moral, political, philosophical and spiritual objectivism

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

On a Philosophy Now thread – to grok god – this was posted:

The “tell” here [for me] is not what attofishpi has posted but the manner in which it is inflected…the pitch and the tone, the arrogant and scoffing bluster embedded in the taunting words.

That’s when I know I am starting to get to them…the objectivists. My point on that thread was not to explore how someone grok’s God, but to examine how existentially each of us as individuals goes about this given the unique trajectory of our lives.

This part…

…and then the manner in which the moral and political and philosophical and spiritual objectivists among us can become particularly fierce in defending their convictions.

For them, in my view, what they believe about God pales next to the need to believe that what they do believe about God becomes the embodiment of this:

[b]1] For one reason or another [rooted existentially in dasein], you are taught or come into contact with [through your upbringing, a friend, a book, an experience etc.] a point of view about God.

2] Over time, you become convinced that this perspective on God expresses and encompasses the most rational and objective truth. This truth then becomes increasingly more vital, more essential to you as a foundation, a justification, a celebration of all that is moral as opposed to immoral, rational as opposed to irrational.

3] Eventually, for some, they begin to bump into others who feel the same way about God; they may even begin to actively seek out folks similarly inclined to view God in a particular way.

4] Some begin to share this perspective on God with family, friends, colleagues, associates, Internet denizens. Increasingly it becomes more and more a part of their life. It becomes, in other words, more intertwined in their personal relationships with others…it begins to bind them emotionally and psychologically.

5] As yet more time passes, they start to feel increasingly compelled not only to share their Truth about God with others but, in turn, to vigorously defend it against any and all detractors as well.

6] For some, it can reach the point where they are no longer able to realistically construe an argument that disputes their own about God as merely a difference of opinion; they see it instead as, for all intents and purposes, an attack on their inintegrity…on their very Self.

7] Finally, a stage is reached [again for some] where the original quest for the truth about God becomes so profoundly integrated into their self-identity [socially, psychologically, emotionally] defending it in and of itself becomes the whole point.[/b]

Again, the actual belief system itself – God or No God – could be anything:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r … traditions
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p … ideologies

Bottom line [mine}:

It’s not what they believe but that embracing what they do believe allows them to ground the Self in one or another essential, objective, teleological font. Their life has an overarching meaning and purpose. And this by itself very much comforts and consoles them.

So, I don’t come here taking sides – God/No God, liberal/conservative, capitalist/socialist, idealist/pragmatist, nature/nurture, individualism/collectivism – but to suggest that taking sides itself is a manifestation of dasein more so than a philosophical quest for wisdom.

2

Winning an argument doesn’t really improve your life.
Especially if the argument is with a fool.
“Objectivism” is just another brain in a bottle for you.
Isolation via deconstruction.

3

In defence of “objectivism” as you call it…
Some of us, I guess, are cursed with a desire to lead an examined life, to extract some worthwhile lesson or knowledge, even when the price is, as it always was, a painful parting from the paradise of a world seen through the carefree eyes of childhood. Though I’m not christian, or any kind of religious, I can appreciate the wisdom contained in that biblical story.

I honestly could not tell you which path is better…
To have my self-deceptions, mistakes and failures be the product of dasein, and not a reflection of my own shortcomings would be a welcome balm to a bruised ego with each hard lesson learned. There are days when I would almost make the trade of giving up my successes to also be rid of my failures, but unfortunately, there’s no going back… I don’t think I could live with myself if I ran away from the pain of failure and the challenge to do better. I’m tempted by fear and insecurity as much as the next guy, so I can’t say I’d really blame anyone that chose different… but we would be walking very different roads at that point and I don’t think rational discourse can bridge that gap… so what would even be the point of discussing it?

In short… I don’t think there’s anything you could ever say to change my mind, nor I yours. Because “which path is better” isn’t a question of what is true… but rather, how we each value truth.
It’d be akin to discussing whether or not pineapple on pizza tastes good… the answer is inherently subjective and there would be no point in having a debate about it.

