When that compass ceases to be effective at insuring such belonging, events lose what gives them their overarching coherence , salience and significance, and we drift though a fog of meaninglessness until we can reconstruct a new compass on the basis of which we can relate intimately with others. — Joshs

Recommendations for how to do this?

:up:

if one perceives them differently, the answer is "yes". If one does not perceive them differently, the answer is "no". What am I missing? — David Hubbs

What do you mean by 'perceives them differently'? There are people I know who I can't label politically, it's impossible to categorise them since they hold views from a range of political sources and vote differently each election.

"Narcissism" and "arrogance" were probably poorly chosen words. So, I can see why they confused you, and I should think more carefully. But there's still a significant problem with relativism about truth. If relativists believe it's always true everywhere, their belief is self-contradictory. They believe in absolute relativism. — BillMcEnaney

No, that's a common error. Saying “relativism is self-defeating” only works if you ignore how relativists actually define truth. Relativism doesn’t claim universal truth; it asserts that truth is always relative to a framework, so the statement “truth is relative” is itself a framework-bound claim, not a universal one. That said I'm not especially concerned by so-called performative contradictions, I think contradictions are just part of how life and language actually work.

A relativist will often argue that truth depends on context, like culture, language, or conceptual schemes. I think that's pretty much the case. So when they say something is true, they mean it's true relative to a particular framework, not that it's universally true for everyone at all times. In Western countries, we often have intersubjective agreements about values, but even some of these are open to challenge. Some people condemn homosexuality, while others proudly fly the rainbow flag of inclusion. There are different frameworks even within a single culture.

Can that treatment be found in philosophical writings or literature? — javi2541997

Personally I don't often go to books for anything important. But that's me.

I was gloomy and somewhat of a morose pessimist from the age of 16 to around 25. I think it lifted when I started to work to help others. I suspect it can be pretty detrimental to focus on one’s own preoccupations for too much time. Introspection and dwelling on your personal life, while often encouraged by culture, can end up as a black hole of self-indulgence. On the other hand true depression is a serious and debilitating illness and probably requires treatment and the right support.

I don’t think anyone takes Dawkins seriously as a philosopher, and many atheists I know view him with dismay, the way many Christians look upon grubby prosperity preacher, Benny Hinn. I’m not particularly interested in debates that turn these matters into a team sport.

Some unsophisticated people believe relativists are kind and tolerant. They forget that truth is hard to find. Relativism about truth makes people like arrogant narcissists who are too proud to learn from others. They might say, "I'm a scientist. You're a gullible moron because you believe in the invisible sky daddy. Learn science and reject religious superstition." — BillMcEnaney

I'm not really able to follow the thread of this, it seems like grab-bag of assumptions and prejudices, perhaps?

Take this line, as a for instance:

Relativism about truth makes people like arrogant narcissists who are too proud to learn from others.

Now that’s just an assertion. What demonstration can you provide that this is necessarily the case? I could just as easily say that Christianity makes people into arrogant narcissists who are too proud to learn from others, and it would be equally “true.” By that, I mean you can find arrogant narcissists anywhere and, to be honest, I’m particularly wary of anyone who thinks they have The Truth, surely a recipe for arrogance greater than a propensity for subjectivity?

But even if relativism turns people into narcissists, you still haven't addressed whether it is a reasonable view of itself. Whether relativism is true or not is independent of how people behave if they hold this view.

But perhaps all this, and your ideas about God, belong in a different or a new thread rather than this one about "laws" of nature...

You know what Christian fundamentalists usually do. They study the Bible from a 21st-century perspective and read contemporary ideas into it. They misinterpret Sacred Scripture because they ignore ancient historical and cultural context. Many atheists do that, too, when they caricature theism. They may not know they're doing that. But perceptive theists notice the distortion and oversimplification. I don't see things your way when I'm biased against it. — BillMcEnaney

I started a thread on this very matter called More Sophisticated Philosophical Accounts of God.

