Then we are back to the “God” conundrum. Is God the main force behind everything or did we invent God in order to have something to call the main force behind everything?
But what on earth can the difference really be here if whatever does unfold unfolds only as it ever could have unfolded. “We” invent “God” and both are along for the ride.
Again: Whatever that means. And then [for me] we are back to noting the distinction between what we think it means “in our head” and that which we are able to demonstrate that all reasonable men and women are obligated to believe in turn.
Only [somehow] the obligation has to be rooted in autonomy.
When you note that…
Freedom to me, the way we experience it, isn’t really action coming out of a causal void–it’s more the lack of experience of what causes precede you in the causal chain of events. It’s more intention forming, goal setting, without giving any attention to what’s forcing you to form those intentions or to set those goals.
…I always come back to that. Yes, here and now, this is what you believe in your head. But you are either able to demonstrate to others why they should believe it of themselves too or you are not.
And that comes down [for me] to the extent to which you can take those words out of your head and connect them empirically, phenomenally to the world that we live and interact in. Could Descartes have been successful here? Or are these speculations [from both sides] ever based on assumptions that mere mortals have no capacity to reconcile and resolve?
After all, why not, “I think as I only ever could have thought, therefore I am only as I ever could have been”?
But what I like to point out is that all this goes away the minute you refocus on the original sense of validity, the original rationality and meaning that lead you to the thought in the first place, the self-evident truth of the thought that all circles are round.
Yes, but are we not then back to speculating about the extent to which the refocusing itself is autonomous? You see what you must see. The infinite regress then going all the way back to whatever or whoever set into motion the immutable laws of matter. If in fact they are immutable. If in fact they have not always been around. But how then do we wrap our heads around that?
To wit:
[b]time
For a period of two to three years between the ages of nine and twelve I was in thrall to puzzlement about time. I would lie awake in bed at night in the dark thinking something along the following lines. I know there was a day before yesterday, and a day before that and a day before that and so on…Before everyday there must have been a day before. So it must be possible to go back like that for ever and ever and ever…Yet is it? The idea of going back for ever and ever was something I could not get hold of: it seemed impossible. So perhaps, after all, there must have been a beginning somewhere. But if there was a beginning, what had been going on before that? Well, obviously, nothing—nothing at all—otherwise it could not be the beginning. But if there was nothing, how could anything have got started? What could it have come from? Time wouldn’t just pop into existence—bingo!–out of nothing, and start going, all by itself. Nothing is nothing, not anything. So the idea of a beginning was unimaginable, which somehow made it seem impossible too. The upshot was that it seemed to be impossible for time to have had a beginning and impossible not for it to have had a beginning.
I must be missing something here, I came to think. There are only these two alternatives so one of them must be right. They can’t both be impossible. So I would switch my concentration from one to the other, and then when it had exhausted itself, back again, trying to figure out where I had gone wrong; but I never discovered.
space
I realized a similar problem existed with regard to space. I remember myself as a London evacuee in Market Harborough—I must have been ten or eleven at the time—lying on my back in the grass in a park and trying to penetrate a cloudless blue sky with my eyes and thinking something like this: "If I went straight up into the sky, and kept on going in a straight line, why wouldn’t I be able to just keep on going for ever and ever and ever? But that’s impossible. Why isn’t it possible? Surely, eventually, I’d have to come to some sort of end. But why? If I bumped up against something eventually, wouldn’t that have to be something in space? And if it was in space wouldn’t there have to be something on the other side of it if only more space? On the other hand, if there was no limit, endless space couldn’t just be, anymore than endless time could.
Bryan Magee, Confessions Of A Philosopher
[/b]
Yes, but among the vegetarians who insist that consuming animal flesh is immoral and among the meat eaters who insist that consuming animal flesh is natural, arithmetic is not the point, is it?
No, not in that scenario. It’s quite a leap to go from the rationality of arithmetic to the moral prejudices of vegetarians and meat eaters. But what I’m saying is this: whatever it is that we’ve identified in rational thought that seems to hold it all together–call it logic, call it necessity, call it reason–it is the same basic thing that holds an apparently subjective and biased view together such as: eating meat is wrong.
But in regard to “the same basic thing” we are still “stuck” [so far] in understanding 1] how matter evolved into a mind able to conclude that eating meat is wrong and 2] whether or not in fact eating meat is wrong.