4

Yes that’s good to keep in mind. Atheists demanding “prove god!” are just as silly as Socrates going around demanding “prove justice!” These concepts have a meaning regardless of and even because of the fact they are large and dynamic enough to apply to such a wide variety of situations that it is nearly impossible to exhaust them in a single definition. Not only that but remembering how the function of these concepts is a significant part of their meaning.

Morality isn’t so different from rationality. Ideation is a process. Add up all the little applicable components contingent to their appropriate situations and contexts and you would arrive at the idea itself; and just because someone doesn’t want to attempt to do that and instead will sit back demanding that you “prove it” to them has no bearing upon either the concept itself or the process by which it is arrived at. Much less on the truth that actually happens to underlie the concept in reality.

No one REALLY knows what happens after death or what kind of spiritual nature exists beyond the human world, and the Christian can admit this as much as the next person. But we know there is something out there, that is beyond dispute to any honest and perceptive person. So faith sustains the continuous process of ideation as an attempt co-occurring alongside its own proper context which happens to involve all of the various functionalities applicable to that attempt and to the various conclusions produced by it. Those conclusions mount up to become substance for their own ideational attempt, a meta as it were. Closing down the process to concretize a single outcome forever is just as falsifying to the nature of the process itself as is failing entirely to partake in the process. Falsifying not least because of the pathological intrusion of non-philosophical elements into a supposedly philosophical development-space. This also shows why phenomenology is superior to existentialism, for example.

5

Except for some people whom have near death experiences and remember them when they come back to life.

6

Yes, that is evidence that “something happens” although it isn’t proof. It could just be some kind of delusion.

7

I don’t think objectivism as a philosophy has anything necessarily to do with theology or religion. You can have objectivists so-called who believe in God and others who are atheists, but both of those types will use their seeming objectivism to defend their claim.

Does anyone bother to define what objectivism is? Or even more so what it means? I think terms like objective/subjective stop being used as master-signifier terms once an adequate exploration of their definitions has been undertaken. For instance I’ve done that extensively in the past, which is why I rarely use the terms in philosophical discussion. I realize they’re for the most part useless or obfuscating terms.

Oh the subject of God, I came up with an interesting and simple idea that someone might use to “prove” the existence of God. This is sort of similar to a pan-psychism view although not identical to it:

  1. Redefine and re-understand causality as “a moment of influence”, i.e. two things having an impact/influence on one another.
  2. Redefine and re-understand consciousness as “responding-to”, a reaction to being influenced by something.
  3. If consciousness itself is composed of “units of reactings-to” that manage to come together in certain types of arrangements which potentiate those units to persist and aggregate themselves over time, and if this is what “life” means in the simplest meaning of the word as applies to sentient beings, then it might follow that the sum of the entire physical world/universe is basically one gigantic kind of living experience, one “consciousness”.
  4. There is a theory in physics (unfortunately I can’t remember the name of the person who said this but I have the book somewhere) that claims all moments of time are equal and equally exist at the same “time”, as a frozen sculpture in the 5th dimension. If we could access the fourth dimension then we could choose which direction to move around inside the sculpture along the various pathways that matter takes; if we could access the fifth dimension then we would be able to experience/see the entire sculpture itself.if this is true then from the 5th dimension there could be a God-like awareness that is comprised of the sum of all moments of influence/impact/change in so far as the 5th dimension itself, the sculpture itself is “one thing” and has intimate access to all of its various parts (places and moments in space/time). If this is so, then God itself would be frozen as the unchanging sculpture but might be able to generate a 6th dimensional thinking mind out of that sculpture, based on comparing some parts of it to others and producing juxtaposed meta-experiences that are purely mental (non-physical with respect to the sculpture).

Anyway just something fun I was thinking about.

8

I think you might want t embrace the word “NEAR”…

And you might want to consider all the other people that come “near” death and “remember” nothing.

9

Hey I already told you. Stop saying things that make sense. Ffs how am I supposed to relate to that. Cmon. Don’t be mean, say something stupid again.