My undergraduate advisor was an atheist who taught me Medieval Philosophy, so he was open to religious thought. But some other scholars were hostile to it. That was all right because I needed them to challenge my beliefs. I couldn't argue for them in an echo chamber. — BillMcEnaney

Sounds like you have a healthy and useful approach. I have respect for the Catholic tradition and a couple of friends who are members of the Catholic clergy. One of them introduced me to Father Richard Rohr, who has some powerful insights on binary thinking and finding better ways to approach complex issues. That said, some Catholics view him as bordering on heretical.

I think physicalism (now naturalism) like religion, has become more sophisticated since my university days. Our philosophy department was strictly atheist and often patronising towards religion. I found that very unhelpful, even as an atheist, and ended up leaving.

If physicalism and determinism are true, rational thought seems impossible. — BillMcEnaney

That’s a common enough argument, but I don’t find it convincing. That may depend on what one thinks reasoning actually is. I don’t see reason as some special branch of objective truth reflecting the nature of reality, I generally undertand it as a contingent product of language and culture. I think truth is of a similar nature: not something absolute “out there,” but something shaped and revised within shared human practices. In other words, reason and truth are contingent tools we use to navigate and manage our environment, none of which strike me as requiring a transcendent foundation.

Scientific absolute certainty is too rare for me to believe that natural science is the best source of knowledge. No, scientism is self-refuting. It says science is our only source of knowledge. But since that's a belief about the nature of knowledge, it's not a scientific statement. — BillMcEnaney

You write well, Bill. Most naturalists are not scientistic in outlook, and many are quite open to religious perspectives. Physicalists who embrace metaphysical naturalism take a stronger stance, but it's not clear that anyone can definitively argue that physicalism is the only true view. A more cautious and widely accepted position is methodological naturalism. The challenge, of course, is that we can’t directly test for supernatural claims, we can only infer them through particular language practices or philosophical arguments.

You said "gods" instead of "God." What's wrong with that? You might make a category midtake. You might lump God together with Zeus, Thor, Hera, Kali, and others when those pagan deities aren't deities in the biblical sense. If they exist, they're created, which means God makes them exist. God explains why there's anything at all. Zeus doesn't do that. — BillMcEnaney

Sounds like an argument straight from David Bentley Hart, right down to the wording. I quite like his work and mention it here sometimes. I say “Gods,” even when referring to Christianity, since accounts vary dramatically even within the one religion. Everyone thinks their understanding, their god, is the right one.

I’m not up for a debate about science versus religion. But even if Darwin were wrong, that still wouldn’t get us to gods.

Yes, I like Susan Haack.

What other possibilities are there ?

In any case do you believe that the universe contains order in it ? — kindred

I'd say we don't know enough to make any firm pronouncements: we have limitations. From an epistemological perspective, what if idealism is accurate? Are regularities then in the universe, or part of consciousness, convenient mechanisms that help us make sense of experience, but not inherent in the universe itself? Perhaps more along the lines of how Kant seems to view space and time.

If by "no apparent reason" you mean there may be reasoning that simply isn’t apparent to us yet, then fair enough. But it's worth noting that the very idea of a "reason" (defaulting to causation) reflects a deeply human need to explain, grounded in the assumption that the universe is intelligible. Maybe it isn’t.

Whether this answer is satisfactory or not I do not know however there are two answers that I can think of either it just is the way it is for no apparent reason or there’s an intelligence in the cosmos a god who created these laws. — kindred

Isn't t that a false dilemma fallacy? How did you rule out other possibilities?

The universe possesses a certain orderliness to it which exists independently of our descriptive language used to describe it. — kindred

I’m not convinced this is accurate. I think there are philosophers, such as Derrida and Rorty, who would agree. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, to be sure, but they may be onto something.

I allude to a law of logic when I say a baseball usually falls when I drop it? "Usually" suggests induction. — BillMcEnaney

I'm no expert on logic, but I think you’re referring here to induction and a “law” of nature rather than a logical principle. This is an inductive inference about the physical world.

