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All:
I didn't hear the original 'In Our Time' programme on R4 with Melvyn Bragg but I subscribe to his newsletter. Here is a snippet, which might be of interest - does Grayling ever do any teaching, I wonder?
'There was much discussion about the meaning of atheism in the 18th century. Did it actually carry the same meaning as today? Alexander Broadie (I think) said that it did not get its modern meaning until the 19th century. Though Hume was accused of being an atheist, it meant that he was a non-deist which is not what an atheist is today.
Hume’s supposed atheism is undermined – Broadie suggested – by his willingness to apply for professorships at Glasgow and Edinburgh. In Scotland anybody who got a chair had to lead the students in prayer, I think, every morning. Hume was clearly prepared to do this.
A C Grayling offered the suggestion that perhaps Hume was prepared to stand up against this. But this doesn’t seem to be the case. Broadie pointed out that many of Hume’s “pals” were members of the Church and he tried very hard to get the chair at Glasgow (which Professor Broadie now occupies and was once held by Adam Smith). Hume was turned down for a man called Jeremy Chow who, it was cruelly commented in the room, has never been heard of since. It seems that though Hume was the outstanding candidate, members of the committee, who were also members of the Kirk, ganged up against him. Francis Hutcheson, an influential professor at the university, said of him: “Hume lacks warmth in the course of virtue”.'
Hume is just about my favourite philosopher.
Must dash just now - hope to catch up later. Enjoy the weekend.
I've finally managed to get hold of a copy of "The God Delusion" from the library, though it is on cassette not in book form, which has advantages and disadvantages. I can listen to it whilst doing something boring like the ironing. But I have to put up with Dawkin's voice which really begins to grate after a while. I had to laugh when at the start he read out the blurb which must be on the cover of the book, describing his own work as "a brilliantly argued, fascinating polemic" - you'd think he might have got someone else to read that bit. His wife reads some bits which does help to break it up a bit. I'm not overly impressed so far. I'm only a bit into it, but so far there's been a lot of argument over just who is/was or isnt/wasn't an atheist which is a tad boring. It also seems mainly focussed on Christianity so far, but like I said, only a part of the way in so far. It might improve, but there's been no atheist conversion looming.
I'm not really up to speed to join in with some of the more technical discussions going on here. I'll chip in now and again if I can. I do check in to read regularly.
I'd like to read more of people's unexplained experiences. I think those that have never had any find it very difficult to believe that they occur. This can make it easier for them to dismiss everything that happens as being fully explainanble by science/logic/reasoning.
It is not as bleak as that. My point is that we must behave in a way that pre-supposes a certain degree of free will but that does not mean that it exists in reality. If you tried to live your life irresponsibly using determinism as an excuse you would fail. This, I surmise, is because your adult behaviour is governed by things you cannot control. Therefore you have no option but to behave as the responsible, civilised, considerate, well-mannered human being that you are. You cannot deny your genetic inheritance, your childhood experiences nor the things that happen to you in the world, all of which go towards making you as you are.
Biskieboo:
Good to hear from you. I have not read TGD either. I know that I should and will do one day but I have so much outstanding reading matter that it will have to wait. Also, I have an idea how it ends :-). I would be very interested in your views when you have finished listening to it.
[Formerly 'PassingStarship' on CiF (shortened for ease of reference!) - a moniker meant to indicate being on a voyage of discovery, exploring human behaviour from a purely external point of view - ultimately impossible of course.]
I was very interested in daddy0marcos's point (10 June) that "people will react quicker to flying paint than a flying fist". I'd suggest this could be because the neural circuitry that deals with social activity, including the intentions of other people is slower than that which deals with non-social threats. It would be interesting to know whether there have been any studies of autistics in this respect: I would expect them to react faster to the flying fist than non-autistic people.
Back to free will: what do the contributors to this thread think about the idea that it is a necessary illusion because without it we would all be wondering what we were going to do next?! To put it another way, if you don't think that "you" are in control, then life becomes pretty terrifying. This is not hypothetical: for people with certain forms of brain damage it is a reality.
For some thoughts which could help with the disussion of free will, determinism, and behaving "well" (Steve on 22 June), I'd recommend:
http://www.naturalism.org/strawson_interview.htm
and other articles on that site.
Biskieboo - I don't know what you'll make of The God Delusion, but I find the weakest part of the book is the idea of the "moral Zeitgeist". Richard Dawkins admits to not having the scientific background to justify his ideas in this area, yet he ploughs on without systematically addressing the question of where moral values come from, and indeed of their relationship to notions of free will and responsibility.
Read your linked Strawson interview; and thumbed through some other pages from that site. Must say, I find Strawson's view amazingly bleak....and can't help but feel there's a circularity at the core of his reasoning.
