Secular Existence & Transcendence

felix_dakat · September 28, 2021, 4:49pm

iambiguous:

felix dakat:

Anyway Iambiguous, I’m willing to go along with your agenda and see where it takes us. I’ve already started to address your pet issues of homosexuality and abortion above. I doubt that you will see my approach to the matters as adequate. I welcome your criticisms.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

Though, again, abortion is not just a “pet” issue of mine.

It is a moral conflagration that literally revolves around life and death. And it is almost always “in the news”. Here in America of late because of the SC ruling on the Texas effort to enlist citizens in the task of enforcing what many construe to be a draconian abortion policy. A law that bans abortions when some women don’t even realize that they are pregnant.

But most importantly because, re the OP on this thread – ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=194382 – it was the issue that started the ball rolling for me in the general direction of a “fractured and fragmented” “I”.

Given in turn the transformation from a transcending frame of mind to a considerably more secular perspective.

My intention in the OP was to include exploration of secular this-worldly sources of transcendence on this thread.

felix_dakat · September 28, 2021, 4:59pm

Meno_:

Interesting topic. Analytically unsolveable, practically dissuasive. because there is a flaw, an inherent flaw in putting alienation and anxiety at par, in a forum that specifically distinguishes psychologism from analytical signifiers.

These leveling differences propagate the need to bring them together, at least within realistic. off the hook ideoms, with the very transperent need for a workable series of transcending methods.

Not that god has to be invented out of the same dust from a worn out ground, but out of the human need to grow some way of generalizing the socially adaptive human family , out of the original narrowly defined tribal family unit.

Maybe, that or truly we will continue to travel the worn out road that previously determined and defined us.

No implication need to be garnered her which makes this one dimensional world godless, hence no religious/civil split gas to be prescribed as a cure all.

The faith based idea of an absolute sum of metaphor, before it’s existential growth , is understandibly outrageous, however this regression can be appreciated , when looked at as a result of political , critical levels of determinate power applied to 19 th century social development.

The 20 th century exhibited so much of this, that the criticality actually reversed the ground, to kind of a hanging metaphor, and the point became meaningless, because the triangular point suddenle appeared to support the entire structure.
No one saw it coming, but they should have, and the assasination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, should not have been taken out of context.

The end of the Romanov rule should have been an indication of what may come ahead, and historic significance should not have been deemed irrelevant.

That history repeats it’s self should not have been ignored, as falling out of an oft repeated pattern, a mere philosophic plaything of worried salons.

Meaning went out with the baby with the bathwater of obsessions with cleanliness, whereas prior to that cleanliness was germ that divided a war , of European conflict, some claiming that cleanliness had the very seeds that contaminated it’s very body politic.

There is a hidden paradoxical rat here, festering the the wound that should enigmatically here.

Some dare call it fallacious.

I’m not sure what to make of your comments. Personal religion is one option in a secular society.

But Transcendence may not be limited to the religious. People may self- transcend at a rock concert or a football game when they become involved in a spirit that is greater than themselves. That may be what motivates them to be involved in those events.

They can more easily watch the game or listen to music at home. But the enthusiasm is not the same as when you’re in a crowd who’s there for a common purpose.

Meno2 · September 28, 2021, 5:53pm

felix dakat:

Meno_:

Interesting topic. Analytically unsolveable, practically dissuasive. because there is a flaw, an inherent flaw in putting alienation and anxiety at par, in a forum that specifically distinguishes psychologism from analytical signifiers.

These leveling differences propagate the need to bring them together, at least within realistic. off the hook ideoms, with the very transperent need for a workable series of transcending methods.

Not that god has to be invented out of the same dust from a worn out ground, but out of the human need to grow some way of generalizing the socially adaptive human family , out of the original narrowly defined tribal family unit.

Maybe, that or truly we will continue to travel the worn out road that previously determined and defined us.

No implication need to be garnered her which makes this one dimensional world godless, hence no religious/civil split gas to be prescribed as a cure all.

The faith based idea of an absolute sum of metaphor, before it’s existential growth , is understandibly outrageous, however this regression can be appreciated , when looked at as a result of political , critical levels of determinate power applied to 19 th century social development.

