Life & Death

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

The mind is a forager of patterns; we, as all living organisms with a brain, seek out repetition and a semblance of ordered, comforting, controllable, predictability in a seemingly chaotic and erratic existence.

This we call logic, reality, experience and knowledge but, above all else, we call it ‘truth’ and/or power.

Whether these patterns are discovered or created, by the mind, is at the center of most philosophical debates and is the main cause for all misunderstandings and confrontations in matters of abstract reasoning.

For the majority order and patterns appear to be pre-existing concepts awaiting our attention or dictating our understanding, as with the Platonic Idea or Christianity, while for some they are illusions produced by a mind is search for power in a universe defined by chaos and constant flux.

What for the former is referred to as ‘truth’ or ‘God’ or ‘reality’ or ‘Idea’ for the latter is an unwanted constraint upon free-will and a delusion caused by the minds nature of comprehending only what can be regimented and stored as memory.

Either way what can be safely admitted is that patterns, symmetry and order is of the utmost importance and of extreme interest to our mental wanderings and is the prime source of strategising and theorizing in the human species. We like to categorize and label phenomena; we understand the world through opposites and through causes and effects; we reach for control and power through deducing or inducing rules, laws and relationships and we call our adherence to them happiness, virtue, morality and purpose.

In fact, it can be argued, that since we are products of order ourselves and providential, ephemeral instances of pattern in a universe of predominant disorderliness, that it is therefore natural that we will be attracted to these concepts, see them everywhere and glorify them as our highest standards neglecting, perhaps, the idea that order and disorder themselves are the way we discern between the intelligible and the unintelligible and that this prejudice is one due to consciousness itself with no real transcending meaning.

As products of patterns, it is natural to assume, that we are also slaves to them. No matter how hard we try to liberate our individuality from conventionality we must inevitably confess that we behave, act and think in manners similar to others sharing our social, cultural, religious, and genetic pasts. This uncomfortable reality is what makes psychology, biology, sociology, anthropology and science, in general, respectable disciplines that can teach us things about ourselves but also makes cosmology, philosophy and physics possible since all of these base their validity on how phenomena, sharing common characteristics, will act predictably and consistently.

This idea of mental enslavement and human prejudiced, delusional thinking and of mans subjugation to larger entities [Nature, Society, Culture, Religion] was recognized firstly by the ancients, particularly by the Greeks, and has entered popular consciousness through art and philosophy in more recent times.

The concept of existing in a false reality is not a new one but it has grown in popularity and strength in more modern times culminating in the philosophies of Kant, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, in the science of physics and quantum physics in particular and finding its way into modern artistic mainstream expressions such as movies [‘Fight Club’, ‘Matrix’], music [‘Rage Against the Machine’, ‘Pink Floyd’, ‘Marilyn Manson’, ‘Radiohead’] and any form of surrealistic, mythological or abstract expression attempting to uncover a hidden perspective or to redefine reality through imagery.

It is therefore natural for man to attempt to encompass life and being [becoming] by finding patters in its processes and procedures.

In my own attempts to discover commonalities and life patterns I have stumbled upon an unfortunate realization that at first caused me some discomfort: All life is preoccupied with just staying alive and all acts of being are a struggle to avoid non-being.

The act of living seems to consist of the mere practice of dealing with death and mortality. We feed, drink, procreate, create, interact, build, explore and hypothesize in an endless struggle to give meaning to our inevitable demise or to come to terms with it and, if possible, avoid it altogether.

Civilization is the result of this fight against death and little more.
Life, in essence, can be described as the act of resisting death or the activity of maintaining self and nothing else besides.

We may even say that we don’t really live but only resist dieing and spend our every moment thinking, acting and avoiding our own demise.

Schopenhauer described wisdom as the product of heightened intellectual power that is so abundant that when the physical survival needs of the organism are met the leftover intellect turns upon itself and starts becoming aware of self and its place in the world. It becomes an observer of itself and a critic of its own nature as an almost completely objective observer. This is the experience of self-consciousness which is a characteristic shared by all higher entities with superfluous intellects.

It is this aspect of human nature that eventually leads to nihilistic tendencies and the denial of the self through extreme asceticism caused by self-hatred and insecurity.

This residual intellect varies from individual to individual and, in the ones blessed or damned to possess great quantities of it, it can have detrimental or beneficial effects on the psyche, depending on the mental stability, psychological fortitude and environmental experiences of each person.

Because of this, I believe, it is possible for man to look upon himself and his consciousness with a certain detachment that makes the discernment of patterns, shared by all living beings no matter their sophistication, feasible.

It is this excess intellectual capability that can detach itself from the continuous preoccupations of survival that has the potential to become more than just an instrument of struggle against non-existence and can witness itself and the world as it is without the limiting influences of self-interest and ego.

So, in closing, we may say that we never really live but are only involved in the act of not dieing and it is in those instances of becoming aware of what life is or can be that we find the sublime and the transcending.

2

Another excellent post.

In the eigth paragraph you said this:

“This uncomfortable reality…”

Why?

3

Satyr,

I found some portions of your post agreeable, but others a little problematic. I’ll try to stick to the main ideas.

You began by describing our world of experience as,

While this may be true, the universe also seems to be highly ordered. Much of that order is man-made, but much of it isn’t.

If we want to speak purely scientifically, we could say that the amount of order in the universe is decreasing, but that it was once highly ordered. Is it now mostly disordered, or is there more order than there is disorder? I don’t think a casual glance at our daily experiences can answer that question. I don’t think philosophical speculation or scientific theories have the answer, either.

Anyway, I agree with you basic idea that the brain is a forager of patterns.

This is pretty bold assertion. I’d like to see some reasoning to back it up, if you have any.

In any case, I think you may be unfairly limiting the possible answers to that question. It is the opinion of some, including myself, that the issue of “discovered-vs.-created” is the result of a misunderstanding, and that the patterns we see are the result of interactions. In other words, we both discover and create them.

I think that is all pretty well-stated.

I have two big problems here. First, as I noted earlier, I’m not willing to accept your assertion that the universe is predominantly disorderly. Second, there are evolutionary explanations for why we seek out patterns, and why we can recognize them in the first place. I don’t think we “glorify” patterns without good reason; rather, we appreciate patterns because we are instinctively drawn to them.

Yes, in so far as we are slaves to our instincts and environmental conditioning. You seem to agree pretty much, as you went on to say,
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So, maybe you didn’t mean to separate pattern-recognition from evolutionary processes. Yet, even if you didn’t mean to, such a separation is present throughout your post.

Again, well-said.

As I’ve probably made clear, I’m more inclined to take an evolutionary perspective. The act of living cannot be reduced to a single, conscious goal. While the act of giving meaning to experiences is a fundamental aspect of consciousness, it doesn’t seem to be the sole, or even main, purpose of life in general.

Or, life is essentially the process of replicating genes. It’s not about maintaining selves, or even cultures. Cultures and organisms are maintained only to the extent that their maintenance allows for genetic replication. (Of course, you can throw memetic replication into the picture, too.)

This is a bit too extreme, don’t you think? Every minute? There doesn’t seem to be a self-preservation instinct as the root of all of our instincts. So, theoretically speaking, it shouldn’t consume our minds completely. And, in practice, I don’t see self-preservation as an omnipresent issue.

This way of thinking detaches the intellect from the instinctive needs of the individual. If this were true, then we couldn’t have an evolutionary explanation for human intelligence. Mind would have to be explained in terms of something completely immaterial. Either that, or it would have to be dismissed as inexplicable. I prefer a more scientific approach.

