I'm Australian and value our 'compulsory voting'. To me it's not a tyranny - it's just a reminder that we have responsibilities as well as freedoms. But no one actually has to vote. We show up for 10-15 minutes and have our name ticked off. Then you are perfectly able to write, "Go fuck yourself!' or some anarchist missive on the ballot paper if you wish to demonstrate how much you hate the system.

Did you know truth at if you put a group of people in a room and ask them to draw images that are evoked by a piece of instrumental music played to the group, many would draw similar images? That sounds representational to me. — Joshs

Yep. Music is like language - what counts as dramatic, peaceful or lyrical in music is generally understood by the intersubjective community from which the music originates. When Westerners hear music from other cultures, it often sounds incoherent, as they have no point of reference.

The difference between philosophers and people who aren't that (or who make a point of claiming not to be philosophers) is in how systematically and how in accordance with the philosophical tradition they reflect on the big topics. — baker

Which in my view is a difference so big you could park a planet on it. :smile: I think making a distinction between understanding philosophy and having an unexamined opinion is of critical importance. Isn't a role of philosophy to provide better alternatives to the fallacies and inadequacies of common sense and enculturation?

To classify this decrease merely as "largely an aesthetic experience" takes away the relevance of this decrease. — baker

Who said merely? Aesthetic experiences are serious matters. It's the first thing that strikes me when I see land taken over by lots of identical, ugly houses, not to mention all the garish signage. But we also need more housing (here), so the trade off between habitat and housing for humans is a complex matter.

I've been trying to show you why your question is wrong, and why your persistent declarations of "not being a philosopher" are misguided. — baker

To denigrate a question by saying it isn't legitimate may be a way of avoiding its answer. I think the question -

Is there evidence that philosophy is of benefit to individuals and how would that be demonstrated? — Tom Storm

- is a salient one. Obviously its a large and unwieldly subject and it would benefit from some clarifications.

One of the assumptions in critical thinking is that it is possible to rationally, with arguments, summarize a person's stance on any given topic. — baker

This is not an opportunity for a lecture on critical thinking. You made an assertion which of itself did not present an argument or conspicuously engage with rationality -

To be "ordinary", one needs to live in a very small world, have a small mind, have a dog-eat-dog heart. Many people live this way, and they seem to do just fine. — baker

I made the point that I know many ordinary people who do not have a small mind and a dog-eat-dog heart. The view presented here of ordinary people seems eccentric, pejorative. That was my response.

In other words, many of the ordinary people I have known treat others with respect, do not chase money or power, read books, explore ideas, donate their time and money to charitable causes and generally do good when they can.

there is some kind of "class warfare" going on — dclements

You only just worked this out? — Banno

Yeah... some of us have been caught up and fighting in this protracted conflict for some decades. :pray:

And to me, if you want to discuss the progression of consciousness through time, the time has come to address this. — neonspectraltoast

Interesting. What do you mean by the progression of consciousness through time? Do you mean the evolution of human cognitive capacity across history, or something more numinous?

There is no beginning or end, and consciousness is a permanent fixture of the cosmos, and most likely exists as a non-local field. — neonspectraltoast

How have you established this to be the case? Do you subscribe to idealism?

But if you limit your perspective to linear time, as virtually everyone does, there can't be any intellectual progression, because as it appears is certainly not as it is. — neonspectraltoast

Maybe for speculative mental excursions, but do we have any choice about this in what we generally call reality? Without linear time, crossing the road, setting goals, writing a letter would likely be impossible. But whether linear time is actually true or not outside of human cognitive gestalts may not be all that relevant since humans seem to have no choice but to embrace the beginning, middle and end of matters.

The sentence is pointing to something beyond ideas, Tom. — ArielAssante

That's for sure.

It would help by defining what you mean by phenomenology. — Xtrix

Nothing specific - I'm thinking more of the phenomenological disposition (especially how it might relate to self and identity) as you might see it. I have little knowledge of the subject, but I read Josh's post with interest (I understand he is also postmodernist). I've also read smatterings of Michel Bitbol, Evan Thompson, Merleau-Ponty (which I failed to understand) Hubert Dreyfus on Heidegger.

Maybe I'm missing something? — Xtrix

I'm not hinting at anything. My limited understanding of phenomenology is that experience is not what it seems to be, so I'm simply wondering if this may have broader implications for how your approach might be understood. If I'm not making sense to you we can move on. :smile:

Do you have any views about what a phenomenological approach to this model might be? In the light of the process of being and becoming and how we are constantly changing and reinventing self - how does this sit alongside your more pragmatic model which seems to rest upon a realist worldview? Does this make sense?

It seems you are unable or unwilling to explain what puzzles you. Okay. — ArielAssante

This is strange. I told you I don't know what the sentence means. I was very clear. I would have thought that this is your que to elaborate and maybe express the same idea in more words to give it some nuance. If you are unable to do this I'm happy to move on.

Find out what life is, then the answer will be obvious.
— ArielAssante

What does this sentence mean?

What is it that puzzles you? — ArielAssante

You'll note, I wasn't the only one who did not understand your cryptic comment.