With the latter [prong 2], dasein, conflicting goods and political economy seem to be the most reasonable components of any assessment. At least to me. I just don’t know if I have come to that conclusion autonomously. And, more to the point, I don’t see how I can go about determining it.
But in the end, these sorts of views are steeped in mental states whose “logic” is far more difficult to extract and demonstrate in such a way as to make them undeniable to all rational men and women. We can nevertheless “feel” the logic of such mental states in the way they seem to justify, or underlie, the conclusions we come to and the actions they illicit. We say: I feel that eating meat is wrong, and that feeling seems to justify protesting against meat eaters. It’s only after the fact that we try to come up with rational arguments as a means of attempting to persuade others.
Logic may be to the words that we choose what arithmetic is to the laws of nature. Some words correspond literally to the world around us and other words are merely subjective/subjunctive reactions to that which we perceive “out in the world” to be. Or that may just be an illusion in that what we “feel” is also only that which we could ever have felt.
But: Do we or don’t we have a way to prove any of this? It’s just that the neuroscientists seem to be on more solid ground than the philosophers. Not that they could ever have not been?
And then back again to this:
…I have no real understanding regarding what “on earth” you talking about here. It is as though you have been able to make a distinction between “mind” and “brain” “in your head” but [to me] you are unable to demonstrate how “for all practical purposes” this is relevant to human interactions that come into conflict over value judgments rooted in dasein out in a particular political economy.
Not to your satisfaction, that’s clear, but notwithstanding the numerous examples I have given for how my subjectivism might tie into real prong #2 scenarios, I have also disclaimed numerous times that it isn’t built to serve a purpose in prong #2 scenarios.
Perhaps others reading this thread might then be more inclined to probe the prong that most fascinates me.
Hopefully? You either will or you will not succeed here. But if it has nothing to do with actual volition, hope is no less an immutable component of what could only have ever been. In other words, somehow matter has been able evolve into a life form able in turn to react to the world subjunctively. But no less mechanically.
What does that have to do with hope? In a deterministic universe, where the throw of a dice is determined, I can still hope that I don’t get snake eyes at a craps table.
We simply think about these things differently. If the hope that I feel is inherently embedded in a mind that could only have evolved to feel that hope, it all just becomes “mechanistic” to me. We are machines no less than the machines that we invent. We have just evolved the capacity to delude ourselves that that we choose to think and feel and do is of our own free will.
Worse [perhaps] we have no capacity to actually resolve this other than in how “nature” has pre-wired us to resolve it.
We don’t even really know what that might possibly mean. Teleologically for example.
Thus:
But aren’t the neuroscientists intent on discovering whether “introspection” itself either is or is just one more inherent manifestion of the laws of matter?
Maybe. I think for sure they expect it to be a manifestation of the laws of matter. But I’m surprised. By now you should know what my response would be. I would say that whatever laws they uncover, it is the act of introspection that decides those laws.
An act of introspection that they could only ever have had.
I’m not saying mind has the ability to thwart those laws, or that it is any sense “free”, just that the relation between mind and the laws of matter are the reverse of how conventional wisdom would have it.
Still, from my perspective, one way or the other here is but one more rendition of “six of one, half a dozen of the other”. Conventional or unconventional wisdom is but the illusion of wisdom in that things could only have been as they turned out to be. We may as well call the immutable laws of nature themselves “wise”. To speak of someone being wise suggests the idea that they might have chosen or done something that was not wise. Instead, they were able to make the distinction autonomously and thus earned the accolade.
Consider for example dreams. While we are having them [“in” them] we are absolutely certain that these things are actually happening to us. Instead, it is all just unfolding “in our head”. Literally. Chemical and neurological transactions simulating a “reality”. Thus in a wholly determined universe our waking reality would be the same. We “think” and we “feel” that we are calling the shots, but in actuality…
But In actuality, what…?
In actuality, it is determined by the laws of mind instead of the laws of matter… but they’re still laws.
How then is mind not matter? In fact, in speculating about this, it allows some to take/make that leap to God. But, in my view, only “in their head”. They “think up” certain intellectual assumptions that “theoretically” lead to God.
But it can never really be taken wholly out of their head and communicated to others empirically, phenomenally. Other than by insisting that the world we experience around us is a necessary manifestation of God.