I just don’t see why human intelligence should be considered superfluous. Is the long neck of a giraffe superfluous? Is the bark of a dog superfluous? Why, out of all of the complex organisms created through evolution, should the unique properties of the human brain be considered superfluous?

It’s not hard to imagine what evolutionary advantages are offered by “higher” brain functions. Without them, we wouldn’t have language, science, civilization, etc. People born without those higher brain functions would have a hard time surviving and reproducing in an advanced civilization.

I think this is an overly-simplistic explanation.

Didn’t you say that “living” is the act of not dying? If we are not dying, then we really do live, according to your definition. So, I don’t know why you would say we “never really live.” Perhaps you didn’t mean anything by this phrase, and were just going for poetic effect?

You seem to be hinting at something which wasn’t really dealt with in the rest of your post. You are suggesting that there is something more than simply “not dying,” and that transcendence is when we become aware of it. Yet, you also said that we can only live in so far as we don’t die. So . . . the basis for this assertion is a mystery to me. What transcendent awareness are you talking about? Is any self-conscious awareness sufficiently transcendent?

4

Ever been Zen?

5

détrop

It sort of casts a shadow over the entire notion of ‘free-will’.
Some find this disturbing.

pragmatist

My position is that if the universe were ordered then it would have no need to alter.

Change is caused by matter or energy striving to achieve harmony or balance or stability, call it what you like.
Therefore it lacks it.

The theory of a beginning state of order is questionable in that it doesn’t provide an explanation as to why something ordered would deteriorate into chaos.

Anyways, man finds himself in this time-continuum where change is leading to chaos rather than order and so only this universe can be explored and hypothesized over.

We could imagine the reverse or alternate realities but what would the point be?

I don’t think it is as “bold’ as you make it out to be.

It is simply the recognition that some believe ‘truth’ exists out there waiting to be discovered or that it is created by God that challenges us to accept it and then there are those that believe that ‘truth’ is a human invention to describe the reality created in the human mind through the unification of a priori principles and sensual interpretations.

I disagree.
I would say that there pre-exists a mode of thinking in the mind. Modules, as the evolutionary psychologists would put it.
Chomsky believes even language pre-exists as a possibility awaiting stimulation and birth.
Kant believed that time and space are the minds pre-existing modes of understanding that are added to sensual stimulations.

Now, when we take sensual stimulations, of the supposed outer world, we discover that we aren’t really experiencing anything outside our minds abstractions of sensual stimulations.
The entire world exists within our minds.

Now, whether one actually exits or if it is accessible to man is another matter altogether.

What we call ‘reality’ is a mental model built on interpretation and combined with methods of understanding that are intrinsic to a human mind.
This shared and agreed upon model is our ‘real world’.

”Order” is what the mind calls what it can assimilate into understanding.

My assertion that the universe is disordered come from the very act of flux.

As for the rest, I will say that w are attracted to order or pattern because only it can be stored as memory and create the sense of ‘self’ and knowledge.
We also call it beauty.

A very selfish description, don’t you think?

I don’t mean to separate anything.
I mean to establish the limitations of human free-will.

It depends on what perspective you are looking at life from.

From a genes perspective, procreation [survival, reproduction, sex] seem to be central.
From a memes perspective, procreation again, but here through alternate means. Also a recognition that memes can sometimes go against genetic motivations and lead to self-destruction.

Perhaps not from the perspective of self but from the perspective of a gene/meme then it’s all there is.

All human creations and hopes stem from the desire to continue.

But here I am describing life as the act of resisting death.
Death being the normal state of the universe while life requires effort and resistance.

I’m posting below something I wrote on asceticism that will clarify my position.
If you are interested.

I don’t know how you’ve understood what I said here.

Evolution happens through mutations that either go away or continue, if they offer an advantage to the organism.

Intellect, being such a mutation, enabled human supremacy and resulted in the freeing up of mental capacities for abstract thinking.
The intellect was originally meant to enhance survival. When it became dominant it made survival easier and so freed itself up from this necessity.

That’s when the intellect turned on itself and caused self-awareness memetic production and even self-destructiveness.
In essence the intellect started feeding on itself.

Because it creates the environments that make it undesirable.

If the long neck if a giraffe created such an advantage as to shrink trees then its neck would be superfluous.

Poetic effect and I was driven by an ideal where life was not determined by the fear or the threat of death.

But I guess here we have a conundrum.
Consciousness is only possible as a strategy against chaos.
As such it is defined by its own existence and would have no meaning as anything else.
So if there were no death then there would be no reason for life as an answer to it.

I am recognizing the need to not only become aware of ourselves and the universe around us, as far as this is possible, but also the need to accept what we see and understand without creating ways of escaping it.

Through this, I can only hope, mankind can create its own ‘truth’ and transcend its own limitations.

6

First Proposition
Let us consider the universe and existence from a purely human perspective.

It may be true that the labels of ‘evil/negative’ and ‘good/positive’ have no real meaning other than as a subjective interpretation of events and phenomena from an individual or communal point of view. What is ‘good’ for you may be ‘evil’ for me, and vice versa, but there are certain general ideas that we agree, as living, conscious beings with shared interests, as to their nature.

For instance most human beings will concur that darkness, cold, and death are negative forces whereas light, heat, and life are positive ones.
{Let us ignore the fact that the labels can be reversed without losing any of the meaning so that we don’t get bogged down with semantics}

Taking this shared humanistic perspective as a given and leaving behind more objective philosophical interpretations, we notice that the universe, as it relates to us, is mostly a negative place.

Darkness, cold, and death predominate as the most common state of things but also need no effort to exist; they just are. In other words, they appear to be the ‘normal’ condition of the universe in general.

Keeping this in mind we must suppose that negativity is the rule of the universe while positive forces are the exception to this rule. This because light, heat and life, as well as all other forces associated with positive ideas, require a sacrifice, a consumption and an effort to come to be and to continue being. When this effort, sacrifice and consumption ceases the universe returns to its natural, previous condition.

The universe, in essence, is a place, as perceived by human minds, where positive forces push back the negative fabric in small temporary pockets and establish a momentary equilibrium in which consciousness is made possible.

Man perceives this momentary balance of forces as order and mistakenly assumes that it is the general condition of the entire universe itself. Most go even further and suppose a dominant positive essence as the creating force of the universe, whereas in fact the opposite is more likely to be true.

In the balance of positive and negative forces and in this constant battle of ‘the positive’ to gain a foothold in a ‘negative’ universe, change becomes a fundamental part of survival and makes evolution a necessary mechanism of continued existence in a universe striving to destroy life and to return to its normal condition of lifelessness as it strives to return to darkness and cold.

From this first proposition, it is easy to conclude that life is, in fact, a constant striving and suffering caused by this pushing back of forces that seek to return to pre-existing circumstances.
As Schopenhauer put it: “Life is need and need is suffering; therefore life is suffering”

It was Schopenhauer also that defined pleasure as a negative idea, since it is merely the absence of suffering and a momentary reprieve from the natural state of consciousness.

In other words death and pleasure are synonyms.
Indeed life rewards with survival all those that have paid their dues to her in misery and action and embellishes, those of her creations, with superiority that have exerted and struggled on her behalf.

It is in this continuous fight against death that life becomes creative, adaptive and ascends to higher and more complicated constructs.
Within this interpretation of the universe lies the true spirit of asceticism and its real worth to man.

Second Proposition
Most, due to dictionary definitions and religious extremism, associate asceticism with a complete rejection of pleasure and luxury and a total denial of life itself. But I will propose a new perspective on asceticism that may prove advantageous and attractive to all seeking personal empowerment.

