iambiguous wrote:I've never argued that life is meaningless. On the contrary, existentially, it is bursting at the seams with meaning. But in a No God or No Religion world there does not appear to be a way in which to ascribe -- teleologically -- any essential meaning to it. Thus no font for differentiating right from wrong behavior on this side of the grave and no font to attach "I" to on the other side of it.
felix dakat wrote: So according to you life is meaningful existentially but not essentially. And, I suppose then, right and wrong can be differentiated existentially as Dasein but not essentially according to some absolute.
No, more like this: based on my own experiences in life to date, combined with my efforts explore that life philosophically, I have come to conclude "here and now" that, in regard to my moral and political value judgments, "I" is the embodiment a subjective point of view rooted in an existentially evolving fabrication rooted in dasein.
And whether right or wrong can be differentiated doesn't change fact that had my life been different I might have come to very different conclusions. Nor does it change the fact that whatever my value judgments are now as a moral and political prejudice, others can take the opposite point of view and come up with their own assumptions rooted in their own prejudices.
Thus, whereas I was once convinced as a Christian that abortion is objectively immoral [re God], as a Marxist I came to the conclusion that, on the contrary, it was objectively moral [re ideology]. Now I recognize that reasonable argument can come from both sides that the other side's arguments don't make go away.
And then the part where sociopaths argue that in a No God world they have chosen their own purely selfish wants and needs as the center of the universe morally. Okay, Mr. Ethicist, I note, how is that necessarily irrational?
And I'm less interested in the psychological parameters of moral and political ideals then in the extent to which, once they are taken down out of the theoretical clouds, they can be demonstrated to be values that all rational people are obligated to share.
Whereas I deem my own life "here and now" as essentially meaningless and apparently on the road to oblivion. I can no longer think myself into embodying your own psychologisms -- "a tendency to interpret events or arguments in subjective terms" -- when it comes to grappling with the existential relationship between morality and immortality. Only, in my view, your own subjective/subjunctive "I" here is still viewed by you as objective.
felix dakat wrote: The specter of meaningless has got you. Maybe you're possessed by it. Nietzsche said "if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you". I think that may be what's ailing you. I've seen the image of the abyss too. The image is not the abyss any more than the image of a god is the god. Nor is the image of objectivity objectivity itself. Objectivity is an ideal.
Thinking myself into believing that my own existence is essentially meaningless and about to be obliterated for all time to come is hardly "spectral". It's based on my actual reactions to a world of conflicting goods, and seeming certainty that death commences only a journey back to "star stuff".
Clearly, if someone is able to think themselves instead into believing in the "real me" in sync with an essentially meaningful life in sync with an objective morality that will reconfigure into an immortal soul on the road to salvation, they are probably less likely to be "ailing".
That's why I am always after them to bring this considerably more solidified Self out into a particular context so that we can explore our respective moral narratives/agendas.
For example, your point below:
And, again, based on my past experiences with objectivists, it doesn't surprise me when some reconfigure into Stooges and aim the discussions at me more than at the actual points I am making in regard to God and religion. In fact, Larry might have already come to suspect that perhaps I do know what I am talking about here. And that bit by bit he is beginning to suspect those points are applicable to him too. But that's all just sheer speculation extrapolated from past experiences with objectivists.
felix dakat wrote: Yeah, we try to label and pigeon-hole one another so we don't have to deal with the ungraspable nature of the other. After all we're mostly unconscious. We don't even grasp ourselves.
Let's zero in on a set of circumstances likely to precipitate different behaviors from us and examine our contentions above. There are any number of factors that can be grasped and communicated to each other objectively. About ourselves and others. It's the parts that are more problematic -- "I" in is/ought world -- that are more of interest to me. After all, those are the parts that precipitate this feeling of being "fractured and fragmented".