But you don't need to look into nature to illustrate logical principles; you could say they are necessary to hold a meaningful conversation.

hope I won't reason circularly when I say God causes people, places, and things by giving them existence, even if they've always existed. — BillMcEnaney

I'm an atheist, so for me there'd need to be a good reason for assuming gods before giving them a series of characteristics. Or one god. Whatever the model might be.

Dr. William Lane Craig thinks we're justified in believing there's an external world if we don't find a defeater for that belief. But if Berkeley is right, nobody can do that, since objects will still seem to be in an external world when there is none. That suggests that a sound deductive argument would be the only way to prove him wrong. — BillMcEnaney

Well, most people build their beliefs on foundations/axioms or presuppositions. There's a choice of these and they're hotly debated epistemological claims.

I want to consider logical laws, but it's hard for me to know why we say "laws of nature" if those laws are non-causal, uncaused, or both. — BillMcEnaney

"Laws" is used as a metaphor, many people just call them the principles of logic.

I wondered about that because civil laws affect what we do. For example, you may need to speed up or slow down when you read a speed limit sign. — BillMcEnaney

This is an equivocation of the word law. In the case of natural law, law is a metaphor rather than an actual law implying a lawgiver, like traffic laws. Natural laws are axioms or regularities.

However, your example illustrates something different, a speed limit can be changed or ignored without any direct repercussion. But can we ignore the logical axioms (identity non-contradiction and excluded middle) without important consequences? Are we're unable to change them? Cue the debate about paraconsistent logic.

Since both sides have the same armament, that's why Atheism vs Theism disputation has been a Mexican Standoff for centuries. — Gnomon

Well, no, I think it’s rather more than that. In the end, any debate about God isn’t simply theism versus atheism. It’s about what we hold to be true. Arguments for or against God are really arguments about what counts as a valid claim to truth. And here’s the thing: how can we ground our knowledge at all? How can we make any truth claim if our words are arbitrary and if evolution has shaped us for survival, not for discovering truth? That’s what many think is behind this debate: whether we can reliably say anything unless there is some objective grounding for our language and reasoning. Where do the laws of logic fit into this? Are they inviolable features of reality, or just contingent products of the human cognitive apparatus something more like what Kant might have suggested?

However, the average religious believer probably does not know or care about abstruse Scholastic reasoning. Their Faith is in the heart, not the head — Gnomon

Firstly, should we even care what the average believer thinks? And secondly, is that view accurate? I don’t think faith is something found in the heart in some deep, private sense. I see it as a contingent product of culture and language. Most people arrive at faith through socialisation and the intersubjective agreements held by the community they grow up in. Faith is in the culture.

Yet, those of us who post on philosophy forums, are aware that Faith without Reason is commonplace among simple-minded credulous people — Gnomon

That sounds very Richard Dawkins to me. There's a huge thread on faith here that suggests many other ways this can be understood.

In the realm of quantum mechanics, the notion of objectivity is challenged. — Gnomon

I have no expertise in QM but the idea of objectivity is not something I think holds up particularly well at the best of times. My own intuition holds that humans do not get to truth or reality (these are god substitutes for the current era).

I would add there are more things we can speak about, and some of these, we didn’t invent. Like the fact that we live separately (from the world and each other), seeking to invent knowledge, of the world, that can be captured in language. This is a fact about the world and you and me in it. I didn’t merely invent you. — Fire Ologist

I’m not an idealist, and I’m not claiming that nothing exists. My point is that human knowledge is contingent, constructed through language, culture, and shared practices, so it isn’t true in any ultimate or objective sense, but rather useful within a given context. What reality is, in itself, we don’t know. The fact that we can build technologies and predict outcomes doesn’t prove we’ve captured some final truth; it simply shows that our current ways of describing the world work well enough for now. 400 years from now our technology may be able to defy current 'laws' of physics.