It is true that Buddhism and Christianity have taught an extreme level of self-denial and many other religions and philosophies advocate abstinence as a form of escapism from life’s trappings and temptations, but for me one need not become so severe in order to benefit from asceticism’s merits.

Asceticism, as I see it, is more akin to athleticism, where both strengthen an individual through pain and suffering but need only be practiced consistently, not continuously, in order to profit from them.

Both athleticism and asceticism require self-control and an exposure to unwanted and mostly undeserved pain and suffering through which a body and a mind gain strength, discipline and stamina, necessary throughout life and under all circumstances.

It isn’t a mistake to believe that misery is the sources of all mental and physical beauty given that nature denounces stagnation as death itself and imposes a constant striving and changing through the promise of pleasure.

It may be disturbing for us to acknowledge that nature abhors conformity and lethargy and so rewards struggle and exertion with superiority, that is easily distinguishable in all those exposed to physical and mental suffering and becomes most beneficial to an individual who experiences and survives adversity, but it cannot be denied.

In contrast the effects of comfort and overindulgence can also be plainly noticeable in individuals lacking any contact with suffering and effort; their intellectual naiveté and insecure, over-optimism will bear witness to their limited experiences in a dangerous and indifferent universe, just as their softness of muscle tone and inability to endure physical hardship will reveal their limited experience with physical effort and exertion.

How appropriate that the Greek word ασκησης-askisis[exercise]- is used to denote athleticism but is also the root word for asceticism which denotes a mental exercise or an exertion of the mind.

For what athleticism is for the body, asceticism is for the mind; alike but different only in the focus of their disciplines; interdependent but mutually exclusive in their areas of influence.

To better clarify the relationship between asceticism and athleticism it may be profitable to juxtapose the two.

Athleticism is the training of the body. It hardens flabbiness and denies lethargy through which a body is weakened and becomes soft and vulnerable to external forces and phenomena.

Asceticism is the training of the mind. It invokes mental discipline, focuses energies, and denies apathy and pleasure through which a mind becomes complacent and susceptible to external temptations.

Athleticism does not require a continuous exertion, even if it was possible, but through temporary strain the body becomes more efficient even at rest.

Similarly asceticism does not require continuous self-denial, but through momentary or selective resistance the mind gains discipline and resolve that become helpful even when indulging in pleasure or giving in to need.

The effects of athleticism are hard to ignore since they appear in the empirical world accessible to all, through the senses, equally; acknowledging the benefits of exercise and physical effort and the aesthetically beautiful physical form it leads to cannot be argued away no matter how much we wish to do so.

Reversely, the effects of asceticism are hard to prove since they appear in the mental world accessibly only, through introspection, to the individual; so acknowledging the benefits of cerebral exercise and mental effort and the intellectual symmetry it leads to cannot be confidently argued for.

Despite this, I believe, all can recognize that denial of the will creates a mental framework by which an individual becomes a master of his own being and not merely an instrument of instinctual desire.

A man devoid of all self-restraint and discipline becomes a victim of his own emotions and cravings. Like a rudderless ship he is cast to-and-fro by any subtle wind and becomes a man with no direction and no purpose; a helpless victim of his own whims and a vulnerable prey to clever predators.

For the ship to be controlled a strong rudder is needed and an even stronger captain to direct it. This rudder is mans mind and the captain must be mans intellect.

Final Proposition
All men seek to minimize their exposure to pain and suffering and it is therefore a contradiction of goals that this very compulsion is detrimental to survival and the continued promise of pleasure.

This conundrum is what plagues human existence in its entirety.
We reach for happiness and comfort and yet it is this very striving that causes the opposite condition of suffering and discomfort; we dream of an absence of need and an existence devoid of all torment and yet its realization is the very definition of death; we dream of power and self-reliance and yet we must give up power and become dependant to achieve it.

The Greeks understood the irony of existence and they fully expressed it in their art, in their philosophy and in their total acceptance of it as a part of human existence.

Man is in a very precarious position; not fully intellectual, not completely instinctual.

The choice arises in every thinking mans life as to what path he will choose: will he give in to his instincts and live entirely within the dictations of his nature as an animal, where the mind is simply the facilitator of instinctual desire or will he deny both pain and pleasure and become pure intellect devoid of all need and in complete control of his being ?

But there is a third, more reasonable, choice. A choice embraced by the Greeks and now offered, through Nietzsche, by them to us: will we embrace both pain and pleasure as parts of our total being and focus our efforts in enjoying life’s pleasures and experiencing the rapture of consciousness and yet will we not forget that it is suffering that elevates and strengthens us and it is this payment, which we pay willingly, that makes us more than just animals and ennobles us before a universe wanting to degrade, embarrass and destroy us?

Whether we like it or not, suffering and pain are the natural participants in life’s experiment. We either recognize them as such and use them to our advantage or we spend a lifetime running from them into futility.

It is this aspect of life’s truth that most spend their entire lives escaping from and in the process become weak, gullible, naïve, soft and easily manipulated. How unfortunate for them that even the temporary escape from life’s truth cannot save them from its eventual inevitability.

The signs of human disorderly existence are everywhere plain to see; from the lack of self-discipline in nutritional consumption that leads to obesity and disease to the absence of sexual self-control that leads to promiscuity and immaturity.

The ‘easy way’ is searched for by all those lacking the discipline to go at it the ‘hard way’ and the realization comes to them too late, that there is no ‘easy way’ and those offering it are either con-artists or manipulators.
The controlled exposure to suffering, made possible through athleticism, creates a strong and durable body that will be ready, in a time of need, to meet life’s unforeseen challenges and come out of every battle, a survivor.

It will reveal itself to all in its harmony, symmetry and beauty; it will speak of its superiority in graceful movement and efficiency. It will be something to admire and inspire.

But more importantly, the controlled exposure to suffering and pain through asceticism creates a strong and durable mind that will be easily adaptable to a variation of environments and challenges and come out of every confrontation the dominator.

It will reveal itself, more subtly than the body but no less magnificently, in its harmony, order, and virtue; it will speak of its superiority with noble ideals and strength of will. It will be something to admire and inspire.

7

Satyr,

If the universe were perfectly and completely ordered, then it would not change. Yet, one can have change in an incompletely ordered universe. Indeed, you’ve even acknowledge that our ability to recognize patterns comes from the way we are ordered. So, you admit that there is order in the universe. My point was that we cannot say if there is more disorder than there is order, or more order than there is disorder. At least, not at this time.

I didn’t say "beginning. Also, I said “highly ordered,” and not just “ordered.” So, it wasn’t perfectly symmetrical. Thus, it is devolving into disorder. Other highly ordered events can occur again, and they will also devolve into disorder. While all of the factors and mechanisms are still being investigated by cosmologists, these ideas aren’t controversial.

Actually, many of the changes we observe do lead to order–it’s just that the order is gained at the expense of greater disorder. We usually don’t see the greater disorder, though.

I understand what the “issue” is. What I contested was your bold assertion (and it was most certainly bold) that this issue is at the heart of most philosophical debates, and is the main cause for all confrontations and misunderstandings relating to abstract reasoning.

I would agree that our brains provide a tendency to think in certain ways. I wouldn’t say there is one mode of thinking, though, and I would also note that environment changes and/or modifies how the brain functions.

Since our brains and bodies are our minds, and since our brains and bodies are interacting with things outside of our brains and bodies, then it would only make sense to conclude that we do experience things outside of our minds.

Your solipsism holds no appeal for me.

Since you’re obviously a solipsist, then you can’t seriously propose that people actually share and agree upon models.