The 20 th century exhibited so much of this, that the criticality actually reversed the ground, to kind of a hanging metaphor, and the point became meaningless, because the triangular point suddenle appeared to support the entire structure.
No one saw it coming, but they should have, and the assasination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, should not have been taken out of context.

The end of the Romanov rule should have been an indication of what may come ahead, and historic significance should not have been deemed irrelevant.

That history repeats it’s self should not have been ignored, as falling out of an oft repeated pattern, a mere philosophic plaything of worried salons.

Meaning went out with the baby with the bathwater of obsessions with cleanliness, whereas prior to that cleanliness was germ that divided a war , of European conflict, some claiming that cleanliness had the very seeds that contaminated it’s very body politic.

There is a hidden paradoxical rat here, festering the the wound that should enigmatically here.

Some dare call it fallacious.

I’m not sure what to make of your comments. Personal religion is one option in a secular society.

But Transcendence may not be limited to the religious. People may self- transcend at a rock concert or a football game when they become involved in a spirit that is greater than themselves. That may be what motivates them to be involved in those events.

They can more easily watch the game or listen to music at home. But the enthusiasm is not the same as when you’re in a crowd who’s there for a common purpose.

My point…

The ground upon which ‘transcendence’ is interpreted is that yes, transcendence may mean one thing in a secular society, where capitalism, and liberal capitalism has reduced meaning to that option.

So that may ultimately be the only option left, and most people are left hanging ti interpretation to that frame of reference.

But then religion tweeks it’s divisive head, and parables like " they do not know what they are doing" continue to sustain that Spector which haunted, and still haunts most of Europe.

And who verbalized that proposition?

And in come positive nods, Wittgenstein’s at the helm, ar once simulating the progressive ideas , while probably feeling insecure about setting the whole structural logical structure on it’s fragile point.

It is novel and makes sense, to people reacting violently to horrors festering at arms length.

But not to be diversive, it is the very body politic which proclaims the ominous Spector facing us, can not differentiate on transcendental logic from that of that logic which does lead to alienation.

The fans at rick concerts were the new-leftists who did nit have to live through the horrors if the 20 th century, so they see festering wounds yes, but not as symptoms, but as curable diseases.

The ‘Cure’ of the eighties was a revisionary rock group, just as enthusiastically received as 'War.'was.
Transcendence must come from a higher level, even a proto-religious level. The ambiguity all feel, is understandable, and there is only so far that meaning can be grasped on a grass roots level.

Say, you want to belong to a cultish divided society, for the life of you, but that transpiring meaning has left you divided and alienated.

What are the odds, that angst can be handled without some agent that comes closest to a god-like representation?

Some can not be expressed without parables and aphorisms.

felix_dakat · September 28, 2021, 7:38pm

Meno–

Again, I was unable to follow that. If you would be so kind, please pick one short thought or proposition out of all that and I’ll see if I can understand what you mean.

Meno2 · September 28, 2021, 8:25pm

felix dakat:

The loss of the experience of transcendence in secular life has resulted in two different moods: the self assured and the alienated. Secular existence will either find a source of meaning within this life or it will find this life essentially meaningless. Of course one may vacillate between the two modes of existence.

The self-assured mood is comfortable and unconflicted about the world’s of technology science and capitalism. It’s a feeling of self-sufficiency in the context of the modern world.

Contrast with this alienated mode which finds the contemporary spiritual situation is one of anxiety and meaninglessness. This experience was elucidated by Soren Kierkegaard in the mid 19th century and the existential philosophers of the 20th.

Both types of secular existence, the self assured and the anxious/alienated agree that there are no absolutes or transcendent grounds for knowing existing and valuing. They disagree about whether there is an imminent foundation within this life for knowledge existence and values.

Having lost a transcendent source of judgment, individuals try to find an imminent source or finds no meaning at all. Without a transcendent source or ground the secular self has no perspective from which to criticize it’s attachment to relative meanings.

In this situation self-assurance can lead to fanaticism and alienation can lead to despair. As Yeats said in The Second Coming" the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

Openness is the orientation of an individual or group that is receptive to a transcendent source of criticism and renewal. The opposite of openness is closure. If that’s your perceived mode of being, what’s that like?

The religious world is of course open in principle to transcendent resources. Yet the religious sometimes seem to be closed to other aspects of imminent life.