It cannot be an accident that language about what I think maps to the world, and language about what someone else thinks maps to the world, and these two languages also match each other. There is too much circumstantial evidence for an order I didn’t invent. — Fire Ologist

The fact that our language lines up with the world (and with each other’s) doesn’t require us to believe there’s some deep order we’ve discovered. It’s more plausible to say we’ve developed ways of speaking that help us cope with our environment and coordinate with others. That alignment isn’t surprising; it’s the result of a long, shared process of trial, correction, and adaptation. Intersubjective communities of agreement. What works gets kept. We don’t need to assume our words mirror reality; it’s enough that they help us get things done and reach agreement.

Something doesn’t need to be true to be useful.
— Tom Storm

I disagree. This statement isn’t itself useful when judging important, practical usefulness. Something DOES need to be true to teach others language (maps) that will help them survive crossing the street. — Fire Ologist

I think the example provided makes the argument. But plenty of things which are untrue can be useful , from painting to poetry, fairy tales to myth, even science, which has proved to be wrong, may have provided some utility. No doubt many cancer treatments we have now fail to understand accurately the nature of cancer, but work at some level that prolongs some lives.

Sounds like a long word for Faith prior to Evidence. If you accept that blind faith is a good thing, then you will be hooked into whatever belief system you are currently engaged in. I suppose it's a clever argument for appealing to non-philosophers. But I don't see why you call it "delightful". — Gnomon

Well, it’s delightful when you consider that atheists often claim reason helps us reject theism, and here is a theistic argument flipping this around and suggesting that the atheist’s use of reason is itself evidence for God. Many also go on to invoke the evolutionary argument against naturalism as the next step hoping to demonstrate that reason is only reliable if guaranteed by a deity. I think this is a fun argument and some philosophers take it seriously, e.g., Edward Feser, Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne.

I was hoping for a more informative response. What is the pertinent difference between those pairs, in view of the "rambling OP", about "cartoon gods" and "mawkish literalism"? — Gnomon

I'm not a philosopher or metaphysician, so I don't have much to say on those subjects. What exactly are you asking? Are you asking how measurable, empirical physics differs from speculative metaphysics? Or how abstractions compare to experience?

The difference between a cartoon god and a philosophical God is evident in the conduct such beliefs often inspire. You're more likely to be jailed for homosexuality, or not to take action on climate change, etc, in the literalist world. So the matter has some significance.

How does politically fluid differ from politically nonbinary? — David Hubbs

Pretty much the same thing; I guess it would describe someone whose political views or affiliations shift across issues, rather than consistently aligning with a single ideology or party. Also someone who holds liberal views in some areas and conservative in others. I know several voters currently aligned with Labor who are pro-monarchy, for instance.

Does the notion of God as ground of Being have any "practical use" in your world? Does it "open up" a new path for philosophical dialog? What do you find interesting about their theological "work"? Their approach seems to be based on the Ontological Argument*1, that goes back to Anselm's definition of God as self-evident to rational thinkers : if God is Being itself, then disbelief would be denial of Existence.. — Gnomon

Yes, disbelief is a denial of existence, perhaps put more crudely than someone like David Bentley Hart might phrase it. He would see it as the performative contradiction of atheism. But this only holds if you accept his reasoning and model to begin with. A presuppositionalist would argue that God is the necessary precondition for us to even have a conversation, so in debating God's existence, you're actually proving it. Not convincing to me, but a delightful argument nonetheless.

I'm interested in models of God from the perspective of a curious person, not because I'm looking for answers. In fact, I’d say the same about other philosophical topics like ‘truth’ or ‘morality’. I’m interested in what others think and why and see what I may have missed.

Do you think there is a valid philosophical distinction between Percepts and Concepts, between Physics and Metaphysics? — Gnomon

Yes, they are distinct but related areas that influence and inform each other.