Don’t forget the fact that pattern-recognition allows animals to respond to their environment. It’s not just about creating memories and knowledge; it’s also about basic interactions.

But, wait . . . hold on. Did I read you correctly? Did you not just say that we are attracted to order and pattern? It sounds like you’re suggesting we actually have some sort of relationship with the world outside our own brains and bodies. Could that be possible?

Not particularly. At least, no more so than those descriptions that actually make sense to me.

From a gene’s perspective, survival is not central. The only thing that is central is reproduction. Survival can often counter that primary goal. That explains why people age and go through life cycles.

That is incorrect. From the perspective of the gene, the gene’s replication is of central importance. My own self-preservation is not in the gene’s best interest. So, again, self-preservation is not at the root of my instincts. Genetic replication is at the root of my instincts.

The same goes for memes.

The organism is not primary. The mutations either go away or continue if they are good at replicating themselves.

It made survival more complex. We still need our intellects to survive. Like I said, a person born without higher brain functions will have a very hard time reproducing in modern civilization.

On the contrary, like all adaptations, our higher brain functions have successfully created an environment that makes it highly desirable. Just look at the world you live in. Do you see intelligence as a hindrance, or as an asset? If you say “hindrance,” I’ll have to question your sincerity.

But escape is so much fun! Seriously, though, that’s a noble goal, if a bit vague. Of course, too much philosophical speculation could be considered an attempt to escape–especially when it borders heavily on solipsism.

Well, according to your premises, the only “truth” we have is the one we create. As for transcending limitations, I suppose you are referring to the propositions in your most recent post. I’ll respond to that post next.

8

Hello, again.

Darkness and death are not forces. Cold could actually be considered a positive consequence of force, in the sense that coldness is a more ordered states of organization. Notice I didn’t say cold was a force. Heat is disorder, and could thus be considered as a negative consequence of force. Some talk about life as a force, and I would agree that they are talking about a positive force–perhaps essentially describable as the ability to generate life.

Like your notions of positive and negative forces, this conclusion seems a little too simplistic for my tastes. Part of human life involves suffering. But I see no reason to claim that this is a constant and omnipresent facet of experience.

But pleasure is not merely the absence of suffering. Neurologically speaking, the neural pathways that define pleasurable experiences are unique, and not simply the absence of the pain and suffering pathways.

Schopenhauer isn’t the first philosopher to make guesses that were later discredited by scientific observations.

Anyway, I don’t see much point arguing about the rest of your treatise on asceticism. Some of the points make sense to me, others not so much. The whole idea about serving mother nature and being rewarded . . . it’s a little vague. Are you trying to appeal to your reader’s spiritual or mystical sensibilities?

You seem to be advocating that people exercise extreme mental and physical discipline, which is great, but the reason is unclear. What reward are you talking about? Is it the propagation of life itself?

9

pragmatist

I agree that there is some order in the universe, I disagree with the notion that the universe, as a whole, is ordered.
We have a case of ‘the glass being half-full or half-empty’ here.

If I were to say the water in the glass was clean then would it be if there was some dirt in it?

There are instances of stability in the universe and it tends to seek out this state, but the fact that these states are ephemeral only points to an imperfection in them.

We struggle for order and we seek out order because it is the exception to the rule and so very valuable.
Life is such a struggle against chaos, albeit an imperfect one itself, and so it is attracted to all instances of it and all ideas of it.

We agree then.

So, we could say that order is the exception to the rule.
We could say that man perceives order because he seeks it out and produces it.
He can only comprehend order, so he only sees it.
This, in turn, makes him believe the universe is highly ordered, based only on a fraction of it and on the limitations of a mind that can only comprehend order.
Man tries to find order in chaos.

My assertion is based on the fact that all philosophical discussions come from a disagreement upon just what we are talking about: Is the universe ordered or disordered?
Is there a grand Will guiding everything – call it God, rules, logic, law – or is there nothing else but man doing so?
When man talks about Will, God, law, is he speaking metaphorically about himself projected into a hopeful future or is he talking about something other than?

Evolutionary Psychologists call them ‘Modules’.
Kant called them a priori concepts. According to the latter time/space were mental prejudices and ways of understanding.

Your labels of me are your own.

What your physical and mental self-realization interacts with is up for debate.

I would say you interact with something that is sensually interpreted by your mind in a certain way.
What that something or thing-in-itself is, is beyond your ability to perceive or understand.

We interact with pieces of reality, shadows.
We understand things by perceiving how they affect us.

What I “obviously” am is for you to decide for yourself.

Labels are words meant to box things into neat packages. It’s a human need to do so.

I never denied that there is some form of interaction.

But we interact with objects and creatures that share our perceptions and co-exist with us within a similar shared reality.
Our interactions are only relevant within this shared environment.
We share it because we come from basically the same genetic pool, enclosed within a specific natural environment.

Reread what I wrote. Survival as well as procreation is central.
When the first is impossible the second takes precedence.

Perhaps I’m failing to make myself clear.
You are repeating my own position perfectly.

Yes, eventually higher intellects cooperate to create new environments within which their full minds are engaged in new forms of competition and survival.
But this only after the original environment has been surpassed, thusly freeing up the mind to engage in the creation of new environments.

If I am busy trying to stay alive, I have no time to contemplate self or imagine or create.
It’s when I begin dominating that I free up mental capacity and time to indulge in creating and inventing.

But ‘higher intellect’ can lead to a self-realization and an awareness that becomes unattractive to the mind, leading to self-destruction.

Then again no philosophical speculation can also be seen as an escape, even if it borders on the naïve.
In fact, I would say escape is at the top of mans desire.
Escape from the reality he finds or perceives, into one he creates and imagines.

Man destined to play God or perish trying to.

Before one creates pottery, he must analyze and understand the material from which he will form it.
Man seeks out knowledge in order to control it and he seeks out order so that he can expand it.

10

pragmatist

Perhaps you are right, they are states of being.
States of being that dominate this universe.

But I was using anthropomorphic imagery to explain my position.
Something I mentioned.

Sometimes the simple is all you need.
Clouding ideas in undeserving complications is an act of sophistry.

Life is suffering in that it is the constant state of needing.
Need is suffering, to whatever degree one feels it for particular desires.
So life is suffering.

There is no instance of consciousness that does not involve a need, even if it is the need to take a breath or to scratch.
Some needs are easily placated, while others require more effort, but deny them and the suffering increases exponentially.

This is why I say that “Life is a constant struggle against death”.
It is an act of resistance against the normal state of affairs.
It is an imperfect, instance of order in a chaotic universe.
It is an ephemeral being in an endless becoming.
It is a star glowing in darkness.
It is an island of heat in a sea of cold.

How information is translated by your mind is one thing, and what something is, is another.

I would say that pleasure is the momentary alleviation of suffering, felt by the mind as relief and bliss, before a new suffering takes its place in our consciousness.

I want to eat> I feel uncomfortable> I eat> the sensation alleviates my need and so feels pleasurable> then I feel thirsty.
The hunger isn’t gone it is simply placated to a point of unconsciousness before it starts building up again into more conscious suffering.
The mind only feels an immediate threat or what is pronounced.

Pleasure is also how genes/memes ensures that we behave in certain ways.

What is remarkable about Schopenhauer, for one, is that he had an idea about Will expressing itself like notes in a symphony, which closely mirrors modern Superstring Theories.

Science is philosophy with empirical observation.

The reward is a better control and understanding over the single thing you can ever hope to gain control and understanding of: That of self.

It is about power.

11

Satyr:

Dude, your blog is awesome. You need to stick around. We’re gonna have a good time in the near future, you and me.

