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PostSubject: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeFri Oct 05, 2012 7:53 am Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
In this thread I invite Capable, Amasopher and James S Saint to state their aims for an as yet hypothetical collective project dedicated to clarifying what exactly is, and is to become of, the epistemological method that has been named value ontology.
In order to facilitate the digestion process, each poster gets one post ‘per round’ - which is to say that he can only post another post when all others have written a post as well and all are equal in the amount of posts they have made. In following rounds, we’ll try to establish if there is a common ground in which the project is to take root.
My own first stated purpose is very simple: I want to clarify the logic that drives me to posit a “self-valuing” as a necessary property of all beings, and in its implications sufficient to describe all interactions between all beings, and so derive a working definition of the world.
In order to do this, the use of terms has to be perfected, for the logic to become apparent to anyone with a capable mind.
This may entail much that I am not yet aware of. This thread is a necessary step on the way to conceive of a proper form for a ‘law-giving machine’.
Lastly, this thread is located in this forum because, before operations can begin at all, the potential for frustration of the process has to be identified.
" The strong do what they can do and the weak accept what they have to accept. "
- Thucydides
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PostSubject: Re: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeFri Oct 05, 2012 1:34 pm Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
Fixed Cross wrote:
In this thread I invite Capable, Amasopher and James S Saint to state their aims for an as yet hypothetical collective project dedicated to clarifying what exactly is, and is to become of, the epistemological method that has been named value ontology.
Thank you. I already have a problem with this first sentence, though. Smile For to me, it’s not a given that that which you have named value ontology be (only, or even primarily) an epistemological method. In fact, it was when you told me that you’d had a discussion about whether it was (only, or primarily) an epistemology or an ontology that I started calling it simply “value philosophy”.
[F]or any theory that we have about what knowledge is, we must have a presupposition about what the world is like. That is, we must assume that the world exists in such a way that it makes our theory of knowledge possible. There is no escaping having a theory of ontology, it is only a question of whether or not it is consciously acknowledged and studied or whether it is left as an implicit presupposition of one’s theory of epistemology. [Source: ethicalpolitics.org/seminars/neville.htm.]
I think value philosophy proper begins with “posit[ing] a ‘self-valuing’ as a necessary property of all beings, and in its implications sufficient to describe all interactions between all beings”. That is, 'tis in the first place an ontology, not an epistemology; but, being an ontology, it gives rise to an epistemology, for cognition is itself an interaction between beings.
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James S Saint
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PostSubject: Re: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeSat Oct 06, 2012 6:48 am Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
Fixed Cross wrote:
In this thread I invite Capable, Amasopher and James S Saint to state their aims for an as yet hypothetical collective project dedicated to clarifying what exactly is, and is to become of, the epistemological method that has been named value ontology.
It is improper to ask of my aim for your project. So I’ll take this as a request of my interest in your project.
I have serious interest in any and many groups who propose to strongly struggle toward an impossible dream that would yield the greatest possible dream.
In the Middle East, it is commonly accepted that no one has a “soul” until they do something that matters. It is that which matters that endures the struggle against entropy and survives the ages.
In physics, a particle of matter forms merely because an impossible state is being inadvertently sought. Because it is an impossible state, the struggle never ends and literally nothing else matters, or “forms matter”. Entropy is defeated by such dedication to achieve the impossible. A spec of eternal matter is formed. And thus the dream of the immortal “soul” is achieved although immortality wasn’t the aim. What becomes immortal is the specific harmony that represents the constant effort toward that specific impossible aim. The entropic shell is formed merely by the “valuing” of always insisting that closer to that perfect dream is always better than further even though the perfection is impossible.
My interest is the immortality of homosapian. There is a specific aim and struggle that would cause such a state. That effort is formed merely by a small group. After it has formed, nothing else “matters”. It’s “soul” will be as eternal as any particle in physics, and more so than most. Homosapian could never again face extinction even at its own hands.
Fixed Cross wrote:
My own first stated purpose is very simple: I want to clarify the logic that drives me to posit a “self-valuing” as a necessary property of all beings, and in its implications sufficient to describe all interactions between all beings, and so derive a working definition of the world.
In the effort to establish your stated goal, I see the opportunity for an immutable collaboration to form. That “immutable collaboration” is “my” purpose. The “self-valuing” concept fits within my own philosophy and ontology sufficiently. I merely use a different term, “PHT”. Properly applied PHT or VO or “self-valuing” forms a self-sustaining “particle”, a group that defeats inherent entropy. Androids can be made to do it too easily. The objective is for homosapians to do it.
Fixed Cross wrote:
In order to do this, the use of terms has to be perfected, for the logic to become apparent to anyone with a capable mind. This may entail much that I am not yet aware of. This thread is a necessary step on the way to conceive of a proper form for a ‘law-giving machine’.