Either way, I'm sure I *chose* to follow the link - and could have chosen not to - even if my reaction to it may have been preordained ;-)
Hi, steve - I'm not sure what it means to say that you or I have free will to choose, but it is meaningful to discuss why these choices are made. Presumably they're not random...
When steve wrote "I'm sure I *chose* to follow the link - and could have chosen not to", what do the words "could have" mean? Are we talking about parallel universes? If so, what brings them into existence? Or, if there is only one universe, are we saying that it is (at least partially) determined by human "free will"? If that were so, wouldn't it be like the creationists' claims for the origin of the universe, a claim that a mysterious creative force (whether human or divine) plays a role in the way things turn out?
These well-known problems with the idea of free will, the problem of observation within a closed system, of subjectivity versus objectivity, make me doubt that the "free will" issue can be resolved. From a practical point of view it's better to ask what drives human choices and human behaviour.
Just a quick response before going out for the day.
Free will is a very elusive concept. We are sure we all have choices, which is what our moral code is based on, but when you examine exactly how much choice you really have it is difficult to pin down. It does not really fit with cause and effect.
For example, Steve - you said you had a free choice to access the link recommended by Starship or not. When you examine the causes of that action I am not sure you did.
It was a recommendation from someone you respect; it was relevant to this topic; you are here because the topic interests you; you are interested because...and so on and so on. How much real choice did you have? I read it for the same reasons (incidentally, v. interesting and thanks Starship - I will read again before passing comment).
For me the only reason that I would not have read it last night was lack of time - and that would have been caused by other things, so the actual choice is illusory.
So, we live our lives believing that two contradictory concepts are true (causation and free will).
BTW the parallel worlds idea that you introduced, Starship, is fascinating and one I would like to discuss at some time.
I'm not big on the parallel universes thing - fascinating though it would be (to me, anyway) to see what happened to the other "me"s who made different choices....somewhere there's one of me posting on a CiF as "idealisticsteve"....
Incidentally, boltonian, although you're right that starship is one of a small number of people whose views do cause me to think a bit before replying, that in itself isn't enough to make me click on recommended links. In fact, I probably only go to around 10% of those suggested, since most are too polarised to be useful. Of course, this proves nothing with respect to the question, FW or no FW. Starship's right in that the question can't be definitively answered, as we only run the experiment once, PUs notwithstanding. But it shouldn't stop us thinking about it, as it's fundamental in the true sense of the word.
I asked my wife about the determinism/FW thing, since she studied philosophy at uni. She said two related things I thought were interesting: firstly, aren't we a bit overtooled intellectually if there's no FW? And secondly, what's the point in us being self aware if we don't have FW?
(It was amusing that, having asked her the q on the journey to Tesco, she kept returning to it whilst we were in the store; I just wonder what other shoppers made of two middle aged scruffs arguing about determinism in the biscuit aisle....)
Self awareness is obviously a very personal thing, but discounting freewill does not diminish the importance of the sense (or illusion) of freewill.
I am sorry that I do not understand the "overtooled intellectually" point.
Is it something to do with when I stand in the biscuit isle, it seems to take an age for my lack of freewill and my illusion thereof to sort out what to do?
I was interested in the Strawson interview (I don't follow up that many links and had expected Père Strawson); I wonder what you made of the knock down argument. Is it flawed? Is the premiss OK? Although I have seen a similar argument (less economically presented) before I had always reached the conclusion from other perspectives.
Steve (or steve's wife) said: "what's the point in us being self aware if we don't have FW". Not having studied philosophy I may be missing something elementary here, but it seems to me that awareness of the "self" in your head and of other "selves" in other heads is critical to coping with the social environment. The problems that autistics have show that this awareness is not universal or inevitable. The idea of FW is then related to an awareness of responsibility - that is of being answerable to your community. That knowledge influences our behaviour, and creates the feeling of what Strawson calls "deep moral responsibility". The illusion is vital to social living and cannot be shaken off, any more than an optical illusion, such as the one at http://web.mit.edu/persci/people/adelson/checkershadow_illusion.html. Without this optical illusion, we couldn't safely run through forests because we wouldn't be able to interpret the shadows of trees correctly. Similarly, perhaps, we could not function properly in the social environment without the illusion of free will.
Just butting in on the free will question after skimming through the link. It seems to me that free will is not the same as having free open choices. Some options are closed to us from birth (I'm never going to be a great high jumper due to my being a bit of a short arse) and some close off as we go through life due to the choices that we do make. Free will seems to me to be the fact that we have a range of options in any given situation, and we choose between these limited options. We may be more likely (for many reasons) to go for one option more than the others, but there is a choice.