I think I’ve got you pegged, no, not as in “wronged” but as in fully understood. I’ve spent some time at your blog and read much of your material. Which was nothing short of fascinating. That’s some damn good stuff.

And now I shall butt in.

They are both yes and no. Chaotic and Erratic are not natural states, they are ideal states…or meaningful states. They are words or “grips” on reality.

The conscious ideation of the word is an evaluation, that is, it is prescribing sense to nonsense, and to state a subject is to create a possible negation.

In bringing to life a concept so too comes its opposite or its antithesis where in the absence of consciousness the Being would exist as neither possibility…but as both. This process of “bringing to life” is a positive drain-hole in Being.

It is positive because it bursts forth and grabs the world, the world is seized by consciousness at once. It is a drain-hole because by applying meaning to something it strips away its nothingness and causes it to stand out and exist…casting a silhouette upon other things…making definitive boundaries (the rigidity of the root as experienced by Roquentin) causing opposites to spring forth like “partridges at our feet” as Sartre once described it.

Everything is slightly smeared into what is beside it.

The universe isn’t Chaotic or Erratic or anything alse. Instead what is happening is Being has been described in a way that is either hostile or useful toward the impossible resolution of Consciousness and Being together, which is the never ending attempt to ground Being into necessity and eliminate the possiblity of contingent value through “having” objective knowledge.

Chaotic and Erratic are contingent values. They are not necessary. The words might as well have not been invented.

In trying to call the universe Chaotic and Erratic we are only expressing the negative effect of consciousness as its futile attempt to ground Being in the descriptive word and concept.

Knowledge is nothing more than the presence to Being. A “thing” is a negative, it is a substraction, an abstraction. It has no qualities. Consciousness is the process of transcending Being and pretending its value. The idea, the word, and the concept are all instrumental to this procedure of synthesis between opposites, which do not really exist.

This impossible synthesis is exemplfied here, in attempting to assign values to the universe by word and meaning; Chaotic and Erratic.

Adjectives are emotions and they are ethically grounded in the existential experience of freedom from Being. When we assign a description to something we are intending something for it. No object is an end in itself. The intention, or, the never ceasing activity of defining objects by their use, whether it be a word in a context or an object as a tool, is never entirely determined. This feature of consciousness is the negative aspect of freedom and it is sensed as the upheave of value and contingency. We assign the world with things that do not exist. This is an act of freedom from Being.

“Words are my grip on the world”- Sartre

When we fix a up a word we are begging it to exist. This is all Plato’s fault.

The Idea and meaning of the words Chaotic and Erratic are evolved psychological evaluations…they are meta-ethical and non-ontological. This means that a relative description, such as the idea of an object with an antithesis (any object), of an event that can be considered Chaotic as opposed to Ordered, its antithesis, isn’t the real state of what it is trying to describe. Rather, the concept in the mind is founded upon a psychological prefix, the “nerve of the mind,” so to speak, the initial existential sense of hostility in the world against the impossible synthesis of Consciousness and Being, as mentioned above.

The grip on the word is tight and nervous because it slips out of its meaning.

The universe isn’t Chaotic or Ordered or Erratic or anything else. Each word has an antonymy, an opposite, because essentially it is the statement of an ideal or a “perfect” state: Chaos being the absence of order, Erratic being the absence of [insert one of three definitions in dictionary]. In calling the universe a “thing” with a degree of power and force of existing we aren’t amplifying its original state as neither sense or non-sense. Therefore the Idea of each is not an original state of the world without an evaluation. Perfection is no evaluation.

There is no perfect Blue. There is no perfect Order. There is no pefect Beauty.

A dog is a cat. A God is a Devil. Light is darkness.

They are all smeared.

12

détrop
I agreed with all of it and found nothing to add.

13

Satyr,

I think much of our disagreement comes from our different uses of the language. For example, I agree with your point about “needs,” though I objected earlier because you are identifying needs with “suffering.” I prefer to define “suffering” in terms of specific neurological events, and not as something so vague as “need.”

While this may seem like a trivial semantic point, it can become more significant when we get into notions of pleasure and pain. If you want to define these in vague terms, relating only to the satisfaction or deprivation of needs, then you can use pleasure and pain as you like. However, since I am more interested in neurological explanations of things like pleasure, pain and suffering, I am prone to object to your use of the language.

I don’t want these semantic differences to hinder our discussion. So, when responding to you, I will try to keep in mind this difference in our backgrounds and interests.

It is very, very difficult to remove all traces of dirt from a glass of water. You’d have to supercool it, I think. And, even then, once you began to drink from it, you’d get it dirty.

So, it wouldn’t be practical to insist on defining a “clean glass of water” only as that which has no traces of dirt in it. It makes more sense to define cleanliness in relative terms, where a “clean glass of water” is definable in terms of pragmatically determined standards of measurement.

I don’t think we seek out order because it is the exception to any rule. I’m not so sure it is the exception to any rule. The rule seems to be that order and disorder are both aspects of the universe, and that there wouldn’t be a universe to speak of without both. So, I don’t see order as an exception to the rule. Rather, I see it as one aspect of the whole.

I do think order is valuable, though.

Why would you think all philosophical discussions come from disagreement on that issue? If you were correct in this assertion, then we would have to expect that all philosophical positions can be divided along a single line, and that there is complete agreement among those ideas on each side of that line. This just doesn’t seem to be the case.

Theists often engage in philosophical debates, and so do atheists. In any case, these are not the only two options. We can remove an omnipotent God from our theoretical equation, and still postulate entities in addition to man which are able to produce organization in the universe.

After all, atheists are likely to believe in evolution. That means that they believe the human organism, a highly ordered entity, was the result of other processes of organization. So, from a purely scientific perspective, there is organization beyond that of man. I know you already agree with this. You probably didn’t mean to unduly restrict the conceptual alternatives you were putting on the table.

I’d say that, in so far as we are describing something, we are describing a set of possible future experience. So, be it a description of law, will, or potato chips, we are projecting into the future.

I’m familiar with evolutionary psychology and I’ve read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. So, this isn’t news to me. If I remember his argument correctly, Kant’s argument for space and time as a priori concepts suffers from a simple flaw: he begs the question. He assumes that human thought is based on these notions, and then concludes that we cannot derive the notions from our experiences. It’s circular reasoning. The question is, are the categories of space and time necessary conditions for human thought? Kant has no answer to that question. He merely assumes it is so.

The same question applies to any module defined by evolutionary psychologists. Again, I’ve already noted that we are born with a tendency towards particular ways of thinking. However, I am simply noting two important points: First, that there may not be one particular way which defines human thought in general, and second, that our ways of thinking are influenced by environment and conditioning.

I think you are confusing the issue. You say that “I” interact with something that is interpreted by my mind. So, whatever “I” am, it is something that only experiences what is the product of my mind. So, first there is bodily perception. Second, there is mental interpretation. Then, after all of that, according to you, “I” experience something. Doesn’t that seem like an absurdly convoluted description of human interactions?

Why not simply say that I am my body, and that when I perceive and interpret, I am experiencing? So, my physiological experiences (which include the category of “mental interpretation,” since mind is what happens in the brain) are my interaction with the world. Since I am interacting with the world through my body, then it only makes sense to say that I experience things external to my self.

That’s like saying, “sure, you saw it with your own eyes, but you aren’t able to actually perceive or understand it.” If I was to accept your assertion, I would have to conclude that I cannot know or perceive anything.