Agreed, but take care with that word “machine”. I prefer “collaboration mechanism”, also called a “Constitution” or even a “covenant”. All forms of collaboration require structural elements. The only issue is architecting the right set in the right order.
Fixed Cross wrote:
Lastly, this thread is located in this forum because, before operations can begin at all, the potential for frustration of the process has to be identified.
Agreed.
So to sum it up, my interest is the immortality of the group. And that exemplifies a noted distinction between the young and the old. The young subconsciously assume immortality and often consider it irrelevant until they get old and then long for it, if not for themselves, for at least someone.
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PostSubject: Re: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeSat Oct 06, 2012 9:41 am Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
Toward Fixed Cross’ end of, " I want to clarify the logic that drives me to posit a “self-valuing” as a necessary property of all beings, and in its implications sufficient to describe all interactions between all beings, and so derive a working definition of the world.", I offer the following:
Self-valuing is the idea that all beings act in such a way so as to value themselves, to take themselves and what they are as the standard of value, of measurement. This standard of measurement is the basis for how this being interprets what is imposed upon it, how it is able to react and respond. The most basic self-valuing unit, then, may be a “particle” which has only a narrow range of ways to react and respond. Being grows as the number of ways in which it may react and respond are increased, giving it access to more “reality”, to more possible sensations and states of configuration.
If a being encounters other beings whose own self-valuings are stronger than its own it is appropriated into those other beings. This means it might either be dissolved into its constituent parts (a larger self-valuing unit being reduced to lesser and more disorganized self-valuing units) or it may retain its formality but be put to use within another wider system of valuation, turned from a “free particle” into a “molecular particle” now constituting part of a larger self-valuing process and structure.
When this happens, agreements among these self-valuings are imposed, as “laws”. Whatever is built upon and as a consequence of these structures will experience these agreements as “natural laws”, as unbreakable restrictions which act as conditioning limits on how events may or may not occur. Once such collaborative structures exist they constitute a higher self-valuing, a new more derivative being with wider range of powers and “abilities” (possible sensations and “influence”, or affectation). Ultimately when these structures continue to collaborate together, “life” is formed. What we call life occurs at the point where these sort of collaborative and derivative self-valuing structures become able to reproduce themselves beyond their own structural cohesiveness and longevity. When this happens, such as we know through the production of DNA that is able to produce proteins to construct new collaborative self-valuing forms beyond its own cohesive longevity, natural selection takes over and we get the beginning of biological evolution. So long as these basic genetic forms exist and exist in a state of competition with each other over finite resources and space, natural selection dictates that organisms must tend toward forms that self-value and self-value more effectively and powerfully. These organisms are more derivative and complex self-valuing collaborative structures, because their own self-valuing behavior determines the tendency for their own chances of reproduction. Self-valuing first had to achieve this ability to “reproduce” in order to “survive itself”, to allow its particular structure to persist even after it has dissolved. This is why Kitaro calls the active-epistemic nature of the subject, as its “reason”, its temporal dimension, and its ontic nature or “material body” as its spatial dimension. In his language, the spatial dimension extends horizontally while the temporal dimension extends vertically, across generations.
The basic “set up” of self-valuing is that it is self-irreconcilable: divided into two planes which are constantly warring against each other in a Nietzschean “will to power”, each plane of causality-logic trying to appropriate that of the other. The first plane is basically just the threshold of singular particularizing relations between objects, the multitude of more or less direct causality reactions that occur only “spatially”, in Kitaro’s meaning of the word . The second plane is what emerges from the activity of first-tier relations, namely a unifying single new relation that is emergent of these first-tier activities. So basically you get a multitude of small relatively individual relations all warring in concert with each other, struggling in a massive reactivity “will to power” that has been gathered together as the “body” of the subject, and this causal plane is set in opposition to what is emergent from it and “on top of it”, to the singular relation that is a consequence of all this warring activity but is also distinct from it, “beyond it”. Self-valuing consists of the fact that such entities must find a stable way for these two planes to work with each other or else they will tear each other apart.
Those entities which did find this stability were able to survive as per natural selection, and eventually all that existed were such entities with somewhat stable means of translating content from one plane to another, to produce “self-valuing activity” or “consciousness”. Why does the emergent plane try to regulate that from which it emerges? Because those configurations of lesser relations which produced an emergent relation that did not seek to do this did not survive natural selection. The particular structural forms of relations producing larger emergent “subjectivities” do so only in ways which confine the nature of this emergent subject to attempt to stabilize that from which it arises. We can even say that the emergent subjective nature is nothing but a tendency to wider organizational potential that emerges from lesser-regulated “nodes” in dynamic relation to each other, as also per the basic logic of network theory. The consquence of this is that it introduces both disharmony and new order into being. The disharmony is located in the fact that being exists on two planes whose own causal logics are fundamentally different and cannot totally be reconciled with each other; the new order is located in the fact that “flat” being has produced an extra-dimensional plane beyond itself which acts as a new level of reality in which new potentially stabilizing and enlarging or contracting meta-relations may form.