In this discussion, we come back to this point time and time again. And I will repeat what I always say at this point: perhaps we should drop the discussion. If you’re only exclusively interested in how my views pan out in prong #2 situations, and I have to strive to come up with an appropriate response to you, then maybe we ought to call a spade a spade: I got nothing.
It might come to that. It depends on the extent to which it may or may not seem possible [from your end or mine] to bridge the gaps. With speculations regarding prong 1, I am in way over my head. I am not well educated [of late] regarding many of the technical points that you raise. The sort of stuff that revolves epistemologically around the “philosophy of mind”. Instead, I am far, far more intrigued by the extent to which those who are proficient in making intelligent inferences here are able to bring their conclusions out into the world of conflicting goods.
So, sure, maybe we have taken this particular excahnge as far as we can go. Here and now.
On the other hand, perhaps it is really not for “you” or “I” to say. Autonomously as it were.
Here is what it still revolves around for me:
Yes, but the leftists and the rightists can wrap their words around actual events that are unfolding out in a particular world. And there are folks here who insist that their political narratives are in sync philosophically or theologically with the way things really are. For example, pertaining to Donald Trump’s upcoming inauguration.
I am just trying to get closer to understanding how your own set of assumptions here might be conveyed to those on either side of the divide. In my opinion, I have no problems conveying my own narrative to them. It revolves around dasein, conflicting value judgments and the role of power out in this particular world.
From the looks of it so far, your approach seems to be an inquisitive one–you seem bent on posing the question: how are you not wrapped up in the same dilemma as I am? This is not quite the same approach as most moral objectivists, the ones who engage in what I’m calling the “traditional objectivist approach”–that is, the approach of arguing the best case they can as to why they are right on particular moral matters and their opposition is wrong.
The divide here is [to me] of fundamental importance:
The objectivists among us are arguing that the distinction between “one of us” and “one of them” can be rooted in one or another rendition of “right makes might”. But: if I succeed in yanking that out from under them they are left only with “might makes right” or “democracy and the rule of law”. And they tend to be averse to that precisely because in my view their “objectivist mentality” is rooted far more in this particular psychological contraption:
[b]
1] For one reason or another [rooted largely in dasein], you are taught or come into contact with [through your upbringing, a friend, a book, an experience etc.] a worldview, a philosophy of life.
2] Over time, you become convinced that this perspective expresses and encompasses the most rational and objective truth. This truth then becomes increasingly more vital, more essential to you as a foundation, a justification, a celebration of all that is moral as opposed to immoral, rational as opposed to irrational.
3] Eventually, for some, they begin to bump into others who feel the same way; they may even begin to actively seek out folks similarly inclined to view the world in a particular way.
4] Some begin to share this philosophy with family, friends, colleagues, associates, Internet denizens; increasingly it becomes more and more a part of their life. It becomes, in other words, more intertwined in their personal relationships with others…it begins to bind them emotionally and psychologically.
5] As yet more time passes, they start to feel increasingly compelled not only to share their Truth with others but, in turn, to vigorously defend it against any and all detractors as well.
6] For some, it can reach the point where they are no longer able to realistically construe an argument that disputes their own as merely a difference of opinion; they see it instead as, for all intents and purposes, an attack on their intellectual integrity…on their very Self.
7] Finally, a stage is reached [again for some] where the original philosophical quest for truth, for wisdom has become so profoundly integrated into their self-identity [professionally, socially, psychologically, emotionally] defending it has less and less to do with philosophy at all. And certainly less and less to do with “logic”.[/b]
And, thus, if this is the case, both philosophical realism and political idealism more or less collapse. Yet it is here that they have come [existentially] to embed “I”. So, they have everything to lose here if my own frame of mind is deemed more reasonable. And I know this in part because I lost my own objectivist frame of mind to dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
My own views don’t compel me to preach my own morality to others, nor do they compel me to inquire as to how others are not caught up in the dilemma of prong #2 (or prong #1).
In other words, you still have a morality. So your own sense of identity here would seem no less threatened if my dilemma above is deemed a rational [even an optimal] perspective. Somehow you are able to connect the dots between “I” and an understaning of reality that allows you to avoid [or to at least minimize] the angst embedded in my dilemma. I just don’t understand how that “works” “in your head” when your own values come into conflict with others. Despite your attempts to explain it. But, again, that may well be rooted more in my own failure than yours.