You may be tempted to say, “yes, that’s exactly right!” However, before you do, consider this. If I cannot perceive anything, then I cannot perceive an illusion. So, while you may say that I am just suffering from the illusion of living in a world, you would in fact be saying that I am perceiving the illusion of a world. You cannot say that, though, if you are going to assert that I cannot perceive anything. So, if you want to claim that I am perceiving an illusion, you must first grant that I can perceive something. And once you’ve granted me my manifold faculties of perception, you must admit that it is far more reasonable to admit that I am actually perceiving things outside of my body.

Yes, they are pieces. Not shadows. Just parts.

Since I can interact with rocks, streams, and planets, I suppose you are saying that all of these things are in my shared reality. In that case, we don’t have a problem here. You acknowledge that I can interact with things in the universe, and that these things are not just in my mind.

As our technology develops, we get better prosthetic sensory devices. So, we continually gain access to new parts of the universe. While there are natural limits to what we can perceive, this fact has nothing to do with the particular qualities that define who we are.

I just don’t think it works that way. The creation of new environments is an ongoing aspect of evolution. It’s not like human beings reached a certain point, and then said, “well, now we can just do whatever we want. We’re free! Let’s build big cities and airplanes!” No, from an evolutionary perspective, it makes more sense to consider how our complex environment has co-evolved with the evolution of our intelligence.

But imagination, creativity and self-awareness must have provided some survival advantages. If they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have evolved to the level of complexity they enjoy today.

For example?

What if that speculation is done at the expense of dealing with practical concerns?

If philosophical speculation cannot be seen as an escape, then on what basis can anything be considered an escape?

I see fantasy and escape as practical means of (1) dealing with stress, and (2) formulating goals. This makes imagination and creativity understandable in terms of evolutionary pressures. It doesn’t mean that the desire to escape is at “the top,” or at the bottom. It just means that it’s an important aspect of being human.

Now, we can say that some people use certain means of escape to an unhealthy extreme. Anything useful can be taken to an unhealthy extreme.

The key is knowing what complications are well-deserved.

I’d rather not assume that there is a hard boundary between myself and that which I experience. I experience the world, and influence the world. I am shaped by the world, and it shapes me in return. So, my horizon of power is not limited to my own self. Similarly, the forces that define my power as such are not limited to what goes on under my skin.

14

pragmatist

It is true that words are poor conveyers of ideas. They possess a vague ability to encompass understanding. But it is all we’ve got.

If you look at suffering, whatever kind it is, it stems from a need that is not satisfied.

This lack is transmitted to my brain and interpreted into pain or misery.

In other words cleanliness and un-cleanliness is determined by individual tolerance levels and perception.

The only thing we can be relatively certain about is that no absolute exists.

Why do you think order is “valuable”?
Do we not value what is rare?

I think certain diamonds are valuable because they are rare or I think life is valuable because it is an exception to a general state I see around me.
I also think order is valuable and attractive because I cannot find it often and look for it in everything new I perceive.
Perhaps I find it. Perhaps I construct it in my mind. Perhaps both.
This is where the debate rests.

We can fall on the same side in politics, for example, and still disagree on the finer points.
Christians, for instance, fall on the same side in creationism and in their general understanding of the universe, yet they disagree if the Pope is their representative or what a particular passage meant or on other details of faith.

For me the general disagreement comes from the question of order.
Then it subdivides into questions of what created order, when an initial agreement on an ordered universe is had, for example again.

These two general positions come from psychological needs.
Many –I would say most- desire the existence of a predictable existence where they can feel safe in the notion that their lives follow logical pathways that can be discovered and understood. The opposite notion fills them with anxiety it also frees them from the responsibility of creating their own rules.
They want order to pre-exist so as to unburden them from the necessity of creating it where it doesn’t.

I’m not saying order doesn’t exist in pockets.
I was thinking about this yesterday, on my way to work.
We could say that this Bang/Crunch the universe hypothetically is involved in is a form of order.
We might say that the universe, as a whole, might be symmetrical but that within it there exists asymmetry, forcing movement and change.
Order doesn’t seem to be evenly distributed and given the infinite continuation of the process the possibility of even distribution is impossible or improbable.

We agree that the universe is presently in the middle of a cycle that leads to a deterioration of order. So chaos is increasing.
We disagree on the amount of order that is apparent and if it is enough to be considered a dominant state.

My position is that whatever order there is, it is an exception to a general state of universal chaos.

We can only perceive order and so most of the universe remains unknown to us.
It can never be known, in fact, because man can only know order.

Then we crate clever black-matter or Superstring Theories, where particles are waves and waves are particles and they can occupy different spaces at the same time and so on, to hide our misunderstandings and explain the incongruities.

Science, on this higher level of research, is involved now in presenting the best excuses for our dilemmas.

Nevertheless it’s the best we have.

Not having all the answers does not prove that some of the answers are wrong.
If it were not so, then all science would be debunked.

Which science has “all the answers”?

Maybe Kant merely postulated the limits to human reason.
This, in itself, is enough. It prevents inefficiency.

I would say nature determines the limits or the potential and environment determines where within this limit/potential one falls.

I believe the idea of an ‘I’ is also a generalization and a myth.
But one must begin somewhere if he is to make any headway.
Something must be taken for granted to begin a process. I begin from an unproven ‘I’.

Again, if any progress is to be made then some unproven hypothesis must be accepted as fact.
But let us not then forget that all our assumptions are based on an unproven starting proposition.

Exactly.
It also opens the door to creativity.
If all there is, is something thinking and perceiving things it can never know for sure, then truth is to be created not submitted to.

If the universe is amoral then I will give it morals.
If the universe is indifferent, then I will give it interest.
I Will……

I’m saying that it doesn’t matter either way.

If all is uncertain and a possible illusion, then let man define it and use it as material to construct meaning in the meaninglessness.

I’m saying that you are interacting with something that your mind interprets a certain way; a way that may or may not be accurate or complete.
Obviously these ‘objects’ are not only in your mind because they are part of a shared consciousness.
I also perceive them in the same way or hypothetically the same way - which gives rise to debate – and so we participate together in the same perspective of the world.

The process is gradual but when we compare different point of this evolutionary process we discover remarkable differences.
We can say that an amoeba and a man are part of the same evolutionary chain but time has resulted in distinctive alterations.

What environments created us can no longer completely apply to us.
Environment determines where, within our genetic potential we fall.
We live in a different environment today, than what we did thousands of years ago. So it’s safe to assume that what we are is different from what we could have been in the past.

Environments both enhance and promote characteristics or they degrade and demote them. This, in turn, results in slight mutations which are advantageous or disadvantageous to the organism within that particular environment.

If the environment persists over large periods of time it can lead to more fundamental alterations of nature.

Yes and when they were involved in survival they became advantages.
But when their dominance freed them from the pressing demands of the everyday, they turned on the self.
They began questioning existence and the meaning of it and the point of it.

They concluded in Nihilism.
A very self-destructive, from the genetic perspective, stance.

I mentioned it before but I’ll try to clarify.
The mind offered an advantage to the organism. Self-awareness and consciousness lead to dominance.
When it was faced with the demands of feeding and surviving and living and conquering, then they served man well.

But then a stage was reached where an environment sheltered mankind from these natural demands.

Then the mind began questioning the process itself.
It said: ‘Sure I want to survive and procreate and kill and whatever…but Why?’
It began foraging for meaning and purpose, as it once did for food and water.

It didn’t find any.
So it turned to religious myth to placate its anxiety and sooth its want or it became suicidal and nihilistic.
Philosophical thought inevitably results in some kind of Nihilism.
You can see this not only in Schopenhauer’s thoughts but, as you mentioned, in Kant’s evaluations of perception and the thing-in-itself.
You can also see it in religious thought that defames life and instinct, in the hope that a better existence will follow.