It is the conflict between these two planes of being that constitutes the total plane of organic self-valuing as such, by which the entity “itself” is held in existence. This might apply on all levels, perhaps even that of elementary particles, if it is the case that the particle emerges as a consquence of lesser processes or sub-particles working in concert which produces some higher stability, which is to say a consistency of formality and causal power over time. “Time” simply means the measure of how many quantities of successive encounters and interactions a being is able to endure before dissolving.
This model explains the basic structure of beings as divided into irreconcilable planes that must translate content between each other, a translation that can never be “perfect” but must be good enough to sustain the entity across time and throughout its encounters with reality, with what is imposed upon it. The model of self-valuing may be applied to any entities, large or small, as each entity may be viewed both as a single self-valuing unit as well as a collection of lesser self-valuing units organized together based on agreed-upon “laws” that allow them to hold each other in existence as constitutive parts of more comprehensive processes and structures. Only those entities, of whatever size or scope, that are able to successfully self-value will exist and continue to exist, because “to exist” means only: successful self-valuing. The assumption of self-valuing is a “leap of faith” away from the commonly-accepted scientific-objective logic, because based on the latter logic the former is largely incomprehensible; but once grasped the notion of self-valuing allows for a much larger and more accurate way to interpret the world and subjects within the world, it constitutes an interpretive power that supplements empirical reasoning and traditional philosophic reason by including and explaining these, by going beyond these, by elevating the discourse and language to a higher more comprehensive and useful level.
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Put a clever word in them! —
Must one not first hate oneself, in order to love oneself? …
I am your labyrinth …”. -N
“A man is not great if he is not small, and he is not small if he is not great. Concepts flirt with the loss of their significance in the oscillation between ambiguous states, and this is in part the function and purpose of concepts.” -Primer on Meaning
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PostSubject: Re: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeSat Oct 06, 2012 11:38 am Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
Thank you all -
As James is so far the only one who has made a direct statement to the question of purpose, I will not yet react to him but wait until the others have also seen it fit to decide on a position concerning this cooperation.
Amasopher: I think that we may find resolution in the observation that the act of positing this self-valuing is to establish the principle tool of an epistemological method. So the application of this logic-of-being might itself be seen as an epistemological method: it determines the form in which knowledge is gathered, formulated and applied. Are we in agreement or still in conflict?
Capable: I did not mean to give the impression that the logic still lacks clarification - but I did give that impression, and you are right to set that straight. Your post can be taken as an overview of the implications so far drawn from value ontology - a lot of the work that we have been doing is represented in there. We will see how far the others are able to follow and verify this in their own terms… perhaps this will take many steps.
I will restate my purpose: I wish for the logic that is apparent to me, to become apparent to others in their own terms. I expect these terms to be very different, but also to become, if they are properly developed, more and more evidently compatible.
The goal is to build a bridge between different cognitive approaches. Philosophy has for very long been a strictly individual endeavor (“there are no philosophies, only philosophers”) - and no doubt in part for this reason the mass-project of modern science has overshadowed it completely. But philosophy must take control of science. Value ontology carries this potential, but it must be explicated by scientific minds to realize this potential.
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PostSubject: Re: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeSat Oct 06, 2012 1:23 pm Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
I have neglected to openly state my purpose here - I am interested to discern the limits of the project we have come to call value ontology, or value philosophy as Amasopher named it. What interests me is a view from outside the theory, a vantage upon it from other, different and critical perspectives that can shed light on the idea, add to it, modify it or perhaps even discredit it entirely.
In this regard I welcome Amasopher and James to take account of the ideas of value ontology, in any way they see best. I value that we have gathered good thinkers to this cause, and my purpose here is also to remain open to new challenges and critiques, and to see where value ontology might perhaps find some common points of interest or even agreement with the methods that others may bring to the table.
Approaching “value ontological thinking” as it is seen through the lens of other philosophical perspectives and logical methods, yes this is indeed a worthy task. I look forward to seeing what fruits will come of this effort, and I thank everyone for their participation.
“Be clever, Ariadne! …
You have little ears; you have my ears:
Put a clever word in them! —
Must one not first hate oneself, in order to love oneself? …
I am your labyrinth …”. -N
“A man is not great if he is not small, and he is not small if he is not great. Concepts flirt with the loss of their significance in the oscillation between ambiguous states, and this is in part the function and purpose of concepts.” -Primer on Meaning
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PostSubject: Re: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeSat Oct 06, 2012 4:50 pm Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
Fixed Cross wrote:
Thank you all -
As James is so far the only one who has made a direct statement to the question of purpose, I will not yet react to him but wait until the others have also seen it fit to decide on a position concerning this cooperation.
My aim is in my name.
Quote :
Amasopher: I think that we may find resolution in the observation that the act of positing this self-valuing is to establish the principle tool of an epistemological method.