The question is whether philosophy can open to any kind of transcendence. The 18th and 19th century romantic’s found transcendence in the sublime. Scientists like Einstein and Carl Sagan found it in a sense of awe. I don’t know if he’s found transcendence but professing atheist Sam Harris looks for it in the practices of meditation and psychedelics.

I’m curious if folks on ILP are able to relate to this concept. Do you see yourself as primarily in one or the other modes of existence the self assured or the alienated?

Transcendence does not have to be absolute. Divinity and sacredness may be immanent.

Are you open to notions of transcendence that are less maximal than Anselm’s definition of God as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived”? William James defined transcendence as the sense that there is something more. Alcoholics anonymous the concept of a higher power. Again, The romantics described healing and uplifting of the sense of the sublime. I have a thread on ILP which talks about wholeness which is another way of symbolizing transcendence. What do you think? Can you even relate to this idea?

<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>

Ok.

The self assured mode of experiencing transcendence , and how William James interpreted it are two modes of truing to interpret transcendence.

The point being is, if we take James’ starting point, then it will incorporate not modes , including secular existence.

However, if we take the other, the self assured one, only such self assurance can gain a foothold, excluding a higher power, if any.

Higher power is controversial because it entails everything from leveling a disarrayed leveling field, that results from inordinately wide gaps between induced and unfounded ideas to. Total presumption of Proven fate. Such ideas remain in stasis insofar as the relate and predicate toward a meaningful whole .

That is what I presumed is a given.

I was mistaken, I hope this makes more sense

Bob · September 28, 2021, 9:01pm

It seems to me that you take every topic to your own area of discussion and set other people the task of changing their direction without being prepared to do the same. This is what people on ILP have been telling you for some time. Instead of taking the OP for what it is and following that direction, giving your perspective, you try to change direction. At least I am replying to the OP.

As a consequence, you come across as someone who judges everybody else by the degree in which they are prepared to go in your direction and become condescending in your comments.

iambiguous:

… it depends on how you construe the meaning of psychologism.

Psychologism:
noun PHILOSOPHY
a tendency to interpret events or arguments in subjective terms, or to exaggerate the relevance of psychological factors.

Now, in regard to “Secular Existence & Transcendence”, what particular events are the arguments relating to? Given my own interest in this distinction, we need a particular set of circumstances in which to explore the extent to which our personal value judgments are aimed more at sustaining a comforting and consoling psychological frame of mind [anchored to either a secular or sacred font] or are instead rooted philosophically in the manner in which I construe the “self” at the existential intersection of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

I don’t see how felix “exaggerated the relevance of psychological factors”, instead, as I said, he gave examples of his observations, which (across the pond) I make as well.

Exactly, not given the opening statement, but only your own set of assumptions.

Bob:

There are numerous people who fall into one of those categories, and several who are blissfully ignorant of anything that could make them anxious, not having had to take on responsibility as yet. I find that it is then that people have to decide where they stand and how able they are to cope. It is then that you find that the self-assured retain to a certain degree their ignorance wilfully, avoiding moral complexity, regardless of where they stand and what doctrines they hold to (I am certain that they all have some doctrine they uphold). These people have often had an early advantage of identifying with other self-assured people and being welcomed by those people as one of their own.

Given what situation? One ripped from the headlines for example. Actual anxiety and self-assurance and ignorance and doctrines relating the moral complexity of what specific moral conflagration that most here will be familiar with?

Considering that these are observable in many circumstances, I’m not sure what you expect. Felix responded positively to what I posted, which seems to me to say we’re on the same page. Your comments seem to expect something else, a concretisation based on a particular situation perhaps? This would reduce the statement to that circumstance, which is not what I was saying.

There you go again, making demands of others which have to be fulfilled before you will condescend to take part in the discussion, all within your own recurring theme of course.

