Secular Existence & Transcendence

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?

Most here are familiar with my own reaction to general description intellectual/spiritual contraptions of this sort.

So, whatever general conclusions you come to yourself about all this let’s focus in on particular sets of circumstances and explore how “for all practical purposes” your interactions with others might unfold at the existential intersection of identity, value judgments and political economy. What of essential meaning and purpose in life when down through the ages historically and across the globe culturally there have been countless – at times brutally conflicting – moral and political narratives/agendas.

Or for those who factor in God and actual religious denominations we can take the discussion here: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=186929

Connect the dots between morality here and now and immortality there and then. As long as the focus revolves around the lives that we live and the extent to which, to the best of our ability, we attempt to close the gap between what we think and believe and what we are able to demonstrate to others that they should think and believe in turn.

Let’s look at your post and see what you don’t consider to be intellectual contraptions.

Identity
Value judgments
The political economy
The essential meaning and purpose of life
The historical ages
The globe culturally
Moral and political agendas
God
Religious denominations
Morality
Immortality
Beliefs

Have I left any others out that we can talk about seeing as you wish to change the topic from secularity and transcendence? And this right out of the gate. Let the hijacking of the thread begin. Please start by telling me what you mean by each of those contraptions.

He can’t… :slight_smile:

_
That ^^^ will be interesting…

Okay, pick one of them and, pertaining to a particular situation most here are likely to be familiar with, let’s explore it given the point I raise here:

Instead, from your frame of mind, a thread like this is hijacked when someone like me wants to explore secularity and transcendence other than up in the intellectual and spiritual clouds. It’s not changing the topic it’s bringing it down to Earth. As though historically, culturally and experientially there have not been many, many, many conflicting moral narratives and political agendas when the discussion actually did get around to particular moral and political conflagrations. Either in a God or a No God universe.

Why do you suppose that is?

While, indeed, those like you and Bob are very much committed to steering clear of all that complex, convoluted and often very, very confusing human reality stuff. You won’t even bring your value judgments themselves down to earth so as to explore why you steer clear of the world that unfolds in newspaper headlines day in and day out. As though general description intellectual and spiritual contraptions sustained by “serious philosophers” here might be just what the world needs to make those conflagrations go away.

If I do say so myself.

Though, sure, stay up in the clouds if that is more consoling.

What will be interesting?

Please bring your own assessment of secular existence and transcendence down to Earth and, pertaining to a value judgment that is of great importance to you, explore it in terms of identity, conflicting goods and political economy. Or note the components of your own moral, political and spiritual philosophy.

Okay. So far you haven’t made a single proposition or argument for or against my opening post regarding secularity and transcendence except dismiss it because they are somehow “in the clouds” whatever that means. So say something regarding secularity and or transcendence that isn’t merely dismissive of the concepts as contraptions. Then we’ll talk about it.

What I did was to give you the opportunity to note a particular context in which you and I can explore the components of our respective moral philosophies.

As that pertains to the existential parameters of human social, political and economic interactions given the assumptions rooted in a secular, Humanist philosophy as opposed to the more essentialist parameters that one derives from a religious, transcendental perspective rooted in God or Buddha or Vishnu or kami or any of the other names that people around the globe use to encompass the Gods they worship and adore: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God

How about this then: homosexuality.

There are all of the many conflicting things that people believe about it, such that they come to conclude that morally it is able to be described as either good behavior or bad behavior. Some insist that their conclusions here are entirely secular…obtainable without the need for a transcending, essential, religious or spiritual font. Others, however, insist that their own value judgments here are in fact derived from one or another Holy Scripture.

Me? Well, I suggest that each of us as individuals come to acquire a subjective/subjunctive point of view about homosexuality based largely on 1] the particular historical and cultural and experiential context in which we are “thrown” at birth, 2] the manner in which we are indoctrinated as children to think this instead of that about it and 3] the particular aggregation of personal experiences we have that predispose us to one frame of mind rather than another.