The reaction to this, came primarily (from my knowledge) from the pre-Socratic Greeks and was later rediscovered by Nietzsche.
This is why he is so popular in these times of cynicism and jaded indifference.

The ancient Greeks –presumably faced with the same dilemma- answered by standing up to the darkness and stating that if there is no meaning then meaning will be given and if there is no truth then truth will be constructed.
There would be no cowering to the unknown or any surrender to the misery of self-awareness.
Only from such a spirit of being could science find fertile ground and philosophy flourish. It was man taking destiny into his own hands, no matter what limits or illusions it was all threatened by.

But that spirit now slumbers under more guilt ridden and submissive memes.

I agree.
My point is that thinking and then settling on the necessity of practical knowledge as opposed to idle speculation is one thing but there are those that never think and are practical by nature or fear taking thinking to its full extent. This is another form of escape.

I agree.

But all power comes from a sense of self.

If you must begin somewhere then you must begin from that which is the most intimate to you.
To do otherwise is to lose your self in the outer manifestations and be determined by outer Wills.

Our modern western world is fraught with minds that define themselves through external garments. Empty husks , with pretty clothes and shining ornaments.
[/quote]

15

Satyr,

I hope I’m not just picking nits, but I think this point deserves to be fleshed out. You are jumbling pain, suffering and mysery all together. This is a mistake, I think. I also think you aren’t adequately accounting for how these different mental states function.

Pain is essentially a message. It gives us valuable information. It creates a need by telling us to do something, to react in some way. That’s what emotions are: reactive processes. Suffering and misery are different. They are “higher” states. They do not stem from a simple lack. Rather, they stem from the awareness that a certain need exists, and an inability to act on that need.

So, emotions are creators of needs. They are not the product of needs. Feelings, on the other hand, are how our conscious awareness deals with emotions. Needs can lead to joy as well as suffering. What I think is interesting is that a person can be consciously aware of an emotion without manifesting a particular feeling. There isn’t any essential connection between emotions and feelings. For example, one can experience pain, and acknowledge the need created by that emotion, and yet not suffer or feel misery. Also, a person can even feel happiness at their own pain.

Sure.

I wouldn’t go that far. I can be relatively certain that a glass of water is clean, even if I know that there is a trivial amount of dirt in the glass. The point is that I define “clean” in relative terms. So, I have relative certainty. In this manner, I can have relative certainy about an indefinite number of things.

I’m not sure what you are suggesting when you say that “no absolute exists.”

When I speak of order in general, I’m not talking about a particular object, like diamonds or living organisms.

Order is valuable by definition because it is the manifestation of relatively stable configurations of usable energy. This is an objective definition of what is “valuable.” While some people may prefer one configuration of usable energy over another, the fact that something is valued at all implies that it is a configuration of usable energy.

So, to say that order is valuable is not to say that order is rare. It is only to say that an ordered entity is capable of being of some use to something, at some point in time, given the right circumstances.

I don’t think you’re being consistent. On the one hand, you say that you cannot find order often. Yet, you also say that all we can perceive is order. So, what is it you’re perceiving in those instances where order eludes you?

You’re not being consistent here, either. You say the debate rests on this point, yet later you also say that this point doesn’t matter.

It’s important to distinguish between symmetry and order. An ice cube, for example, is more ordered than a glass of water. Yet, the glass of water is more symmetrical. There are more ways you can change the configuration of water molecules without changing the overall pattern of the glass of water. If you change the molecules in an ice cube that much, you lose the pattern.

Yes, there is asymmetry in the universe. This seems to be fundamental. There also seems to be some fundamental symmetries in the universe. Time, for example, may be fundamentally asymmetrical, while space may be fundamentally symmetrical.

In any case, consider this. The more asymmetrical the universe is, the more ordered it is. If asymmetry is a fundamental condition of the universe, then so is order. This makes order a primary condition, and not an exception to the rule.

First of all, the process may not continue for infinity. Second, and more importantly, the issue of distribution doesn’t seem relevant.

Not really. I agree that order generally dissipates, and that the amount of disorder seems to be increasing. Yet, the amount of disorder may decrease, too. There could be one, all-encompassing cycle, or there could be many cycles within cycles, or there could just be perpetual creations and dissipations of various organizations within an ambiguously shaped multiverse. In any case, whichever model appeals to you the most, we are left with the fact that order is a fundamental aspect, a fact which makes dissipation possible.

This seems to be the case.

That doesn’t seem like a fair representation of things. Sure, there are serious dilemmas. But I wouldn’t say theorists are out to make excuses. Rather, they’re trying to come up with explanations and predictive models.

I never said it did.

How is that?

Environment is part of what defines the nature in the first place.

I think you may have missed the point of what I said. You may begin with whatever assumptions you want. If they work well, great. If they don’t stand up to criticism, though, you should rethink them. The assumption of an “I” which only experiences the result of mental interpretations which only occur after bodily perceptions, is simply untenable. I strongly suggest starting with other assumptions.

Truth is created, but it is also submitted to. “Truth” is a value, like any other. They are created, yet it is a mistake to think that there are created in a vacuum. They are created through interactions, and we are but one part of the whole.

Consider this. The “everyday” has developed to the point where questioning the meaning of existence is part of the evolutionary pressures which constitute our environment.

Not at all.

First of all, I don’t think nihilism really exists as a tenable perspective. Rather, it’s more like a transition between perspectives. We can say that nihilism, in so far as it can persist in an individual or community, is like an emotion. It can drive people towards rationality, or away from it. Nihilism is not a conclusion. It’s merely a transition. If one ends with nihilism, then one stops thinking.

Looked at this way, we can see nihilism as a sort of trigger. A device, which no doubt has some advantage for machines such as us with the ability to develop, implement and analyze abstractions.

So, if it is understood in the right framework, nihilism is not the self working against itself. Rather, it’s just part of the evolution of intellectual constructs. This development can occur on the level of the individual, or on the level of a community–it doesn’t matter. What matters is that nihilism is the manifestation of a desire, and the intellectual stability of the entity (individual, community, whatever) depends on whether or not it can satisfy it. The only satisfaction comes from establishing a framework for resolving ethical dilemmas. (And the acceptance of scientific discovery as a legitimate practice is most certainly an ethical issue.)

Why would you say that?

I’m not really sure what is the most intimate to me. You say my sense of self is the most intimate, and yet from what you’ve said this notion of “self” doesn’t apply. What is most intimate to me is my body. What I experience, what I do–it all entails my body. And yet this body is only experienced by experiencing things external to my body. So, what is more intimate to me? The body, or the conditions which allow my body to experience itself?

Fortunately, we don’t need to choose. We only need to realize that we are already involved in the world, and that our sense of self is already bound up with a sense of things outside of the self. So, we don’t need to artifically exclude one at the expense of the rest.

16

pragmatist

Pain is a message warning of a possible threat to integrity.
I need to remain intact, when I am threatened by degradation or infiltration or destruction I feel it as pain.

No, emotions are relations to needs.
All organisms, no matter how primitive, have need. But not all can be said to have emotion.
Emotion is the integration of intuition and sensual stimulations with the conscious mind.

Evolutionary Psychologists say it is how different modules communicate with each other.

We might be saying the same thing in different ways.

I’m saying no absolute state of cleanliness is possible.
Your perspective, like mine, is determined by the acuity of our sensual awareness.
We do not see on a molecular level or on a particle level, so our assessments of its quality is generalized and limited.

I can draw a straight line on a piece of paper.
But if I look at it using a microspore I will see that it isn’t as straight as I perceive it to be, nor a perfect line at all. Its edges are serrated ink particles

Only what is ordered can be usable.

