continuation of other topics....

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

as noted by the thread, “Key moment in Kropotkin’s life”
the key question is the question of existence…
what is the meaning of life? what is the meaning of existence?
Now many will say, it is for each of us to find for ourselves…
and that is fine, however that takes out any possible universal choice…
(Catholic is the Latin term for Universal)
Thus any possible religious understanding of the meaning of life,
as a choice for everyone is denied…if each of us is seeking to find
our own meaning of life, the meaning of existence is not universal…
religions are predicated on the universal existence of human beings…
in other words, to seek forgiveness of god for “everyone” is denied…
the binary choice of heaven or hell becomes an individual choice, not
for everyone…and is thus, not a universal choice…
so what possibilities are universal? outside of death, I don’t see any other
universals…( to be human is to be born seems to me to be more of
a tautology and not a choice)

so let us investigate universal possibilities for us human beings…

as mentioned, we have the religious as a universal possibility,
but the question arises, which religion is “THE universal one?”

So we have, as universal possibilities:

philosophical
religious
scientific
emotional
Maslow’s pyramid
accomplishments/goals

by no means is this list the entire list, this is just off the top of my head…

so let us explore this rather limited list to see if any universal possibilities
come to us…

We begin by the philosophical: the philosophical can mean the pursuit
of knowledge, of wisdom, the radical assumption that philosophy is only
meant to ease our minds about death, specifically our own upcoming death…
philosophy as was Socrates forte… which was the moral improvement of our souls via
philosophy… seeking the meaning of life via the various methods of
philosophy… I.E. Epistemology, Aesthetics, political science, metaphysics,
ethics, logic… we seek meaning within the branches of philosophy…

religious: we seek meaning within a religious context… by one
religion or another…
the problem lies within the assumptions that all the religions make…
for example, Catholics and other Christians assume in god, heaven, Jesus, hell,
eternal life…

for the Buddhists, the assumption is reincarnation, and the goal is to
end this constant rebirth by returning to the nothingness we came from…
if there is no reincarnation, then there is no point to the Buddhists
assumption that the goal of existence is to seek a return to nothingness…

the ancestor worship religions: the goal is to appease our ancestors
so they can directly or indirectly aid us in some fashion…
and assumes ancestors that exist in that fashion…

the point is that religions operate on some basic assumptions
that are, well unprovable…

Scientific: that the meaning and point of existence can be found
within the Scientific method…and the Scientific method certainly
has founded the modern world…and the Scientific method can tell
us much about the universe and our world… the how, the way,
that the universe works is found within the Scientific method…
but it hasn’t, at least not yet found any type of meaning or
point to human existence…and frankly, I doubt that science
or the Scientific method will ever be able to give us some
sort of meaning or purpose in existence…

accomplishments: such goals as in gaining wealth or finding fame
or in gaining titles… in seeking the trinkets of existence…
the goal of, the point of existence here is found in the assumption
that we can find some meaning within the seeking of material goods,
or wealth or fame or titles…I have spoken against this particular
goal or purpose of life for years… for example, once you gain all the
wealth in the universe, now what? if that car or that TV set was worth,
all that time and effort, why do we replace them? A car or wealth
is nothing more than status, seeking status is just ego at work…
seeking our ego goals is nothing more than masturbation…

and finally, we reach a key one, emotional goals…
which is the seeking of emotional goals like love,
esteem, affection, amusement, joy, acceptance, compassion,
bravery, calm, enjoyment, enthusiasm among other emotional goals…

and this ties into my next category, which is Maslow’s pyramid,
as a goal/ purpose is to work from the bottom to top
in this pyramid, in which the bottom of the pyramid is the basic human needs
of the body, the physiological needs of the body… food, water, shelter,
education, heath care…and this ties into our psychological needs
of love/social belonging needs, safety/security, esteem, cognitive needs,
Aesthetic needs… and the final stage in which the person has all their
needs met, both physically and psychologically and people can
realize their full potential… become their possibilities…
“what a man can be, he must be”

now don’t mistake this list as being engaged in one stage and one stage
only… we, each of us, engage in each stage often two or three at the
same time…I will seek out my physical needs as I often seek out my
need for love or for esteem… there is nothing that says, we must engage
in one stage and one stage only… but for most people, they are
engaged in the bottom two stages, the physical needs of food, water,
shelter, clothing… and then in seeking safety/security or love…
often at the same time…but I say the goal of existence isn’t
just to engage in the bottom two levels of the pyramid…
to move from meeting our lower two levels to reaching for our
highest level which is the self-actualization needs… and then beyond…

we can understand part of our goal and purpose/existence if we take Maslow’s
pyramid as the starting point of what it means to be human…we must,
as part of our existence, engage in the level of meeting our biological
needs…and that is certainly part of existence, but only part of
our meaning and purpose…

and so I leave it here for the moment… for us to begin the
reflection on what it means to be human…

Kropotkin

2

Various versions of the golden rule (how we should be, what we should do, the ultimate end… treat/love the other as self… self=other) is found in every major culture in history because it is eternal, descriptive of God’s essence. It is the essence we all share, and it requires choices aligned with the eternal essence in order to fully actualize.