Have you found any of the arguments presented in this thread to be "interesting" or "practical"? — Gnomon

I have found many observations interesting (not sure what you mean by arguments) like this one which summarises the foundational nature of my OP:

Neither Hart nor Tillich are working with new ideas. What they are expressing has been Christian orthodoxy for pretty much all of (well-recorded) Church history. It's the official theology of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, encompassing a pretty large majority of all current and historical Christians (and many Protestants hold to this tradition to).

It is, for instance, what you will find if you open the works of pretty much any theologically minded Church Father or Scholastic: St. Augustine, St. Bonaventure, St. Maximos, St. Thomas Aquinas, either of the Gregorys, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Gregory Palamas, etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Members have said many interesting things as I've read along and even some of the disagreements have been intriguing. One response that stood out to me was this:

Philosophical accounts of theism are not necessarily more sophisticated, so I'd start by pushing back at that built in bias.

Theism that concentrates on logical consistency, empirical support, and scientific compatibility speak to a philosophical bent, and the suggestion inherent in that bent is that theism is an avenue for knowledge in the same sense as is philosophy. That is, to suggest that theism that aims to be philosophical is superior to theism that doesn't, is to implicitely reject theism in its own right. — Hanover

That's worth thinking about. I'm often drawn to the idea that a faith shouldn't need to rely on extravagant curlicues of reasoning and scholarship, nor on blind obedience to dogma. For the 'average' person, the real question seems to be: what is God for? How do they enter the idea, not as a conclusion from abstract proofs, or a fear-based response, but as something lived, felt, or needed? Is there a third way? The apophatic approach does spring to mind, but even here a certain level of sophistication and capacity for abstracts seems to be required.

Thank you.

I’ve had better luck with relations, which seems to be what patterns reduce to. Another story, though, for another time. Or not. — Mww

Cool. We may check this out down the track...

Also, the Hindi concept of Brahman and school of Advaita Vedanta ("Tat Tvam Asi") as a nondualistic way of life seems far less abstract and remote (i.e. non-immanent) than "ground of being". — 180 Proof

That seems sound, based on the smattering I know about it. The 'Ground of Being' strikes me as an amorphous and unhelpful model, but perhaps it makes more sense to students of Tillich.

The question of a cosmic war between 'good' and 'evil' has been central to the Judaeo- Christian (and other Abrahamic) religion. — Jack Cummins

Scholars think it actually came there via Zoroastrianism and its supercharged dualism.

What is the significance of seeing opposites as complementary? How useful or 'true' are such conceptions and what significance does it make in how life is lived? — Jack Cummins

Binary thinking is simplistic and convenient, so it's no surprise that humans often rely on it. By reducing everything to either-or categories, it prevents deeper perception and makes it harder to engage with complexity, paradox, or nuance.

Father Richard Rohr is a well-known critic of binary thinking.

The two alternatives are always exclusionary, usually in an angry way: things are either totally right or totally wrong, with me or against me, male or female, Democrat or Republican, Christian or pagan, on and on and on. The binary mind provides quick security and false comfort, but never wisdom. It thinks it is smart because it counters your idea with an opposing idea. There is usually not much room for a “reconciling third.” I see this in myself almost every day.

I agree we see and use patterns. I’m mildly curious about their origin and the process that makes them so useful to us. But I agree what is it probably doesn’t matter.

The order emerges out of our discursive and material interactions with our environment. It is not discovered but produced , enacted as patterns of activity. — Joshs

Cool. I can get behind that. The how interests me.

Thinking along this line kind of led me to writing -

Perceived patterns in the external world emerge through our embodied interaction with the environment. — Tom Storm

But this is more properly your area of expertise, not mine.

Did it now? How? I mean, if we apply your outlook consistently, then all our beliefs are almost certainly and irredeemably false, being that the world is independent of them, and they are independent of the world. But how then do we prove or disprove anything? What meaning can such words have? — SophistiCat

I don't think this is all that challenging. I'd prefer to say things are useful, not true or false. This is my thesis. I'm not claiming to be inerrant about this matter, it's simply my tentative model for understanding things, and it relates to the original post.