I feel for you. Having a fragmented “I” isn’t the type of experience we want to be stuck in, and the subjects you mention can be very fragmenting, and the arguments on both sides need a context. Felix has already spoken on that, and my wife and I having lost a child at birth, in that circumstance the subject of abortion seems to make mockery of the tragedy we felt. However, am I allowed to frame the decision of a woman I don’t know to have an abortion in my circumstance? I don’t think so. This could be seen as a very simple expression of going beyond myself in reaction to that woman. The goal here I think is the reduction of suffering, which couldn’t be achieved in our case, but an abortion may be seen as that – either for a child or for a mother in a difficult situation. What I would say to a woman who is considering an abortion is that she should consider whether she is mocking parents who go through a miscarriage by taking the decision too lightly.

The same could be said of gun control to a certain degree, however that problem is very complex and the task of policing a society in which guns are so prevalent becomes even more complicated, with the chance of mistakes being made (which they are) increasing exponentially. The number of gun-related deaths in America in comparison to other countries is an obvious indication of that. Having patrolled streets in Northern Ireland as the crisis was on and having gone through a rigid training in which riot situations get out of hand, I am aware of the feelings that police officers in an emergency have, not knowing whether a gunman will suddenly shoot at you. The combination of guns and cities is daunting for people who are potential targets – which is why they make mistakes. But someone living outside of town has a different situation – so it is a different decision.

Sexuality and Government are both subjects that are so general that I can’t address them adequately. But what of the above situations for spiritual people? Does meditation and prayer help? Yes, there has been adequate research done to confirm that. Does it make a difference to people around spiritual people? Yes, at least in our case it did, and we were told it did. But does it help us avoid such situations? No. Does it reduce anxiety and pain? No. Even though I learnt to meditate in a MBSR course, stress reduction doesn’t mean stress prevention in every situation. It means learning to cope with it better. Also, depression, insofar as it is cause by a reduction of serotonin, is something that I have learnt to cope with, but like in any somatic illness, I can’t control my serotonin levels.

I had to translate this into German to see if it was me, but this question (?) isn’t very coherent in any language. I cannot overlook the fact that our modern critiques of religion are often basically critiques of power structures. I myself am critical of organised religion for the same reason. Abuse of power in any organisation is intolerable, especially where trust is supposed to be the basis of the relationship. But it is automatically assumed that the power structures in the parishes were such that abuse of power was automatically part of it. On the contrary, it was very often the abuse by the noble families, who often organised a position as bishop for their second sons, that made the situation difficult for parish priests and monasteries, which were affected by the competition amongst the noble families.

Having driven through this volcanic island, looking at how people scraped a living off this difficult land, under duress from Pirates and Adventurers from Europe (the main town was set up by the ancestors of L’oreal Heiress Liliane Bettencourt 1408) the church was a source of solace for them, and they rebuilt the church often after raiding pirates destroyed it. This is the story in other conflicts as well, and it wasn’t down to force being used. We forget that our modern-day attitudes are far removed from these people living a tough life, and we can’t assume that they had the same concepts as people today, because God can’t be conceptualised. If anything, that seems to be the lesson we’ve learnt, even if it hasn’t seeped through to everybody.

The other is that the materialist worldview is one perspective and there are others. We don’t have to accept a doctrine that tells us that consciousness comes from matter, namely the brain, but can conversely theorise that matter comes from consciousness, which isn’t as strange as we may think it is. To argue the point you’d have to turn to people very much more capable than I, for example Bernado Kastrup. I am just very impressed with what I have heard. The standpoint that many atheists take is based on a materialist/mechanistic worldview. The church made the mistake of also trying to ratify a materialistic world view after the enlightenment and it didn’t (and still doesn’t) make sense.

There are many mindsets that one could imagine, but are you referring to a specific case or are you generalising?

felix_dakat · September 29, 2021, 11:31am

Meno_:

Ok.

The self assured mode of experiencing transcendence , and how William James interpreted it are two modes of truing to interpret transcendence.

The point being is, if we take James’ starting point, then it will incorporate not modes , including secular existence.

However, if we take the other, the self assured one, only such self assurance can gain a foothold, excluding a higher power, if any.

Higher power is controversial because it entails everything from leveling a disarrayed leveling field, that results from inordinately wide gaps between induced and unfounded ideas to. Total presumption of Proven fate. Such ideas remain in stasis insofar as the relate and predicate toward a meaningful whole .

That is what I presumed is a given.