To me this seems to be intentionally or unintentionally ambiguous. Did you perhaps mean to say that the aim of positing this self-valuing is to etc.? If not, may one replace “is” by “has” or by “ought” (and if not by each, then by which?)? I will stop here, for now.
Quote :
So the application of this logic-of-being might itself be seen as an epistemological method: it determines the form in which knowledge is gathered, formulated and applied. Are we in agreement or still in conflict?
I’m not sure: wasn’t that what I said?
Quote :
Capable: I did not mean to give the impression that the logic still lacks clarification - but I did give that impression, and you are right to set that straight. Your post can be taken as an overview of the implications so far drawn from value ontology - a lot of the work that we have been doing is represented in there. We will see how far the others are able to follow and verify this in their own terms… perhaps this will take many steps.
I can follow it up to where it starts talking about natural selection. It then seems to me to “moralise”–albeit in the sense of a master morality–genetic survival. Can someone explain to me how it betrays a less “stable means of translating content from one plane to another, to produce ‘self-valuing activity’ or ‘consciousness’” on the part of a white rabbit compared to that of a brown rabbit when the former is picked off more easily by predators in the brown environment in which both rabbits live?
As for James’ post, I don’t consider it improper of you to ask of our aims for your project, as I think the project in question is not the project of starting a joint project, but that joint project itself… You wish to start a joint project, and the first question is indeed whether we are–interested.
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James S Saint
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PostSubject: Re: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeTue Oct 09, 2012 4:33 pm Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
Can we all agree that we would like to aim our efforts toward the following ideals concerning the proposed valuing perspective/ontology/philosophy?
Items;
- Logically indisputable
- More appealing to each individual in society than any alternative
- Accepted by social authority
These are ideals that might or might not be attainable, but they offer targets to aim toward. What we do in order to promote the perspective will reflect the targeted ideals.
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PostSubject: Re: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeWed Oct 10, 2012 4:23 am Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
Amasopher wrote:
Fixed Cross wrote:
Thank you all -
As James is so far the only one who has made a direct statement to the question of purpose, I will not yet react to him but wait until the others have also seen it fit to decide on a position concerning this cooperation.
My aim is in my name.
I take it that I can interpret “wisdom” in the context of this thread more or less as “clarity” and “truth”… and that your purpose in such a thread would be to gain clarity about value ontology, and the role you see for it in your own thinking. Is that correct?
Quote :
Quote :
Amasopher: I think that we may find resolution in the observation that the act of positing this self-valuing is to establish the principle tool of an epistemological method.
To me this seems to be intentionally or unintentionally ambiguous. Did you perhaps mean to say that the aim of positing this self-valuing is to etc.? If not, may one replace “is” by “has” or by “ought” (and if not by each, then by which?)? I will stop here, for now.
I don’t see the ambiguity - I do see a bad sentence, so there may be ambiguity of which I’m not aware. Let me rephrase:
To posit “self-valuing” is to enable a certain epistemological method.
Quote :
Quote :
So the application of this logic-of-being might itself be seen as an epistemological method: it determines the form in which knowledge is gathered, formulated and applied. Are we in agreement or still in conflict?
I’m not sure: wasn’t that what I said?
Can I consider this cleared up, then?
Quote :
Quote :
Capable: I did not mean to give the impression that the logic still lacks clarification - but I did give that impression, and you are right to set that straight. Your post can be taken as an overview of the implications so far drawn from value ontology - a lot of the work that we have been doing is represented in there. We will see how far the others are able to follow and verify this in their own terms… perhaps this will take many steps.
I can follow it up to where it starts talking about natural selection. It then seems to me to “moralise”–albeit in the sense of a master morality–genetic survival. Can someone explain to me how it betrays a less “stable means of translating content from one plane to another, to produce ‘self-valuing activity’ or ‘consciousness’” on the part of a white rabbit compared to that of a brown rabbit when the former is picked off more easily by predators in the brown environment in which both rabbits live?
We need perhaps to imagine two ‘tracts’ of evolution - the ‘negative’ or ‘passive’ tract of accident and elimination, where what is most vulnerable or unlucky is killed or perishes, and the ‘positive’ or ‘active’ tract of adaption and problem-solving, where what is most effective in its acting and fortunate in its encounters is able to assert itself at the cost of other entities.
These work as one continuum, of course - but it appears that Capable was describing the second and leaving the first ‘for granted’.
Regarding the second (ontologically primary) tract, the most elementary form of ‘effective acting’ and ‘fortunate encounter’ are one - a self-valuing ‘fortunately encounters itself’ in its first ‘effective act’ as a self-valuing - i.e. the act of self-valuing. James once referred to this as a ‘trap’ in which a concentration of affect is caught by its own structural nature.
Everything that does not ‘fortunately encounter itself’ is eliminated directly by entropy or absorbed as energy into entities, and therewith falls into the first category, ultimately the same as the white rabbit.