Hope that helps.

3

K: what we have here is a series of assumptions… that there are “various versions
of the golden rule” you have made them into one, when in fact, there are many
possibilities of the golden rule…(which needs to be defined… what exactly is
the golden rule) if each culture defines the golden rule as they need it,
it is no longer universal… eternal…

another assumption, “because it is eternal, descriptive of god’s essence”
and you know this how? and how would you know about “god’s essence”
if god is ineffable? from what I read, every description of god seems to
fit into the already preconceived notion of the writer…“god is”
as the writer needs or wants god to be…

as I said, far too many assumptions to be the answer to my question…

What does it mean to be human?

Kropotkin

4

This three-part Moral Truth Litmus tells us when a particular morality/ethical theory is artificial, when that morality fails any part of the litmus:

(L1) Part 1: Question Aspect: Moral truth must describe the answer to “How and why should we be or behave with the Other and self?”
(L2) Part 2: Objective Aspect: Moral truth, like all other truth, must be discovered, not created.
(L3) Part 3: Universal Aspect: Moral truth, like all other truth, must be true for all or none.

If no theory passes all three parts of the litmus, there is no moral truth.

Being discovered in/by every culture in history is good for part 3, but to pass part 2, you need a being whose essence it describes—who always exists its essence.

It isn’t true without demonstration—Kierkegaard’s “subjectivity is truth”. And there is a lot of evidence of this ultimate demonstration: Jesus taking our perspective and giving us his on the cross and rising to prove it.

Search these forums for my resurrection logic puzzle, to start.

5

K: you act as if the words, “moral truth” actually means something…

and anything about Jesus or god is just an assumption… nothing more…

Kropotkin

6

why?

why?

7

Here’s another thing you should know before you do something really effing stupid. Physical death is just the beginning of dealing with your bullshit. Don’t do it. Deal with it here because you’re gonna have to deal with it anyway.

Or don’t believe me. Good luck with that.

8

That’s not perfectly true. If people like me have anything to do with it, you’ll never experience the standard consequence of abandoning others here.

Suicide is not stupid (if that’s what we’re talking about).

Yes. We all live forever. This plane if existence is not the have-all-be-all of existence.

All that matters is who we hurt, how and why.

My murder would hurt me a little. It would crush my mother’s spirit.

You need to think about things like that. It’s very bad luck to hurt people who are loved (including yourself)

9

I didn’t mean stupid as a personal insult. We all know he’s freaking smart.

Also I’m not trying to guilt trip anybody because I understand that people who end their life just want the (in K’s case: existential) pain to stop.

Let it pass through you & do something completely insane like take my words seriously that I already tried to offer you. What do you have to lose?

You are loved.

10

K: what the fuck are you talking about?

Kropotkin

11

Are you thinking of hurting yourself? You said death is universal. So what?… it is not the end, only a door. You have made a false assumption.

12

K: death is a universal… all life dies… how does that make it seem like
“you going to hurt yourself”… how do you go from point A to point B?
truly a leap… and saying that “death is not the end, but a door”
and you made an assumption… death is final… for all life…
to assume that there is something beyond death… there is no proof…
the burden of proof always, ALWAYS lays with the one who is stating
the positive… that would be you…you cannot prove a negative…
for example, how would I go about “proving” there are no angels?
but if you say, yes, there are angels, then the burden of proof is yours…

Kropotkin

13

Please do me - someone you owe absolutely nothing - a favor, and research data about near death experiences before you decide what you think you should do with your life based on what it means to be human. Put aside preconceived notions about what death means and just do the research.

14

Who the hell invented the burden of proof ?

I cringe when i see this kind of thing.

15

Defense attorneys, I’m thinkin. In this case, I didn’t bring up angels, he brought up “death is universal” (science is trying to defy that), and I countered with “death is a door” (evidence: NDEs). I think he is the one carrying the burden because he is the one making the inquiry into what he should do with his life based on what it means to be human. He is the one who will ultimately have to live with (carry) that decision. We can express care, and suggest avenues to explore, but it’s up to him what he does with that.