But, when you note, “I might just use a bit of common sense or conventional assumptions and values shared by most people”, these are no less existential contraptions to me. They are situated out in a particular world [historically, culturally, experientially] and, sans God, are ever the subjective/subjunctive contraptions of mere mortals.
The octopus is conscious of its environment. But its behaviors seem to revolve wholly around biology. Instinct. It changes color/texture in order to defend itself against predators. But I suspect that, concomittantly, it is not thinking “it’s not moral for sharks to hunt us down.” It’s all might makes right, survival of the fittest. Thus to what extent is it really any different from our own species? And how do the mechanisms at play in the brain of an octopus differ from our own? With octopi there are no historical and cultural references. There is no equivalent of “nurture”. Or an indocrination in the ways of the community. Much less a role for philosophy.
How then is the “causual account” experienced by the octopus very much the same and very much different from out own? It’s one thing for a mind to think – to think self-consciously – “I have the capacity to camouflage my body. I see that I am entering a very different environment. It’s time to make the necessary adjustments.” And another thing altogether for a brain to make these adjustments more or less on automatic pilot.
Or, in a wholly determined universe, is that distinction more an illusion than anything else?
Yes, I’d say it’s more or less illusory–just degrees of complexity and predictability.
What you’re getting at with the octopus is what I call “epistemic awareness”–to be contrasted with “experiential awareness”–it is not epistemically aware of why it changes colors, it has no knowledge of the sort. I don’t think it even has the capacity for knowledge, or any form of cogitation. It can’t think anything, let alone “well, time to camouflage.” But the mind consists of more than just thoughts and knowledge. Pain, for example, is an experience that can only exist for sentient creatures, and to react to pain requires no knowledge or capacity to think.
But I am still as perplexed as ever regarding that leap from a mind that revolves almost entirely around biological imperatives [the octopus and the shark] to a mind able to invent what we call “camouflage” in order to facilitate a successful outcome in, for example, what we call “war”. We can even camouflage our intentions in our day to day interactions with others by adopting personas or by wearing masks or by playing language games. After all, what do all other creatures on earth know of “irony”?
But: how are these transactions governed [more or less] by the components of my own [presumably autonomous] understanding of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy? What can we know here? And how is what we can know able to effectively arbitrate when our values come into conflict?
Because, if the discussion revolves around the possibility of life after death, there is a world of difference between someone telling me what he thinks is true about it – that it does in fact exist – “in his head” and what he can demonstrate as true for all rational men and women. Just as there is a world of difference [re prong #2] between someone who hasn’t ruled out the possibility that abortion is either moral or immoral from someone who insists that if you don’t rule out what he has ruled out “in his head” you are wrong. Words here are either connected empirically/materially/phenomenologically, etc., with the world or they are not.
And yet if you keep pressing me to answer the same round of questions–what is my “ism”, how do I defend it in prong #2 situations, how does it free me from the kind of dilemma you find yourself in, etc.–I will have to give the same answers. At some point, you will have to rest content.
True, but at the same time others are following this exchange. And that which I am unable to communicate to you [or you to me] “here and now” might resonate more intelligibly to/for them. Perhaps there is a frame of mind [or will be] able to more effectively bridge the gaps between us.
That’s what I always come back to: How ought I to live?
And how and why did I arrive at the particular assumptions that I champion “here and now”. And that’s when I tumble over into this:
If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.
And the only viable option I then have is to explore the narratives of those who are not entangled in it.
I hope you’re not looking at me because, as I said before, I’m just as entangled in it as you, though I don’t think I feel nearly as much angst over it as you do.
Angst itself is always situated out in a particular world. And it is experienced by a particular mind embedded in a particular set of circumstances. Two sets in particular:
1] the extent to which “here and now” you are ensconced in a set of circumstances in which your values are being challenged by another. Especially when the stakes are high.
2] how close you are to the abyss – to death, to oblivion, to nothingness. To exploring the relationships that I probe here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=186929
Maybe the key is to put more faith into your instincts that your intellect. If your intellect is only ever coming up with existential contraptions, then you can’t really “figure out” how you ought to live–not in an abstract, analytical way. But we are all built with instincts that compel us to behave in ways that, more or less, guide us towards the basic things we need in life: food, comfort, friendship, health, dignity. ← That’s what we “ought” to strive for. Too much thought can sometimes stiffle that. Best to leave things to their own devices.