By what may be experienced as a stretch, the “self-valuing” logic applies also at the crudest level of accident, whereby an in potency perfectly functioning self-valuing (white rabbit) is eliminated (self-valuing is terminated) because it did not manage to “interpret its environment in terms of its own self-value” - its environment was brown, this could not be turned into an advantage by the white rabbit. Other than that (without attempting the stretch) there is always simply entropy and competition, both counter-forces to any self-valuing, both direct derivatives of the self-valuing logic.
I hope you can follow, it may require, I assume, a good deal of (good) will. I am in favor of breaking down the logic that Capable and I have been employing in steps as small and “incontrovertible” as possible, but this will require the employment of very active and resourceful intelligence, as what we’re dealing with is a restructuring of grammar - in the sense that Nietzsche and Heidegger identified it - as something we’re ‘caught’ inside.
The effort required is perhaps not dissimilar to developing a language.
To repeat and emphasize what I think describes the weight (therefore also, difficulty) of the effort: restructuring grammar, whereby grammar is our cognitive framework.
James S Saint wrote:
Can we all agree that we would like to aim our efforts toward the following ideals concerning the proposed valuing perspective/ontology/philosophy?
Items;
- Logically indisputable
- More appealing to each individual in society than any alternative
- Accepted by social authority
These are ideals that might or might not be attainable, but they offer targets to aim toward. What we do in order to promote the perspective will reflect the targeted ideals.
Before we set such goals as described by 2 and 3, we first need to come to a mutual understanding about the subject matter itself, value ontology. So we need to focus on point 1 before it becomes possible to consider 2 and 3. Can you agree to this approach, or does it contradict your primary goal/interest, as stated in your first post? If so, why?
" The strong do what they can do and the weak accept what they have to accept. "
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PostSubject: Re: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeWed Oct 10, 2012 5:27 am Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
Fixed Cross wrote:
Quote :
Can we all agree that we would like to aim our efforts toward the following ideals concerning the proposed valuing perspective/ontology/philosophy?
Items;
- Logically indisputable
- More appealing to each individual in society than any alternative
- Accepted by social authority
These are ideals that might or might not be attainable, but they offer targets to aim toward. What we do in order to promote the perspective will reflect the targeted ideals.
Before we set such goals as described by 2 and 3, we first need to come to a mutual understanding about the subject matter itself, value ontology. So we need to focus on point 1 before it becomes possible to consider 2 and 3. Can you agree to this approach, or does it contradict your primary goal/interest, as stated in your first post? If so, why?
I had put them (including that first post) in the order of significance and thus the order I would anticipate them to be addressed. So I consider you to be on track. Cool
I might add that your adversary to this project is that you live in an age wherein the exact opposite is being emphasized;
- Be objectionable to social authority
- Don’t worry about who likes it
- Be irrational and forget logic
- Be only a temporary flash in the pan
And that is why you must be extremely precise in what you attempt, far more so than anyone prior.
Else the project will get swept away by either the rising tide or the under-tow.
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PostSubject: Re: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeFri Oct 12, 2012 9:58 pm Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
I would like to propose a possible common ground between our respective philosophies. Please help me see if this is accurate or not.
One common thread I see between self-valuing and James’ position is that each of these comprises an active resistance against radical nihilism, against what Nietzsche called the will to nothingness, or what we might simple characterize as irrationality. Elsewhere I characterized pathology as every “for its own sake” of the organism, its basically animal reactivity that is “meaningless” because it is arbitrary, it is not teleological and not guided by a broader future-oriented purpose. We could perhaps characterize nihilism as this sort of purposeless instinctual reaction as well. (Or I could also define the irrational-nihilist position as a weak or ineffective truth or position toward truth, since these sort of views seem to reject the idea of truth entirely by restricting truth to a totally arbitrary level of pure relativism or to deny the possibility of truth altogether.) But regardless of however we want to characterize this nihilistic view, I think it can serve as something against which our respective philosophies can posit resistance and perhaps find a common ground.
There is a lot of modern philosophy, religion, politics that could be characterized as nihilistic, anti-rational and, with respect to what James and also Fixed Cross and I are proposing through our respective philosophies, also anti-life: self-valuing dictates that an entity that does not hold itself as a standard-value must perish, must lose that particular formal nature by which it is an entity as such. James’ philosophy seems centered around ideas of stability and consistency as well as the idea of harmony which seems to invoke the notion of sustaining relations between self and others and between self and environment. Consistency, stability and logical integrity seem central to James’ philosophy, and I can see how his philosophy, at least the little I understand of it so far, could also along with value ontology act as an effective resistance against radically nihilist positions.
Amasopher I am also interested in your philosophy and whether or not it might also work in this way. Would you mind explaining a bit about how your philosophy would respond to the problem of radical nihilism, to what Nietzsche called the will to nothingness, if indeed you believe your philosophy has a response to this? James, also please offer me a more detailed account if you would like, of how your philosophy addresses this problem. I am interested to see if indeed there is a common ground here among all our respective thought, as I suspect may be the case, but admittedly I do not have a clear enough grasp on your thought to better articulate this common ground that I sense.