Understanding in turn that in a world awash in contingency, chance and change we never know when a new experience, relationship, idea etc., might prompt us to change our mind.

Also, that there does not appear to be a deontological assessment of homosexuality that philosophers can think up so as to establish the most rational and virtuous point of view.

Iambiguous–

You state that you are giving me an opportunity to note the particular context in which to explore the components of our respective moral philosophies. Did you read my opening post? I said nothing about moral philosophy there. And you didn’t respond to any of the questions I asked in that post.

It really seems almost as if you didn’t read my opening post. Or perhaps you read it and forgot it. Because your response doesn’t really connect with it.

You speak of a religious transcendental perspective rooted in God or Buddha or Vishnu or kami or any of the other names that people use to encompass the gods they worship in adore. Whereas I included the romantic notion of the sublime, the scientists experience of awe, the experiences of meditation and psychedelics and other experiences as possible sources of transcendence. Perhaps you don’t understand my language. There seems to be a disconnect between us.

I noticed you mentioned humanist philosophy as if there were one such animal. Actually there are many humanist philosophies, some with their own definitions of transcendence. I’m certainly willing to explore those on this thread.

Then you suggest homosexuality as a topic. How is that related to the opening post? Can someone who identifies as a homosexual experience transcendence? Can a homosexual be self-assured or alienated? Can a homosexual be secular or religious? Can a homosexual be open or closed? My answer to all those questions is yes, and there’s plenty of empirical evidence to support that. Do you really think that’s controversial?

At the risk of getting off topic, I am curious why you chose deontological ethics over other kinds like consequentialism or pragmatic ethics, etc

I think that many people I know are busy preoccupying themselves so that they can forget that they have no concept of life and in the end, find no meaning. This is particularly so when you’re spending time on a volcanic rock in the Atlantic, amidst holiday-goers who are filling themselves with alcohol whilst attempting to get an optimal tan, reading the news rag from back home from back to front over the course of a day, although it’s content would usually only fill a thin pamphlet. Others recover from the party of the previous evening and prepare for the next.

What I am saying is that there is a great desire to ignore the questions that we find pressing, and to overlook the enquiry into the nature of existence. This is also visible when people are back home. We in the West have whole industries attracting attention and preoccupying people with subcultural content, not least of all the consumption of goods, which is the measure of success in a commercial society. When you are asked what you are reading, an expression of surprise comes across the face of the enquirer when you tell them that it is a textbook, even more so when it is about the philosophical questions of consciousness, existence, and transcendence.

If understood in everyday language, that “transcendence” means “going beyond”, and “self-transcendence” means going beyond a prior form or state of oneself, the question of honest enquirers is, why? The need is foreign to many, and existential crises are met with a sad resignation by many, others become depressed, and the reason is already well known. The problems of Western societies are down to material problems, not attitudes, behaviours, or perceptions. If we can solve a material problem, develop a new technology, find a new energy source, we will solve all questions, despite the fact that science is looking for ways to abandon the planet when it has become uninhabitable. The young feel this inconsequence but have nothing to offer in reaction to it. The older generation has left them with few alternatives.

The simple fact that our brains are interpreting our experience of existence is reason for me to ask myself whether I am missing something. The fact that I often fail to appreciate the complexity and the wonder of biological life on this planet; the fact of consciousness and its differing degrees in plants, animals, and human beings; the value we find in immaterial beauty and abstract thought, all suggest that human beings may be able to access an understanding of reality by overcoming their own restrictions. We have all heard of or experienced the value of meditation in its various forms. We already have the experience of ancient sages, who were able to transcend their rather frugal reality, or perhaps it was because of it, that they were able to see through the illusions we fall foul to.