I was mistaken, I hope this makes more sense

I’m still not sure we’re connecting. I was referring to the loss of the experience of transcendence in secular life which has resulted to two different moods the self-assured and the alienated. The self-assured would be comfortable with secular life as it is without transcendence. The alienated would find the contemporary spiritual situation one of anxiety and meaninglessness. Of course most of us are usually somewhere in between.

felix_dakat · September 29, 2021, 11:59am

“…this threat of disunity and meaningless was implicit in the original move to a purely secular time, to a life lived unconnected with higher times, and against the background of a cosmic time which at least as far as human affairs are concerned can be described as ‘homogeneous and empty’.”

Charles Taylor, “A Secular Age”, page 719.

iambiguous · September 29, 2021, 4:39pm

felix dakat:

iambiguous:

felix dakat:

Anyway Iambiguous, I’m willing to go along with your agenda and see where it takes us. I’ve already started to address your pet issues of homosexuality and abortion above. I doubt that you will see my approach to the matters as adequate. I welcome your criticisms.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

Though, again, abortion is not just a “pet” issue of mine.

It is a moral conflagration that literally revolves around life and death. And it is almost always “in the news”. Here in America of late because of the SC ruling on the Texas effort to enlist citizens in the task of enforcing what many construe to be a draconian abortion policy. A law that bans abortions when some women don’t even realize that they are pregnant.

But most importantly because, re the OP on this thread – ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=194382 – it was the issue that started the ball rolling for me in the general direction of a “fractured and fragmented” “I”.

Given in turn the transformation from a transcending frame of mind to a considerably more secular perspective.

My intention in the OP was to include exploration of secular this-worldly sources of transcendence on this thread.

Okay, I will await your post pertaining to this then:

felix_dakat · September 29, 2021, 6:05pm

So now your agenda is waiting for me to set the agenda?

Meno2 · September 29, 2021, 9:25pm

Felix,

An interesting conjecturr. weather a politically espoused motive may have inadvertantly been conflated with the usual deterministic mix of this secular time, which may have arisen in politically dangerous times?

maybe ‘dangerous’ is too strong - heavy a word.

Or how dId such meaninglessness move implicitly?

felix_dakat · September 30, 2021, 1:55am

Meno-- it’s more than conjecture. Taylor documents the historical development of secular society from medieval European society for 776 pages. In the quote he’s talking about the difference between the way we moderns view time in the way it was viewed for the advent of modern science.

Meno2 · September 30, 2021, 4:33am

Yes, and more of the man behind the mirror stuff, it is my. conjecture I meant.

iambiguous · September 30, 2021, 3:49pm

Come on, Bob, I am not demanding that anyone here react to the OP as I do. I am noting my own subjective reaction and inviting others who might be interested to explore it along those lines as well.

But some won’t accept that because then they can’t make this all about me.

iambiguous:

… it depends on how you construe the meaning of psychologism.

Psychologism:
noun PHILOSOPHY
a tendency to interpret events or arguments in subjective terms, or to exaggerate the relevance of psychological factors.

Now, in regard to “Secular Existence & Transcendence”, what particular events are the arguments relating to? Given my own interest in this distinction, we need a particular set of circumstances in which to explore the extent to which our personal value judgments are aimed more at sustaining a comforting and consoling psychological frame of mind [anchored to either a secular or sacred font] or are instead rooted philosophically in the manner in which I construe the “self” at the existential intersection of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

Still, to the extent that we do focus in on a particular set of circumstance, we might gain a better understanding as to the role that human psychology [as I understand it] does play given the gap between those who either are or are not moral, political and spiritual objectivists. Given the further distinction between human interactions in either a God or a No God world. Interactions that revolve more around existential meaning and purpose in our lives as opposed to essential meaning and purpose.

Sigh…

Not only my assumptions. My assumptions only if exploring the OP given those assumptions that are of interest to me.

Note where I ever argue that if others refuse to go there then they are not reacting to the OP as all rational men and women are obligated to. This part, in my opinion, is just in your head.

No, not “several circumstances”, just one. For example, “actual anxiety and self-assurance and ignorance and doctrines relating to the moral complexity of what specific moral conflagration most here will be familiar with” that you have experienced. How that [specifically] is related to your understanding of the OP.