“Be clever, Ariadne! …
You have little ears; you have my ears:
Put a clever word in them! —
Must one not first hate oneself, in order to love oneself? …
I am your labyrinth …”. -N
“A man is not great if he is not small, and he is not small if he is not great. Concepts flirt with the loss of their significance in the oscillation between ambiguous states, and this is in part the function and purpose of concepts.” -Primer on Meaning
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James S Saint
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PostSubject: Re: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeFri Oct 12, 2012 11:47 pm Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
Capable wrote:
I would like to propose a possible common ground between our respective philosophies. Please help me see if this is accurate or not.
One common thread I see between self-valuing and James’ position is that each of these comprises an active resistance against radical nihilism, against what Nietzsche called the will to nothingness, or what we might simple characterize as irrationality. Elsewhere I characterized pathology as every “for its own sake” of the organism, its basically animal reactivity that is “meaningless” because it is arbitrary, it is not teleological and not guided by a broader future-oriented purpose. We could perhaps characterize nihilism as this sort of purposeless instinctual reaction as well. (Or I could also define the irrational-nihilist position as a weak or ineffective truth or position toward truth, since these sort of views seem to reject the idea of truth entirely by restricting truth to a totally arbitrary level of pure relativism or to deny the possibility of truth altogether.) But regardless of however we want to characterize this nihilistic view, I think it can serve as something against which our respective philosophies can posit resistance and perhaps find a common ground.
There is a lot of modern philosophy, religion, politics that could be characterized as nihilistic, anti-rational and, with respect to what James and also Fixed Cross and I are proposing through our respective philosophies, also anti-life: self-valuing dictates that an entity that does not hold itself as a standard-value must perish, must lose that particular formal nature by which it is an entity as such. James’ philosophy seems centered around ideas of stability and consistency as well as the idea of harmony which seems to invoke the notion of sustaining relations between self and others and between self and environment. Consistency, stability and logical integrity seem central to James’ philosophy, and I can see how his philosophy, at least the little I understand of it so far, could also along with value ontology act as an effective resistance against radically nihilist positions.
I believe that this effort to collaborate requires the notification of agreement at every opportunity for a variety of reasons such as verification of intent and the perception of hope. And I agree with the entirely of that posting.
Capable wrote:
Amasopher I am also interested in your philosophy and whether or not it might also work in this way. Would you mind explaining a bit about how your philosophy would respond to the problem of radical nihilism, to what Nietzsche called the will to nothingness, if indeed you believe your philosophy has a response to this? James, also please offer me a more detailed account if you would like, of how your philosophy addresses this problem. I am interested to see if indeed there is a common ground here among all our respective thought, as I suspect may be the case, but admittedly I do not have a clear enough grasp on your thought to better articulate this common ground that I sense.
I am also interested in Amasopher’s philosophy or ontological view.
I am the founder and developer of Rational Metaphysics, “RM”. RM explains the processes required for the total defeat of entropy/“nihilism”, as well as why anything in the entire universe manages to exist for any more than the smallest instant of time. As such and assuming it to be accurate, it is essential to any organized effort that intends to be any more than a “flash in the pan”. People and their grandest efforts have failed in the past for reasons. Those reasons can be dealt with once truly understood.
In RM there is a principle referred to as “PHT”, the Perception of Hope and Threat. PHT is the guiding principle in all behavior of any life. It can be creatively applied such as to include the behavior of all inanimate life as well, but the implication would be that inanimate objects consciously perceive hope and threat. Is see “Value-Ontology” as the same as PHT but applied to all existence. What bothers me is that implication of consciousness within the inanimate. My view on that matter is expressed in this thesis… Consciousness: Remote Recognition.
But other than that implication, it appears to me that Value-Ontology fits very well within Rational Metaphysics. I just sense that the word “ontology”, meaning an explanation of all existence, is pushing the idea of self-valuing into an arena where it is not precisely correct depending on how you understand consciousness. But that issue alone is not sufficient for me to reject the project. “Value-Philosophy” seems more precisely correct because the word “philosophy” often refers to an accepted manner of behavior rather than an ontological explanation for all existence.
Another issue I see as needing addressing, according to RM, is the issue of inclusion of the immediate surroundings when valuing. Nothing that remains in harmony can perish. But nothing can remain in harmony if its surroundings are critically out of harmony with the entity. That would be the very make and cause of destruction of entities and efforts.
My word, “harmony” has an unfortunate connotation involving the notion of sweet kisses, free love, and laying naked on the beach… doing nothing. That is not what the word actually means, so I try to emphasize the importance of strategic momentum… doing something; quickly, firmly, and wisely. It is that strategic momentum that prevents entropy more than anything else.