We experience religion in our times as something fanatical, hysterical, extreme, and militant in many cases. The meditative direction is overlooked for it simply being silent and thoughtful, rather than being loud and overbearing. The fact that we have to overcome the many influences that are attempting to attract our attention, by worrying us or trying to suggest that introspection is selfish belly-button observation, suggesting that physical engagement is better than introspection and pursual of transcendent goals. These hurdles were always known to spiritual people throughout history and the more thoughtful they were, especially when disagreeing with the powers that be, has led to death in incredibly cruel ways. Mankind has always been its worse enemy and it has often hasn’t the transcendent a chance.

Today, concepts of God, or the Ground of Being, are quickly criticised without the attempt to enquire in a manner that is honest and humble, and methods of spirituality are seen as too time consuming, requiring levels of self-discipline that people are not prepared to accept. The problems are manifold. The Bible gives multiple examples of how the loud and dramatic makes us unable to hear the whisper of spiritual enlightenment. There are many other examples in other sources. Perhaps we could listen instead of just hearing.

Transcendence as noted by those who meditate, take drugs or simply are in awe of the beauty and complexity of life and Nature may indicate specific awareness of qualities known by the average mind. Either these experiences are normal or they are esoteric, known only to a few fortunate human beings.
Our pasts are steps on the stairway to heaven; we do not rise without them. Perhaps transcendence is actually growth and development, available to all.
I live in a secular society and am forced by need of necessities to cope with past and present realities. My result of being spiritually minded in a secular world is depression. That may not be true for everyone who is in my situation. I just find it problematic to believe in a form of transcendence which is available only to a few mystics and seers. A mind cannot transcend itself.

I think that this has been the lot of many people, myself included, and I believe that the mystics and seers have always pointed the way but lacked the support. The realities I have to cope with are, however, on close inspection, just variations on past tendencies to ignore the transcendence of life, and I think you will agree, further examples for the reduction of life to enjoyment in any form you can get it. Of course, many people struggling to get through life don’t even have that, and so it is reduce to the reduction of suffering on a materialistic level. The search for meaningful life, in which I can find a direction for me that will take me out of the hole I find myself, so that I can be in awe of the beauty and complexity of life, is not achieved on the wide road, but on the narrow and winding path, and few are they that find the entrance - although I don’t believe it has to be that way.

Thanks for that post. I am not alone.
Direction is the key word. If you can offer direction to yourself and others, direction to a more spiritual existence, you will have done your part to preserve what is good about Life.

Bob said “If understood in everyday language, that “transcendence” means “going beyond”, and “self-transcendence” means going beyond a prior form or state of oneself, the question of honest enquirers is, why?”

So “Transcendence” is a spatial metaphor “going beyond” or climbing. Beyond what? You already answered–“beyond the self”.

Then you ask “Why”?

I think it’s motivated by despair with life on the negative side. On the positive side it’s the desire for something more. I think it’s the existential motive for philosophy in the first place.

At first glance, it seems that the mind cannot transcend itself because it’s a container. That’s the image-- the metaphor.

But as such, it can expand itself by taking in new experiences, new information, and thereby enlarging one’s point of view. Thus in time the mind, the “container” of all our cognitions transcends what it was in the past.

Although I can see that it wasn’t clear that I was relating a conversation with people who ask me why I would want to go beyond myself, I appreciate the answer.

I agree with you and yet I feel with Ierellus and assume that it has been the way of many deep thinkers to become frustrated with experiences of life, seeing that we have a mystery of unfathomable depth in front of us, which we can only tentatively investigate, knowing that people around us consider it a waste of time. I even had a conversation with once close friends who, on asking what I was thinking about, and hearing that I was using a fast to assist my enquiry, asked me whether I thought I was better than they. I said that I was just an inquisitive spirit and decided not to be so open again.

Many evangelical Christians I know have had an unusual tendency towards alcohol lately, which has been cause for concern. They avoid conversations about faith, and philosophy is, as you know, a no-go. Even talking about what constitutes the reality we experience or what makes us find something beautiful is met with suspicion. I have found that they sometimes express fear of being trapped in some unwanted discussion, and that they want their world to remain as they see it, and not endanger that by going beyond in thought.