Yes, I hear this all the time. Making it all about my demands in order to avoid steering the discussion toward the complex and convoluted thickets that revolve around the far more problematic interactions of actual flesh and blood human beings confronting conflicting goods. And they can certainly avoid the part where I focus as well on the role that dasein and political economy plays in creating those newspaper headlines.

Bob:

I feel for you. Having a fragmented “I” isn’t the type of experience we want to be stuck in, and the subjects you mention can be very fragmenting, and the arguments on both sides need a context. Felix has already spoken on that, and my wife and I having lost a child at birth, in that circumstance the subject of abortion seems to make mockery of the tragedy we felt. However, am I allowed to frame the decision of a woman I don’t know to have an abortion in my circumstance? I don’t think so. This could be seen as a very simple expression of going beyond myself in reaction to that woman. The goal here I think is the reduction of suffering, which couldn’t be achieved in our case, but an abortion may be seen as that – either for a child or for a mother in a difficult situation. What I would say to a woman who is considering an abortion is that she should consider whether she is mocking parents who go through a miscarriage by taking the decision too lightly.

Tragedies such as this are everywhere. In regard to abortion, miscarriages, stillbirths, terrible childhood diseases that result in deaths and on and on and on. My point is to differentiate those who insist that only their own moral assumptions regarding things like abortion [re conflicting goods] count. The objectivists. Religious or secular. And the extent to which having or not having access to one or another “transcending” font can make all the difference in the world. It’s one thing to have a tragedy in which conflicting goods are not a factor and another thing altogether when they are. And that’s because in regard to moral conflicts any/every human community must enact and then enforce rules of behavior that reward some behaviors and punish others.

Bob:

The same could be said of gun control to a certain degree, however that problem is very complex and the task of policing a society in which guns are so prevalent becomes even more complicated, with the chance of mistakes being made (which they are) increasing exponentially. The number of gun-related deaths in America in comparison to other countries is an obvious indication of that. Having patrolled streets in Northern Ireland as the crisis was on and having gone through a rigid training in which riot situations get out of hand, I am aware of the feelings that police officers in an emergency have, not knowing whether a gunman will suddenly shoot at you. The combination of guns and cities is daunting for people who are potential targets – which is why they make mistakes. But someone living outside of town has a different situation – so it is a different decision.

Yes, that is basically my point. That embracing a general description intellectual contraption reduced down to a dogmatic, authoritarian objectivism regarding things like gun control is one thing, dealing with the complex, at times profoundly problematic, realities that unfold out in the real world, another thing altogether.

But how is your point not but one more political prejudice derived existentially from the life you lived and the personal experiences you had. Again, here it just comes down to how “fractured an d fragmented” you find yourself when push comes to shove and actual political policies are enacted and enforced.

Bob:

Sexuality and Government are both subjects that are so general that I can’t address them adequately. But what of the above situations for spiritual people? Does meditation and prayer help? Yes, there has been adequate research done to confirm that. Does it make a difference to people around spiritual people? Yes, at least in our case it did, and we were told it did. But does it help us avoid such situations? No. Does it reduce anxiety and pain? No. Even though I learnt to meditate in a MBSR course, stress reduction doesn’t mean stress prevention in every situation. It means learning to cope with it better. Also, depression, insofar as it is cause by a reduction of serotonin, is something that I have learnt to cope with, but like in any somatic illness, I can’t control my serotonin levels.

Again: my point isn’t that essentialist/religious/spiritual/transcendental frames of mind don’t help people or make a difference in their lives. It’s in regard to those who insist that their own path is the One True Path and then assess and judge others through the lens of their own dogmatic sets of prescriptions and proscriptions. Those who become addicted to the One True Path in the same manner as those who become addicted to drugs in order to cope with all of the trials and tribulations life throws out way.

Bob:

I had to translate this into German to see if it was me, but this question (?) isn’t very coherent in any language. I cannot overlook the fact that our modern critiques of religion are often basically critiques of power structures. I myself am critical of organised religion for the same reason. Abuse of power in any organisation is intolerable, especially where trust is supposed to be the basis of the relationship. But it is automatically assumed that the power structures in the parishes were such that abuse of power was automatically part of it. On the contrary, it was very often the abuse by the noble families, who often organised a position as bishop for their second sons, that made the situation difficult for parish priests and monasteries, which were affected by the competition amongst the noble families.