What does the expression 'find out what life is' mean? Please clarify. Then maybe we will understand what the next part - 'then the answer will be obvious' means.

You feel I've moved my goalposts? I didn't mean to. Let me know if I'm not understanding here. — Noble Dust

No, I wasn't thinking you moved the goalposts - that sounds pejorative. I think the conversation kind of evolved. I thought we were talking about eyes that appear beautiful, but when you wrote:

the beauty of eye contact is universal. — Noble Dust

We are now exploring eye contact which for me sounds like we are talking about an interaction. Beauty on the inside, revealed in the eyes, perhaps? Either way, it's not an issue that requires much analysis. I was just curious about your take. I have not always understood the word beauty because to me it's more of an umbrella term used to describe a range of qualities; pleasing, striking, compelling, alluring, touching, etc - and such things are understood differently by people and cultures. I think when we call use the word 'beauty' and cram all those ideas into one enigmatic word, we charge it with mystical power that it can't really hold. But that's me, right? :smile:

No worries. I like hearing different views to mine. :pray:

Ok, thanks for clarifying this. I think contact between humans is a different phenomenon. We seem to have moved from eyes which can be described as beautiful, to something else involving eye contact and interaction.

But we should not give up on objectively context. The paper I have read yesterday propose that there are some "supernatural" examples which we can consider as "high" or "top quality". Thus, the ones who goes further than just "beauty" — javi2541997

I guess I reject this idea. Sounds like we believe in different things. :smile:

What I'm suggesting is that looking deeply into this girls eyes would sufficiently convince you otherwise. — Noble Dust

I know that's what you're suggesting.

So there's no way for me to demonstrate this. — Noble Dust

Of course not.

You make it sound like mysticism. But my question is why do you think your experience transcends your experience or even some intersubjective cultural agreement on human eye beauty? Do you think someone from the indigenous Australian community in the remote Kimberley would share your experience?

I think it's simpler than that. Beauty is an experience that's self evident. — Noble Dust

It's precisely the lack of this 'self-evidence' that makes me hold the opposite view. People do not share views on beauty in art, or in people. Sure there are some intersubjective, shared common opinions, often culturally located, but it is not immutable.

Nevertheless, I see it as "perfection". — javi2541997

I hear you.

Personally, I don't recognize 'perfection' as anything more than a word employed in various contexts. I am not aware of any example of perfection in the world, except when the word is used in a quotidian context to subjectively describe the best example of something - eg,' This cake is perfection.'

We all should have a basic concept of "beauty" (as you explained in a Platonist view, for example) which is intersubjective (I guess). — javi2541997

The Platonic view is idealism, which transcends the intersubjective account. If you accept Platonic idealism then in some realm there exists truth, goodness and beauty as immutable forms, and on earth all we see are their instantiations. I don't have good reasons to accept this account.

But I think that even if we don't use the word "beauty", we all have like a basic sense of it... or at least the opposite: ugliness. — javi2541997

I generally find the beauty/ugly bifurcation as problematic as good/evil or Madonna/whore style pairings. Human beings make value judgements about the things they see and experience. I prefer not to get carried away with emotional reactions and concomitant superlatives or denigrations.

Seems very individualistic, although I don’t at all mean it that way. Collaboration with others is essential. — Xtrix

I understand and I wasn't disparaging your model, which seems sound.

Am curious about what philosophy (especially phenomenology) might reveal about goal directed thinking. To understand where we want to go, it may be necessary to understand why we want to go there and who we are now. How are we constructing the 'I' which seeks to become something more or something different?

Obviously there are presuppositions built into our view of self which may or may not be useful. Our goals may be calibrated around a series of faulty assumptions. People often hold views that they are ugly or stupid or unlovable and construct an entire worldview and set of behaviors around this, including their goals for change.

What is beautiful? Are we missing the basic sense of beauty inside aesthetics? — javi2541997

Unless you are a Platonist, isn't beauty just a term used to deal with personal taste and/or intersubjective value systems? I have virtually no use for the word beauty in my daily life and although I find some things aesthetically pleasing - this might be because they are striking rather than 'beautiful'. Ditto sublime - I have no knowledge or experience of a word like this but recognise its romantic and quasi-religious associations for others.

Find out what life is, then the answer will be obvious. — ArielAssante

What does this sentence mean?

What do Aboriginal clients have to say about personal growth/change? — Xtrix

I haven't heard personal growth or change mentioned in such terms. Transformation and healing seems to come through connection to country and mob. (In other words, place based and through interactions with culture and others, especially elders.)

I personally consider (C) to the hardest of the three more often than not. Recognising problems or goals and developing a concrete plan of action are also difficult for many people -- but in the end the biggest obstacle to growth, in my view, is simply doing it. Perhaps others disagree. — Xtrix

I think this is an important point. I've worked in the area of mental ill health and substance misuse for many years. In my experience (which is just one guy's view) many, perhaps most people know what they need to change in life. The problem is doing it. And not doing it when you know what needs doing often leads to lacerating self-hatred and blaming others.