It is strange to see how people react when they see my meditation cushion or hear that my son also meditates. My bookshelf provokes the question whether I read anything just for fun, despite there being books from Tolkien, GRR Martin, Somerset Maughm, Conan Doyle, George Orwell, and many other German authors there to see as well. These are unprovoked comments, or answers to questions put to me. People are uninquisitive it seems, but worse, they seem to question the right of others to be inquisitive.

Bob–

So it seems those friends are not willing to step back and look at why they look at things the way they do. They prefer to live unexamined the lives. To examine your life is to look at it ‘as if’ from the outside, that is, ‘as if’ from a transcendent point of view.

In any case there are this worldly experiences of transcendence for secular people. The 20th century produced a public sphere that transcends topical spaces. Think of the Olympics watched on the internet throughout the world. We are fused more or less as a common agent with other anonymous individuals. Such were the times of collective evanescence that founded society and the sacred. They occur with or without the conceptual vessel of a God or other symbol of Transcendence e.g. satori or Nirvana. But without a common symbol in which to invest them, it’s like pouring wine out on the floor to evaporate in the dust.

Nevertheless, I’m not here to persuade anybody into anything. As I said I think philosophy itself is fundamentally motivated by the existential need and desire for transcendence. The variations on that theme gives us the whole of philosophy

Did you read my post in which I merely invited those who do make a distinction between secular existence and transcendence to then take this distinction to the part I note time and again is my own main interest in these things: “how ought one to live in a world bursting at the seams with both conflicting goods and contingency, chance and change?”

Not interested in taking it there? Fine, take it where you want to go instead.

I read your OP and zeroed in on that further distinction you made: between the “self assured and the anxious/alienated”. Though again my focus here revolves around connecting the dots existentially between “morality here and now” and “immortality there and then”. And the extent to which some are inclined here to embrace either a God or a No God world.

Some see this as me hijacking the thread, I see it instead as me taking what I construe to be an interesting “general description spiritual assessment” of meaning and purpose in our lives, down out of the realm of psychologisms and out into the lives that we actually live…interactions such that how we construe our value judgments as anchored either more or less to existentialism or essentialism can make all the difference in the world regarding whether we do feel “self assured” or “anxious/alienated”.

After all, it is difficult for me to imagine how someone might feel more anxious and alienated than if they construe their own “self” here as “fractured and fragmented”.

Yes, in regard to religion, I focused in on particular historical and cultural denominations that provide the faithful with an actual Script for differentiating things said to be more or less sublime and awesome and transcending. And even those who make use of meditation and drugs to reach these states sooner or later are going to find themselves in contexts in which assessments of the secular and the transcendental collide out in the world of human social, political and economic interaction. My main interest in these things.

Thus the invitation on my part to those who wish to explore that aspect of the existential/essential divide.

Yes, just as there are conflicting ecclesiastical assessments of meaning and purpose in our lives, there are conflicting secular – ideological, deontological – assessments as well.

But what I wish to explore in terms of what can be a fundamental difference regarding the existential/essential divide “out in the world” is less what people claim to believe is true and more how they came to believe this instead of that given the arguments I make in my signature threads.

My main interest here revolves around secularity and transcendence as any particular individual might come to bring his or her own “general description spiritual assessment” down to Earth and explore the “for all practical purposes” implications of that assessment in regard to the very real conflicting goods that do revolve around things like homosexuality. Is there either a secular or a transcending frame of mind that is able to bring all rational and virtuous people together…or is my own assessment of human identity rooted in dasein more reasonable?

Again, choose one or the other. Only then focus in on a particular set of circumstances and explore the extent to which your own value judgments can be pinned down using the tools of philosophy or science or theology or spirituality.

As opposed to the manner in which “I” construe a fractured and fragmented “self” here to be a reasonable frame of mind in a No God world.