This, in my view, is still no less a general description spiritual assessment. Is it or is it not you given a set of circumstances in which how you construe the material and nonmaterial components of the situation impact on the behaviors you choose. As opposed to how I would root decisions of this sort in dasein. Religious and secular power structures will reward and punish particular sets of behaviors. Why one set and not another? How is that not embedded in actual historical and cultural and experiential contexts…understood by someone depending on the life they live as [an ultimately] unique individual?

Given what historical set of circumstances? There are clearly things in our lives that are material and that interact with other material things given the mechanisms derived from the laws of nature. But in regard to moral and political and spiritual conflicts things can become profoundly more problematic. I have my own understanding of them, others have their own understanding of them.

So, in regard to a situation in which conflicts occurs, I propose that we explore the reasons why we choose these things to do and not other things to do.

Those reasons embedded here in the components I zero in on in my signature threads. As opposed to the reasons of others.

Let’s focus in on a specific case of your choice and examine it in terms of how we ourselves differentiate the material and non-material components involved.

felix_dakat · September 30, 2021, 4:38pm

Iambiguous --I think the idea of a secular world dovetails with your trope of the God/no God world. In other words we live in a society where religion is an option not a requirement.

To get the idea of Transcendence out of the psychologism category would require us to identify experiences that we’ve had to which that term would reasonably apply.

That would mean we would be having an inter-subjective dialogue. Each of us would have to describe what it’s like to them and be understood by the other.

Bob · October 1, 2021, 8:40am

The difference between essential and existential is that essential is vital to daily life, while existential is about or relates to existence and has a directional importance. We can theorise all we want, in the end though, we need to know what is essential for existence on this planet. That requires a moral, political and, in my view, spiritual basis, because although there are pragmatic decisions to be made, these decisions need direction – which I believe is of spiritual nature. The earlier I have found the right direction in which to travel, the easier the journey becomes, whether on the road or existentially, and the fewer detours I have to make. This makes the moral and political decision making easier. The traditional hero’s journey may be entertaining as fiction, but it can be an excruciating experience in reality.

Having transcendence as a direction, knowing myself and understanding the complexity of life, going beyond myself and my restrictions, having a basis of peace and connectedness, means that I can cope better with the chaos that comes at me in our confused world. God remains a mystery and a mature faith will realise that people give that mystery a variety of names and their experiences are recorded in numerous cultural contexts, so the basic assumption that we live in either a God or No God world is simplistic. One woman I admire said that God was simply “not me”! One could see that as a simple expression of the “I-Thou” relation. I accept that as much as the anthology of religious experience in the Bible or other traditional scriptures.

I have given examples and you have disregarded them. I still am not sure what you expect – certainly you expect from others more than you give.

I’m not avoiding anything. You are the person who sees “the complex and convoluted thickets that revolve around the far more problematic interactions of actual flesh and blood human beings confronting conflicting goods.” However, you give no examples. You expect others to play your game whilst you sit on the side and judge.

You are not reading what I am writing. You have ignored my example and state your “point” that, frankly, doesn’t even make sense. To differentiate you need different cases. What can you expect from single people’s experience? When I present to you my position, which I believe to be open and balanced, you ignore it and move on to make a demand that nobody will be able to comply with.

Bob:

The same could be said of gun control to a certain degree, however that problem is very complex and the task of policing a society in which guns are so prevalent becomes even more complicated, with the chance of mistakes being made (which they are) increasing exponentially. The number of gun-related deaths in America in comparison to other countries is an obvious indication of that. Having patrolled streets in Northern Ireland as the crisis was on and having gone through a rigid training in which riot situations get out of hand, I am aware of the feelings that police officers in an emergency have, not knowing whether a gunman will suddenly shoot at you. The combination of guns and cities is daunting for people who are potential targets – which is why they make mistakes. But someone living outside of town has a different situation – so it is a different decision.

Yes, that is basically my point. That embracing a general description intellectual contraption reduced down to a dogmatic, authoritarian objectivism regarding things like gun control is one thing, dealing with the complex, at times profoundly problematic, realities that unfold out in the real world, another thing altogether.