I do think however that setting goals is a specific worldview and approach which not everyone relates to as the pragmatic common sense it is often understood to be. When I've worked with Aboriginal Australian clients, for instance, this seems to be the case.

I was in a philosophy meetup yesterday and the moderator insisted that I admit there are bald facts about aspects of the world, and denying such concrete facts in the name of postmodernism or whatever is dangerous because it can lead to an ‘anything goes’ atmosphere that breeds fascism. — Joshs

Was the moderator Jordan B Peterson?

That's like asking whether breathing is of benefit to individuals and how would that be demonstrated. — baker

No it's not. Breathing is completely unavoidable. Philosophy is avoidable. Odd comparison.

Listing names isn't a description. — baker

I would have thought that this is my point - such a description is not possible. You can't readily describe people who have chosen not to behave in the manner you have suggested without going into lengthy biography.

It seems your obsession with your status as non-philosopher is getting in the way of thinking clearly. — baker

'Obsession' no - 'status' yes. Am I not thinking clearly? I never said I thought clearly.

I don't feel like looking up images of concentration camp prisoners and such. "Largely an aesthetic experience". — baker

Is this a non sequitur? Why mention concentration camps?

So it sounds like you won't engage with my question, but opt to dismiss it instead as poor thinking. Ok.

Did you mean apophatic? — Janus

Oops, typo, yes I did.

The former (transcendental) perspective seems to have more in common with apophatic stances, and the latter (transcendent) with the cataphatic, but I must admit that the more I try to think about this distinction the more it seems to dissolve into a kind of fog, and it starts to look like a fudge. — Janus

I think this is right. I also think one needs to believe for this to 'work'.

Nicely worded. Thanks.

I don't see what else it could be. Can you think of an alternative? — Janus

I just call it the ineffable. But I generally agree with you. For some believers I suspect there is a recognition of transcendence that sits above and beyond emotion and is more in keeping with apophatic traditions.

Ok. I just aren't sure how this explains the language in your quote below. But that maybe my problem as I generally need language to be very clear in order to follow the thread.

What is different about Gospel of Thomas is the emphasis upon betraying one's own being as the danger involved. The proximity between what can kill you or give you life. — Paine

(fixed typo)

The spiritual has to do, not with observation of particulars, logical relations or propositional discourse, but with affect; the sense of being illuminated. — Janus

You make 'the spiritual' sound like 'the emotional'. (that's not intended as an adverse criticism, just an observation).

What is different about Gospel of Thomas is the emphasis upon betraying one's own being as the danger involved. The proximity between what can kill you or give you life. — Paine

Can you briefly explain what this means?

My own account of causation is taken from Lewis: A causes B if it is not possible for A to be false and B to be true. — Michael

Nice.

They would instead share with their anti-realist opponents the need to defend their conceptions of scientific understanding with the recognition that these conceptions conflict with what the sciences have to say about our own conceptual capacities — Joshs

I guess much of the debate here has been getting stuck in this bog.

Is this from Rouse's paper, 'Beyond Realism and Antirealism ---At Last?'

These are tantalizing incomplete snippets - I wish I had time to read more.

Maybe it would be better to dissolve the epistemological problem of perception by dissolving the alleged gap between perceiver and world and along with it representational realism. — Joshs

Is this done by playing with language, by conceptional framing, or by looking the other way? :razz:

In terms of an example of Gnosis and its significance, we can look to all of Shamanism. — Bret Bernhoft

Thanks for clarifying.

The problem with all such promises is that one must first buy into it in order to seriously pursue it, and then when one fails to realize what is expected the blame is put on the person striving for doing or not doing something. — Fooloso4

That's it in a nutshell. In my experience, the people keenest on gnosis seem to be theosophists and Jungians who have already determined a pecking order and tend to see themselves as climbing the spiritual status ladder.

Can you point to an example of gnosis being achieved and why it is significant?

Sounds reasonable.

:up:

I'm not surprised. When the sickness is in the cellular level, no amount of positivity or fight would change that. — L'éléphant

Yep. I noticed that the website of the American Cancer Society has:

Studies have shown that keeping a positive attitude does not change the course of a person’s cancer. Trying to keep a positive attitude does not lead to a longer life and can cause some people to feel guilty when they can’t “stay positive.” This only adds to their burden.

I do think a positive attitude, if not forced, can help make cancer easier to deal with emotionally and it can make it easier for friends and relatives to cope. Whatever that's worth.

Nice work.

I guess what I’m asking is, do you think the difference between a philosophy that makes a place for the significance of life, and one that doesn’t, is significant? — Wayfarer

I doubt it and have asked this question for many years. Humans are meaning making creatures who love and collaborate peaceably, no matter how antisocial faith traditions, politics, capitalism or sundry outliers might conspire to make us. Belief in meta-narratives have never stopped the jails from filling, or prevented the bodycount from piling up on the battlefields or in the dungeons. So my guess is that what you do matters, not what you believe.

Something about it must interest you, otherwise why would you keep asking questions about it? — Wayfarer

I'm interested in a lot of things. Doesn't mean I have a clear use for them. And I am really fascinated by what others believe and why.