16

I: Say something, Kropotkin.

17

as the thread itself announces, this is a continuation of
other topics…

Philosophy is meant to inform us of what is… what is good, evil,
indifferent, the word philosophy itself means, Love of wisdom…
which suggest that in order to engage in philosophy, one must
love wisdom…to engage in seeking wisdom… for a philosopher
does not actually have wisdom, he/she is seeking it…

and in reading philosophy, one can read about philosophical idea’s
like justice, good, evil, truth, and work within various areas
of philosophy… Epistemology, Ethics, Aesthetics, metaphysics,
logic, political science… and we can connect philosophical ideas
like good into areas like Epistemology or Ethics…

We can mix and match as it were… we can take an idea like love
and pursue it through logic or by ethics or historically or through
Aesthetics…

so we take an idea like the “good life” and try to understand it through
various possibilities… we can look at the “good life” and work it out
by logic or by political science… but we can also look at an idea like
the “good life” via what our society or state/government or the culture
might think about the “good life”…

but in asking about what is the “good life” one must be prepared to
to ask, is the “good life” actually what we want out of life?
is the goal, meaning of existence the pursuit of the “good life?”

quite clearly, it depends how one defines the “good life”…

a life is a life, but when we add the word, “Good” what does it do
to the meaning of life? I have a “good life”… so, does that mean
different things to different people? I would think so…
The Greeks felt that the “good life” was a life of contemplation of
the good, the contemplation of god… most modern people would
disagree with that assessment… to our modern ears, the “good life”
is far more active than passive… to us moderns, the “good life” would
be wealth and leisure and the ability to do things without interference…
but note, the “good life” to us moderns isn’t something within us…
it lies outside of us… it is wealth, wealth isn’t a property of
values like goodness or justice or love or hope…wealth is something
that comes from the outside of us… and with that wealth comes
the ability to buy houses and cars and travel without restraint…
but it doesn’t refer to some value within us… we can have wealth without
being a good person, or wealth doesn’t mean a bad person or a mean person…
wealth doesn’t say who we are, as an identity… it is external to who we are…

which leads us to the second and perhaps the most important aspect of
philosophy… which isn’t to inform us, but to form us…
using philosophy, we can transform into “good” people… by
using philosophy to understand what a “good person” actually is…
and then changing ourselves into that understanding of what a
“good person” is… the value of philosophy isn’t to inform us, but
to form us… philosophy isn’t a subject to be studied, but a means,
a method of becoming something else…using philosophy as
a way of life… which is to say, we use philosophy as a means of
identifying who we currently are, and who we ought to become…
philosophy becomes a means of transformation of us into
human beings… we were, and some of us still are, animals,
we exist to engage in the basics of existence, just like animals,
we seek our food, water, shelter, education… we engage in
providing for our lowest level of existence… simple keeping ourselves
alive… that is the animal level… and most people live on this level…
working just to survive to the next day… nothing more complicated than that…

some of us has reached the next level which is animal/human… in which
we seek more than just mere survival… we seek our higher possibilities of
being human… and the method, the means of us to reaching our higher
possibilities is through the study/practice of philosophy… to form us,
not just to inform us…

philosophy as a way of life… instead of just being a field of study in which
we walk out of the classroom, no better or no worse than when we went in…
philosophy must engage us enough to force us to change our understanding
of what it means to be human… to form us, not just to inform us…

the problem lies with the fact that we don’t take philosophy serious at all…
it is simply just another field to study and get a grade in, nothing more.
it isn’t meant to change us or form us, it is simply another class to pass to
get where we want to be, as schooling today is nothing more than just
training to become workers, consumers, producers…
and the society and the state has no interest in creating
anything more than workers to work and consumers to buy
and producers to make products…

do you want to “stick it to the man?” become something more than just
a worker, consumer, producer… the most revolutionary act we can commit
today is to see our lives as something more than just being workers, or consumers
or producers… to form our lives into something more than just being another
cog in the machine… and we can use philosophy to show us the way to become
something more… to seek out and become our possibilities…
I am not just another cog in the vast machine of retail sales…
I have value… not just because I am a human being, but because
I am using philosophy to seek out what is possible for me… using
philosophy to do more than just inform me, I am using philosophy
to form me… philosophy as a way of life… and not just as a field to study,
just another class to pass… but to become something more… to become
human and then become something more…

Kropotkin

18

exploring and practicing what it means to be fully alive and reconciled… a lifelong pursuit