The major shifts that occur in people's moral behaviour can be seen at the point where they break a subconcious pattern of choice making. Say, for instance, when someone who would normally do something they know is wrong if they know they will get away with their behaviour, then chooses conciously not to take that particular option any more. Having then made the decision in that particular situation they may then see other situations where an option that they would not normally take then becomes easier for them to take a more "moral" option. The more they take the "moral" option, the harder it then becomes to backtrack to the old not-so-good behaviour, although of course the option always exists.
I know what I'm trying to say here, but not sure I've put it across so others will!
Boltonian : I don't know a great deal about Mahayana Buddhism as opposed to other forms. Does Therevada include the concept of "clear light of great bliss" ?
Starship : I followed your links too. My approach is always to try and retain different perspectives as possibilities.
Steve : I've decided to avoid the biscuit aisles in Sainsbury of late; if it wasn't for the bread and Old Speckled Hen, I'd do all the shopping in the local co-op.
I started reading GEB from the beginning again in bed yesterday morning and was feeling quite pleased with myself for having read about 30 pages and understood everything when I nodded off. I then had a dream in which I was awakened by the sound of a bug landing near by. I tried to get a closer look, but couldn't seem to focus properly. I tentatively identified it as a moth, when it flew off and when I located its new position, I still couldn't focus on it. I wondered if I had the wrong glasses on and then realised I was dreaming and woke up.
I've also discovered a bug in my memory : for at least 13 years I've been under the impression that Alan Alda starred as the mad scientist in the movie "Bug", but the other day I found out it was Bradford Dillman. It was a rather silly B movie, but it made a lasting impression on me in its portrayal of the way in which scientific curiosity and the lure of academic kudos can override morality and common sense. I just have to think "bug" and I see Hawkeye Alan Alda.
elephantschild : Racine, Moliere, Balzac, Hugo, Sartre, Camus. Of these only Racine was always alien to me; the set book was Phaedra. The chap just across the aisle from me in the exam had an epileptic fit. OK, I'd wasted too many free periods playing bridge, but I think I'd have done better with a bit of time added on.
biskieboo : I understand and was trying to make a similar point earlier in the thread when I mentioned programming the unconscious.
spacepenguin : OK, I think I've got there now. I originally thought your last post was a change of tack from interactionist dualism, but I accept you're keeping that option open. If my mystical experience concerns what is traditionally thought of as the metaphysical soul, then it should be capable of scientific examination even with current technology. I can also relate to NDE descriptions, so it would be interesting to know if this state of consciousness shows up as hyperactivity or lack of activity in the brain. I'm agnostic as to the significance of the experience and other experiences related to it.
Lots to think about. These are in no particular order.
pttp:
'Does Therevada include the concept of "clear light of great bliss" ?'
I will need to ask my wife. The main thrust of Therevada Buddhism, in my understanding, is striving to live as closely as possible to Gautama's precepts. This means, of course that one must proceed through numerous lives and the eightfold path - and only monks (through the elimination of desire, which is the cause of suffering)will become Boddhisatva and, ultimately, achieve full enlightenment as a buddha. This being the final step before Nirvana, or complete nothingness.
One can see here a number of reasons why it has not swept the world as a belief system. Firstly, it is a hard road to tread, secondly it takes many lifetimes to achieve enlightenment, thirdly most of us do not wish to eliminate desire (we will take the suffering as a sort of Faustian pact), fourthly the concept of Nirvana is not nearly so attractive as Heaven.
As I understand it Mahayana is an attempt to revise and update these precepts, partly in an attempt to make Buddhism more relevant to more people. In other words what the Buddha would have taught had he been alive today.
starship/ Martin:
Having read the article twice I cannot find any logical flaws in it (but then I am not a logician). I too was expecting the famous father of the, now, famous son. The late P.F. taught a good friend of mine at Oxford in the 1970s, who speaks very highly of him (my friend of Strawson that is).
Steve:
I tend to avoid biscuit aisles, in fact I avoid supermarkets altogether - my wife does that bit and I buy all the fresh stuff locally.
I am not sure how self-awareness relates to free will. If we take a hypothetical journey though our evolution it might go something like this:
Our (homo)direct ancestor might have been an ape that had found a niche living near water and living on fish (see the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis by Elaine Morgan). Bi-pedalism would confer an advantage in that is easier to catch fish when standing upright than on all fours. There are lots of disadvantages too: a smaller pelvis leading to less developed and therefore more vulnerable offspring, for example. So, the advantage must have been substantial. One consequence of this is that the centre of gravity shifts to run more vertically through the head to the feet. This means that a heavier brain can be carried. A large brain, therefore, might have been a by product of bi-pedalism. A larger brain also conferred advantages, so it began to grow until it is now at about the maximum size we can carry without becoming unbalanced. Another side effect of bi-pedalism is that the larynx can drop down into a larger space in the throat, allowing the possibility of a far larger range of sounds to be made and, therefore, the raw material for language. The penalty is that the lungs and the digestive system use the same tube, so choking to death becomes a possibility. Again, the benefits of a large larynx must have conferred a substantial benefit. This might be because we had developed such a large brain that allowed us to develop sophisticated social skills from which we derived benefits over those that did not (Neanderthals?). Self-awareness might have been a by product of this and, as language developed, it became more and more of an advantage. Why? Because it enabled one to empathise - to put oneself into another's shoes and thus predict behaviours and language became one of the tools for eliciting more information. Thus societies that had language and self-awareness would have the wherewithal to dominate its neighbours, much as we do now with nature. We are really a problem-solving creature and for that self-awareness is very useful.