But how is your point not but one more political prejudice derived existentially from the life you lived and the personal experiences you had. Again, here it just comes down to how “fractured and fragmented” you find yourself when push comes to shove and actual political policies are enacted and enforced.

What are you talking about? I tell you my position on an issue, which I believe takes the problem into consideration and tries to find a balanced reaction and you talk about prejudice. To discriminate is to differentiate. It can also mean bias. It is a situation that you can’t get out of. The complexity of such issues offers no simplistic answers, there are so many aspects to take into consideration that no-one can be sure of giving the right reaction in every situation for everybody involved. That is why humility is important, the ability to accept this circumstance and be prepared to let go of rights and claims for the best decision for all.

Honestly, that is bullshit. You seem to be the dogmatic person, continually returning to a utopian expectation, revolving around issues without engaging, expecting things from others that you don’t supply yourself, accusing people of “becoming addicted” who are seeking the least harming way ahead. The escape of drug addiction is an escape into the jaws of Moloch, whereas the path of transcendence is an engagement with the world from a contemplative and meditative beginning. Drug addiction is the way of the uninterested, fleeing personality. The way of transcendence is inquisitive and keen.

I always get the feeling of being in a quagmire when replying to your posts, which is also the feeling you can get when dealing with depression. You get the feeling that the depressed person wants you to feel his or her emptiness, wants to draw you into the void so that you feel what he or she feels. Perhaps you should think about that.

felix_dakat · October 1, 2021, 1:25pm

There’s a history of philosophers who viewed transcendence as possible while at the same time rejecting the idea of God as Absolute.

Contemplating the causes of order in the world, Hume has Philo suggest that the deity could be an infant pondering his first work, an inferior deity or the result of dotage in a superannuated deity. It’s a throwback to the Gnostic idea of the World created by a demiurge.

Contemplating the attributes of God, Mill asks

“What attributes are we warranted, by the evidence which nature affords of a creative mind, in assigning to that mind? It needs no showing that the power if not the intelligence, must be so far superior to that of man, as to surpass all human estimate. But from this to Omnipotence and Omniscience there is a wide interval.”

William James observes that:

“We may be in the universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries seeing the books and hearing the conversation but having no inkling of the meaning of it all.”

And further…

“Only one thing is certain and that is the result of our criticism of the absolute the only way to escape from the paradoxes and perplexities that a consistently thought out monistic universe suffers from is to be frankly pluralistic and assume that the superhuman consciousness however vast it may be has itself an external environment and consequently is finite.”

These modern era philosophical positions regarding transcendence are open to it’s existence while rejecting the idea that is absolute. They can’t accept Anselm’s definition of God as that which no greater can be conceived. They see the leap to that view as unjustified by the facts on the ground.

But they don’t absolutely deny all transcendent phenomena. “The more” as James called it.

Why doesn’t Anselm see what they see? I posit that it’s because he was living under a different conception of the cosmos than they.

And in view of the scientific discoveries of the 20th and 21st centuries, so are we. The advances of science over this time have opened a new world of metaphysical possibilities for us to entertain.

pood · October 1, 2021, 1:47pm

Borges posited that the world was a product of “a committee of bungling demiurges,” or something to that effect. Perhaps it is the product of Swift’s “confederacy of dunces.”

I agree.

Einstein posited something similar, though believed that unlike dogs and cats, we had the capacity to eventually understand the books in the library. See also, the Library of Babel, by the aforementioned Borges.

Gods as nested Russian dolls.

Anselm presented a formal deductive proof for the existence of God, the ontological proof. Kant later noticed the flaws in it. In the 20th century Kurt Godel presented his own modal ontological proof of God.

Agreed.

felix_dakat · October 1, 2021, 2:17pm

Pood–

I’ve read Anselm’s ontological argument and Kant’s refutation of it. We also have Aquinas’s cosmological argument. These are perhaps the most famous arguments for a theistic conception of God. They put too much emphasis on human conceptual ability. If we consider theism to be strictly dependent on the human capacity to conceptualize God, then call me an atheist, cuz I can’t do that. But then neither can apophatic theology.

pood · October 1, 2021, 4:08pm

The turn of discussion really does remind me of Borges’ short story Library of Babel, which can be found online. It may have been taken at least in part from James’s bit about dogs and cats in a library.