RM is all about the cause of existence, order, and chaos. An entity is an order resistant to chaos. “Self-Valuing” is a concept that also fits the concept of Inertia. Inertia is the property of being able to maintain one’s properties, one’s order - the ability to exist for any length of time. No entity can exist without inertia and thus self-valuing.
RM is a subject requiring a collegiate course prerequisited with tensor analysis if you want to see the actual mathematical proofs involved. At ILP, I tried to see if there was a way to explain its essence without going into the math. I had a modicum of success. But I really need questions to be asked by those who are not themselves merely trying to sell their own theory and repel away from any alternate proposal. But even at that, I generated some 30-50 pictorials and around 400 posts of explanation (often having to repeat). The entire ontology is fundamentally simple, but leads into the real complexities of actual existence pretty quickly.
Religion’s blind faith and Science’s repeatable empiricism are both trumped by RM’s Definitional Logic. RM is the dream that both Science and Religion sought. RM is the immutable order and antithesis to entropy.
Learning RM is a issue of the student being willing to ask questions while the author is still around to answer them.
Kriya thread toward clear purpose RM+Vs+Physics+Approach
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PostSubject: Re: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeSat Oct 13, 2012 8:02 am Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
I’m not sure how to handle the thread at this point, as the order is now broken by James, but for an understandable reason. We don’t want to have the rules prevent the progression of a discussion. Still, I think that what I proposed it is a good rule to maintain, to keep a certain order, and this precisely to be able to verify our agreements and clarify our differences at every ‘round’ in the discussion. Amasopher already has a lot to respond to at this point, the amount must not grow beyond his capacity to address with precision. So I suggest that, in this thread, we keep to the rule of one post per ‘round’ - that is, once the total number of posts is divisible by 4, every poster has a ‘right’ to one more post. Of course due to the state of this thread, this does not calculate this way anymore, but you get the idea.
It’s clear then that we need at least one other thread, where Rational Metaphysics can be discussed in the Q and A format James proposed (either in the logic or the science section, that would be up to James). I am very much in favor of parallel threads, designated to clear, separate goals, or different segments of an ultimate goal. I believe in the principle of balanced contribution for this particular thread. See it as an ‘axis’ of our effort, which may spread out into other threads.
The aim here is consistency, to enable the trust in every poster that nothing is being missed.
Perhaps it appears that I am insisting disproportionally on form - but this fixation can be understood as maintaining a ‘harmony’ within the ‘entity’ of this group.
Concerning the issue of consciousness - for now I will be short and say that when I consider an atom to ‘value’ and ‘self-value’, I do not mean that it does this consciously. It simply means that the atom operates in such a way that it rejects certain influences and incorporates others - that, by its very structural nature, it ‘selects’ according to itself, the standard for ‘value’ that it embodies.
Consciousness occurs on a certain level of complexity of self-valuing. When there are many layers, delays, cross-feeding feedback loops in place. But what we normally understand as valuing (holding values like good and bad, or delicious or revolting) are ‘conscious versions’ of pre-conscious valuing. Valuing permeates all of existence, and arrives at being in part consciously enacted only when consciousness has emerged. But still, humans are valuing largely unconsciously, and a human can not deliberately alter his values, so it can be questioned whether valuing really changes when consciousness arises, except that it provides the opportunity to be deluded about ones real, life-sustaining values.
Basically value ontology reverses the causal order of consciousness and value. Traditionally, values are seen to arise from consciousness. But this is in fact not tenable, as values are held by every primitive entity, evolutionarily long before consciousness emerges, and force an entity to act on these values completely indifferently to whether or not it consciously recognizes this acting or these values.
So instead, value ontology holds that consciousness emerges from valuing.
It is called an ontology because we base our understanding of ‘that which is’ on the principle of self-valuing. That is - when something can be designated as a self-valuing, it can be said to positively exist (not merely be a property of something else), and vice versa.
C, J and A, what are your suggestions for the continuation of this thread, and the bringing into existence of others?
" The strong do what they can do and the weak accept what they have to accept. "
- Thucydides
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PostSubject: bump Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeSun Oct 14, 2012 5:30 am Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
Consider this a new round -
To all involved, verify what you can verify, reject what you have to reject, let’s see where we stand at this point.
Also, whoever has asked questions that have gone unanswered, please restate them.
" The strong do what they can do and the weak accept what they have to accept. "
- Thucydides
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James S Saint
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PostSubject: Re: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeSun Oct 14, 2012 7:22 pm Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
Fixed Cross wrote:
Consider this a new round -
To all involved, verify what you can verify, reject what you have to reject, let’s see where we stand at this point.
Also, whoever has asked questions that have gone unanswered, please restate them.
So far, I see nothing to object to other than a lack of speedy participation.
The goals seem the same to me and I haven’t seen anything forbidding progress toward them.