What eludes me I am ignorant of, I call it the unknown.
I surround myself by order and can only perceive and know order, but the fact that I am aware of so much more that is unknown and what I think I know only creates more questions, tells me there is a vast amount of information that eludes me.

But my assessment of order being rare comes from my awareness that even the order I perceive is incomplete and imperfect.

I’m saying that philosophical debate is rotted in this point that can never be known.

So debating it doesn’t matter.

For us to truly know the nature of the universe we would have to perceive it as a whole from without; but there is no without.
As participants in the very thing we try to comprehend we can only know pieces of the whole and extrapolate assumptions on the rest.
Also this constant flux means reality is continuously rearranging itself.
Right when we say: ‘This is fact’ it ceases to be so.
Also as participants we affect and are affected by that which we participate within.
We can never be sure if we actually perceive what we do or if we are simply programmed to do so.

It depends on your definition of order, then.

I would have thought the opposite to be true.
Explain.

Models based on limited information, questionable sources and human prejudices.

Once you know how far you can go you don’t waste your time trying to go where you cannot.

Like?
What assumption can be more immediate than ‘I’?

Of course there is the opinion that all sense of ‘I’ is in relation to an ‘other’.

So the value of the “interactions’ should be assessed beforehand.

Are you saying that it is part of the mechanism of loss of self which creates the possibility for larger unifications?

I think Nihilism is like a precipice, over which all the unknown lays waiting.
One chooses to either: jump, stay there frozen or turn back to the past.

Interesting.
So you are saying it is a sort of memetic trigger?

All beliefs depend on faith.

Because all power is a projection of self.
It is the mind imposing itself on instinct or on the external forces that bind it or on whatever controls its energies.
Power is the mind seeking control.

But power need not be conscious, necessarily.
It sometimes attracts inadvertently, what is weaker than it.
I would say this is the purest form of power because it is not rooted in desire.
It doesn’t reach out, in an act expressing need, but attracts just by being itself and controls without meaning to.

The self is an amalgamation of multiple drives, over which the mind acts like a referee.

This mental controlling mechanism, is what we often refer to as ‘I’.

It is how the physical being maintains cohesion and unity.

Self is a multiplicity of phenomena united through memory and history, creating the possibility for experience.
This ephemeral unity, struggling to sustain itself under constant threat, is what we call ‘self’.

I must admit that with my multiple posts I’ve spread myself thin.

I’m forced to respond to multiple posts at the same time. This, on top of my work and daily living is straining my attentions.

I might be late in my responses from time to time.

17

Satyr,

Again, a semantic quibble. You are using the term “emotion” to refer to what I’ve called feelings. My choice of terms is not whimsical, but is based on a distinction drawn in the field of neuroscience.

Emotions are goal-oriented bodily response patterns, such as the “fight or flight” response. They do not occur consciously, and they can be observed in all sorts of animals, even rats. Feelings occur when emotional responses are integrated in the conscious mind.

Emotions do relate to needs. Yet, they also create needs. Consider, for example, the “fight or flight” response. Hormones are released in the bloodstream and several different reactive systems are triggered. Your body is thrown into complex, violent motion. This is goal-oriented, in the sense that the behavior has been “designed” to either lead you to safety, or to remove the threat. In one sense, the stressor (the external threat) created the need; yet, in a more intimate sense, your emotional reaction created the need. The stressor was just the occasion.

Your emotional reaction created a dangerous, unbalanced state in your entire body. You had to do something, because you were severely off-balance. That lack of balance is the emotional response. If the stress doesn’t cease, dangerous hormone levels can severely damage certain parts of your brain. Your emotional reaction can actually hurt you, if you don’t do something about it. So, in a very tangible sense, it seems that emotions do create needs.

I think you’re going a little beyond what I consider reasonable. We can scientifically define an absolute state of cleanliness for a glass of water. It’s just not practical to implement that definition in our daily lives.

I agree there. We can even say that there are no straight lines in nature. Or, at least, if there are any, we haven’t found them yet. Still, this doesn’t mean we cannot define things in absolute terms.

What I would suggest is to recognize the context in which an absolute definition is meaningful.

That would follow by the definitions of “ignorance” and “unknown.”

So, you are aware that you don’t know everything. Okay.

That doesn’t follow. First of all, how can you perceive incompleteness or imperfections in order, if all you can perceive is order? To perceive something that limits the order you perceive, you would have to perceive disorder. Yet, you claim that you cannot perceive disorder.

What I suggest is that we perceive various degrees of order, and we do so only in so far as we can relate various organizations to each other.

This does not lead to the conclusion that order is rare. Rather, it leads to the conclusion that specific instances of order are temporary.

Well, we’d have to perceive it as a whole. I’m not sure about the “from without” part. I cannot envision a way of understanding the whole from a point within the whole. Still, however outrageous the possibility seems, I suspect the universe is a lot more outrageous that our common sense dictates.

These are not mutually exclusive options. We can be programmed to perceive what we do. Furthermore, how can you suggest that we don’t actually perceive what we do? For, if we “do,” then we “actually” do.

The definitions I’m using are consonant with contemporary scientific theories. Order is the amount of usable energy in the universe. It is how information is arranged. If something can convey information, then it has order.

Something is symmetrical if you can change or rotate it without causing a difference in its configuration. A perfectly symmetrical configuration contains no information. So, the amount of symmetry in a system is inversely proportional to the amount of order in the system.

These objections are not substantive. If your point in making them is “science isn’t perfect,” then you’ll find no argument from me. Yet, I don’t see that as a criticism of science, or any of its methods or theories.

But you said this was efficient even if we are just assuming we know the limit of how far we can go. If we don’t really know the limit, then why just assume you are ever trying to go somewhere you cannot?

Not just an “other.” Rather, a “world.” And not just a world, but a world full of information. This is a much more tenable starting place. In fact, I’d even say this basic perspective is assumed by any rational attitude, and that any attempt to choose a starting point which negates this one will ultimately lead to contradiction.

They cannot be assessed beforehand, because the only way to assess them is to evolve with them.

Perhaps I am. I’m not sure what larger unifications you have in mind, though. If you mean interpersonal unifications, such as human relationships and socio-political organizations in general, then yes.

I think we can look at it from the meme’s perspective, but I wasn’t thinking along those lines at the moment.

To make that statement is to completely deny the difference between practical reason and pure intuition. I would say that all belief systems are ultimately based on practical reason, and that we can never ground them in pure concepts. However, that doesn’t mean they are groudned in faith. Rather, it means that they simply aren’t grounded in anything beyond the mechanism which puts them to use. That mechanism is practical reason.

Faith, on the other hand, comes into play when certain beliefs are maintained, and acted on, despite the workings of practical reason. That’s why “faith” is defined as “irrational belief.” It is not the foundation for all beliefs, but rather a specific subset of beliefs which are not based on practical reason.

On the contrary, the self is a projection of power.

You’re describing the power made possible by conscious attention. That is but one facet of the power we all experience and create.

I suppose you realized as much, as you also said,

So, perhaps you didn’t really mean that all power is a projection of self.

Or, perhaps you are using the term “self” to refer to anything that has power. In that case, we must consider that each of us is comprised of manifold selves, constantly changing, often at odds, and rarely, if ever, unified.

Why take the mind out of the amalgamation? Consider that the mind could be that very organization of drives, and that consciousness is the tendency for those drives to create representations of themselves.

Or, “I” is simply a convenient term our drives have devised to refer to the overall organization of which each is a part.

We agree on that much, if by “self” you here mean “organism.”