Unfortunately, I see these as little more than existential contraptions as well. The accumlation of experiences that we have, experiences that come to manifest themselves as, say, “intuition”, are no less triggered by “I”. We can take a leap, sure, but this is no less as subjective/subjunctive as a leap to God.
Or so it seems to me.
As I’m fond of saying, we believe in the things that serve our purposes–which suggests that we will only understand that which serves our purposes.
Yes, but from my frame of mind a purpose is no less an existential contraption.
So then it should be easy for you to change.
But no less problematic, no less entangled in my dilemma.
Given the enormous complexity of human psychological interactions – re the conscious, the subconscious and the unconscious components – intertwined with Reptilian brain functions going all the way back to however [and why ever] “the minds” of men and women came into existence [given the evolution of life itself], it may well be [ultimately] futile to grasp the actual, objective relationship bnetween prong #1 and prong #2 communication. We can only do our best in trying to bridge the gaps.
Not sure what you mean by this. What do you mean by prong #1 and prong #2 “communication”? I think we have a common understanding of what “prong #2” means given the ease with which we seem to be able to toss that term back and forth to each other, but we haven’t talked much about prong #1, and I don’t think you quite understand what I mean by that term (which itself is borrowed from what I gathered you meant by your “dilemma”).
This is basically the crux of our exchange. I don’t really know what you do mean when you make this distinction. Human reality revolves, first and foremeost, around subsistence, around reproduction, around defense. And that revolves around making choices. Now, these choices are made by minds able to choose. And to choose in a way that, if one presumes some level of autonomy, are very, very different from the choices made by every other living creature on earth. Why? Because the choices that we make seem to transcend mere biological imperavtives. We think not only of the way the world is but how it might also be otherwise. And that is right around the corner from how it ought to be otherwise. And somethow prong #1 and prong # 2 are intertwined here.
But how?
What I do understand about the way a mind like yours works (so I’ve gathered so far) is that you seem to require a depiction of how a person would practice their philosophy in a moral context. So correct me if I’m wrong, but you believe that the link between one’s beliefs and values and their behavior vis-a-vis prong #2 situations is as follows: belief/value → implications for morality → prescription for behavior → clash in prong #2 situations. Once you see how the clash pans out, and you listen to each side’s arguments, you can then trace it back to beliefs and values. What you can’t do is listen to how a person explains their beliefs and values apart from this context and come to an understanding of what they mean, at least not if their beliefs and values are several degrees deep into metaphysics and abstractions, the kind of which there is no obvious tangible demonstration.
First, of course, there is the question of whether how one explains their beliefs and values is only ever as they could could have explained them. In that case [it would seem] the distinction between prong #1 and prong #2 is necessarily subsumed in this. In other words, from my frame of mind, it is a distinction without a difference. Unless there is in fact a frame of mind – God – able to make one.
But it would seem that the bottom line for all of us is that in whatever manner we come to encompass mind “theoretically”, the moment we choose to interact with others our minds are going to encounter other minds that reject particular thoughts and feelings and behaviors that we choose.
Then what?
Then the maner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy seems entirely relevant. But how is that related to the ontological nature of my “mind” itself?
You note:
If this is the case, then here’s the disconnect for a theory like mine: belief/value = subjectivism/relativism → implications for morality = morality is determined by one’s conscience → prescription for behavior = ??? → clash in prong #2 situations = ???. ← In other words, it’s at the stage where one draws moral implications from my theory where the disconnect occurs. What my theory says about morality is that it is determined by one’s conscience. What this means is that unlike other theories–whether objectivist or subjectivist–that might prescribe actual behaviors or characteristics–for example, racism is wrong, psychopaths are evil, etc.–my subjectivism only points to the conscience as the source and the determinant of the morality of certain behaviors and characters, but leaves it up to the individual and what their conscience tells them to determine what exactly is moral or immoral (the relativism is required here to make that logically consistent). This doesn’t mean that I don’t have a morality of my own, it just means I take my moral cues from my conscience, not my theory. And like I said above, the human conscience functions best when theory stays the hell out of it.
And, as ever, I come back to this: What “on earth” does that mean? The super-ego as I understand it is above all else an existential fabrication/contraption rooted in dasein rooted out in a particular world historically, culturally and experientially. From the cradle to the grave.
Far, far, far more than the ego and the id.