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PostSubject: Re: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeTue Oct 16, 2012 2:43 pm Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
James S Saint wrote:
Fixed Cross wrote:
Quote :
Can we all agree that we would like to aim our efforts toward the following ideals concerning the proposed valuing perspective/ontology/philosophy?
Items;
- Logically indisputable
- More appealing to each individual in society than any alternative
- Accepted by social authority
These are ideals that might or might not be attainable, but they offer targets to aim toward. What we do in order to promote the perspective will reflect the targeted ideals.
Before we set such goals as described by 2 and 3, we first need to come to a mutual understanding about the subject matter itself, value ontology. So we need to focus on point 1 before it becomes possible to consider 2 and 3. Can you agree to this approach, or does it contradict your primary goal/interest, as stated in your first post? If so, why?
I had put them (including that first post) in the order of significance and thus the order I would anticipate them to be addressed. So I consider you to be on track.
I might add that your adversary to this project is that you live in an age wherein the exact opposite is being emphasized;
- Be objectionable to social authority
- Don’t worry about who likes it
- Be irrational and forget logic
- Be only a temporary flash in the pan
And that is why you must be extremely precise in what you attempt, far more so than anyone prior.
Else the project will get swept away by either the rising tide or the under-tow.
I find it peculiar that the exact opposite to a list of three items should be a list of four items. Then again, I don’t think the former is necessarily composed of three (main) items. Indeed, items 2 and 3 seem to me to be better designated as items 2a and 2b, the one referring to appeal to or acceptance by the individuals of which society is composed, the other referring to appeal to or acceptance by that which governs society as a whole, social authority. In any case, I agree with regard to item 1, but not necessarily with regard to the rest; in fact, the connection between the two is precisely the problem I’ve tried to raise in my Lampertian Nietzscheanism thread in the Nietzsche forum.
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PostSubject: Re: Kriya thread toward clear purpose Kriya thread toward clear purpose Icon_minitimeThu Oct 18, 2012 5:17 am Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
I do not have much to add right now, in general I will withdraw myself from this round’s content except to further address something Amasopher wrote to me, which Fixed Cross addressed but which I have not yet.
Amasopher wrote:
I can follow it up to where it starts talking about natural selection. It then seems to me to “moralise”–albeit in the sense of a master morality–genetic survival. Can someone explain to me how it betrays a less “stable means of translating content from one plane to another, to produce ‘self-valuing activity’ or ‘consciousness’” on the part of a white rabbit compared to that of a brown rabbit when the former is picked off more easily by predators in the brown environment in which both rabbits live?
Natural selection is basically an emergent law given the fact that 1) self-valuings are “internally restless” and “self-agitated”, are always moving, striving, growing, and 2) that the natural world constitutes a set of conditions whereby self-valuings engage in this behavior given limited space and resources. 1 and 2 together produce competition, which in turn produces the law of natural selection, itself really just an effect of 1 and 2. I see self-valuing as the basic “engine” of natural selection, in conjunction with the fact that self-valuing takes place within environments that are essentially constrained and limited in terms of what can and is to be valued by any self-valuing.
The white rabbit might not represent any “lesser” self-valuing activity than the brown rabbit, intrinsically, but by accident of circumstance the one is consumed and the other is not. This “accident” is of course not random. Basically, natural selection implies that organisms under the purview of its law do not possess a means to self-value their own self-valuing, they cannot value “intentionally” and are instead “arbitrarily valuing”, they are beings who value only secondarily based on “what they already are”, which is to say they are not teleological. Their own self-valuing or “consciousness” cannot grasp also itself, cannot factor also itself, as a fact, as an object of this self-valuing consciousness, into the overall calculus of this self-valuing consciousness itself.
Animal life is like this, secondary, ex post facto, “arbitrary” and “natural”. Natural selection produces the present generation of self-valuings based only on what came immediately before this generation, in conjunction with present environmental influences and demands; it does not take into account future possibilities or imagined states, goals, purpose or “ends”. These come along only when humanity arrives on the scene, a self-valuing that is more able to fully incorporate its own valuing behavior into its very self-valuing structure, in such a way so as to produce “telos”. So in this sense, the rabbits are both instances of self-valuings that are operating by the very same logic, and the one that happens, for one reason or another, to value more toward the actual mitigation of the conditions to which it is subject, namely a more or less brown environment, will happen to tend to survive more and pass on its own particular self-valuing structure and activity. I think it is helpful to separate human-like self-valuing from non-human-like self-valuing, not because these are totally different, but because the former is built upon and is in many ways a continuation and break with or “point of collapse” of the latter. So basically the fact of naturally selective law is a consequence of self-valuings, primarily and directly, while self-valuings themselves are also consequences of this naturally selective law, secondarily and indirectly, with the exception of human beings who have more or less removed themselves from the law of natural selection, given that they have attained some manner of teleology and can actively “imagine” and “call into existence” content from the future rather than only respond to content from the past in a more or less passive-reactionary manner.