Some things work well for us in certain circumstances, and some things don't. It's always evolving and changing. I suspect you're right. We never really get to truth, at least not if by truth we mean something external to our contingent factors like language and culture.

The next obvious criticism is: if nothing is true, then neither is what you said, Tom.

To that, I would agree. Saying “we never get to truth” expresses skepticism about objective or foundational truth claims, but it is not itself a universal truth, rather, I'd see it more as a useful framework for managing ideas and guiding actions. I think Richard Rorty may have settled on this frame too, but I am not a philosopher.

Of course, there are intersubjective communities that share views and models, and many of those are useful. Those communities may even see their frames as 'how the world is'. But they soon are found wanting and they change. Just look at the history of medicine. In 200 years, it's likely we'll look back on many of our current practices as a mix of ignorance and barbarism, just as we how view much of what was done 200 years ago.

Things don't have to be true to be of use.

This one comes from Hilary Lawson. A good example of how something doesn't need to be true to be useful is Aristotle’s geocentric model of the universe. Although we now know it was completely wrong (the Earth isn’t at the center, and there are no crystal spheres) the model was used successfully for over a thousand years, especially in navigation. Sailors relied on tools and star charts based on that system to cross oceans and navigate by the stars. It worked, even though it wasn’t true. As Lawson points out, this shows that conceptual frameworks can be effective 'closures' that help us act, even if they don’t reflect reality as it actually is.

Back to laws and patterns. Perceived patterns in the external world emerge through our embodied interaction with the environment. I am wondering if they reflect what human cognition projects onto experience and that they can function provisionally to produce what we call useful outcomes.

This is a yes or no question. My answer is no. — David Hubbs

I’m not sure it is, unless I’m missing something. I identify as conservative or progressive depending on the issue, it’s not a neat either-or situation. As an Australian, I find myself progressive on some issues and conservative on others. Plenty of people I know vote differently at each election because, fundamentally, they don’t identify with a single party or ideology. They are politically fluid.

See, you speak of order in the world . Results (things in the world, that we point to), that are pragmatic (according to some reasoning, some ordering, some practical relationship to them). So you are speaking of a world and speaking of order (pragmatic) in the world (results are in the world, not merely an agreement). Maybe you said it for nothing more than to conjecture, but that small, pregnant quote assumes the existence of a lot that you are trying to say is not there. — Fire Ologist

No. I'm speaking of a 'world' to which we ascribe order by virtue of all the factors I've described several times.

My basic (and speculative) thesis is this: we find ourselves somewhere, though we don't really know what somewhere is, even though we give it names (like world or reality) and we go about using our cognitive faculties and languages to give order to it. We invent names and concepts and theories, many of which seem to match what we appear to be involved in. This is something we do to help us predict and act. But this process doesn't necessarily map onto any external reality independent of us; rather, it helps us cope with whatever it is we inhabit. Our theories and models eventually fade and are replaced by new ones and they in turn fade and on it goes...

I guess my point is more basically, whether we put the order in the world or it is just there, we can’t escape finding order in the world. So why bother resisting “order in the world”? Look for it. Make your words make sense as descriptions I would also make because we are in the same world. (Which you do, but don’t seem to see the ordered world in it.) — Fire Ologist

Yes, and this is the question I’m attempting to address. My intuition tells me that what we call “order” is a superimposition upon our situation, not something intrinsic to the world or external to us in any absolute sense. Humans live by abstractions. We generate patterns, names, systems, all of which help us navigate what would otherwise be an overwhelming flux. But that doesn’t mean those patterns are in the world in a mind-independent way. They’re ways we cope, predict, and make meaning. So it’s not that I deny the experience of order or its usefulness to us — I’m simply cautious about mistaking our interpretive frameworks for the nature of reality itself. Something doesn’t need to be true to be useful.

Our ongoing and tentative understanding of our situation. I would suggest this amounts to a range of evolving inter subjective agreements. But I suspect you’re not on board.