Self-awareness has also helped us to survive as a species because we can imagine what it must be like to be in somebody else's position. Matt Ridley, in the 'Origins of Virtue' makes much of this ability using the prisoner's dilemma as an illustration. 'Always defect' (the winning strategy with two people) and 'Tit for tat' would have destroyed us as a species but what he calls 'Generous' allows us to survive. He defines generous as allowing one mistake. 'If you hurt me once I will not retaliate because I will assume that you have made a mistake but if you do it again I will kill you.' For this to be the case empathy is needed and for that self-awareness must be a requirement.
The concept of free will allowing the development of a sophisticated moral code could then be built on this and so more complex and more successful societies can exist.
None of this pre-supposes that free will actually exists independently of our belief that it does. Survival of the species depends upon an agreed morality, which in turn rests on a belief that we have choices. For that we need a large brain.
If my hypothesis stands up then we are not 'over tooled' at all - we need all that brain power to survive at the species level.
Biskieboo:
You have put your finger on what I think is the nub of it. Not whether free will exists but how far we believe it does. The more we learn about genetics, for example, the less freedom we seems to have. If this carries on too quickly we might 'prove' that the world is determined before we have developed the intellectual mechanisms for dealing with it. Perhaps free will is so hard wired into our psyche that we will continue to act against the evidence. I am not so sure. More conflicts have been fought over clashes of values, at least in historical times, rather than a battle for resources. And this is happening right now.
I am leaning more towards neutral monism lately . My problem with dualism is it seems too neat and too anthropocentric . It has more explanatory power than materialist monism , but it still doesn't seem a satisfying explanation .
My point about a metaphysical soul giving us free will is that it would permit no further investigation . There would be an essence of 'you' responding to dilemmas without mechanism (if your soul is actually processing information then the brain state problem for free will becomes the soul state problem) . Such a thing would just have to be taken as read . It is somewhat analogous to quantum entanglement , we have no mechanism at present for instantaneous effect at a distance , it simply happens and that's that .
Oh dear....I seem to have copped some flack for setting my original anecdote in the biscuit aisle - which, in reality, is a location rarely visited by me. I just thought it sounded better, for reasons of both scansion and social contrast (it wouldn't have had the same impact had I set it in "the organic tofu aisle" - such philosophical conversations are practically de rigeur there....) But, to prosaically fess up, our conversation actually took place as I spent five minutes trying to find a usable garlic bulb in amongst all the shrivelled dross that wouldn't even make a vampire flinch....meantime, I'm off to compose some more doggerel....next time there's a juicy atheism thread on CiF, I plan on having something precomposed, rather than making it up on the spot. Suggestions for subjects welcome.
Apologies for not addressing the FW comments yet, but my brain isn't up to it yet. In the words of Colin Dexter, as put into the mouth of Morse, I'm seriously underbeered....
I know you used to lean towards some sort of dualism - does materialist monism mean that you think consciousness is a function of the brain and, if so, that we might one day (soon?) replicate it?
Basically neutral monism , as opposed to materialistic monism , states that there is only one kind of thing that exists but it can have mental as well as material aspects . I suppose , in a sense , it is a rephrasing of dualism for practical purposes , but I prefer the idea that ultimate reality is simple and unified rather than dualistic . This is a personal preference though .
I don't know if consciousness can be replicated . An interesting idea , by David Chalmers , is that everything that appears to make a decision of some kind is conscious in some way . People , toasters and thermostats have different levels of consciousness , but they all have it .
I'm not sure I am convinced , but it's an interesting thought .
I had heard of this concept, particularly regarding thermostats. I think I have also read somewhere that quantum particles might have a degree of consciousness but it seems to me that it is not much more than conjecture - whatever is not ruled out by the laws of nature, as we understand them, can be ruled in if one has a book to sell.
I still have a soft spot for idealism - particularly the empirical idealism of Bishop Berkeley. Perhaps we have not travelled very far along the metaphysical road since what is probably the hey day of modern philosophy from the late 17th century until the end of the 18th - from Locke to Kant, taking in Hume, Leibnitz, Spinoza and Berkeley.
I can't help thinking that things started to go downhill from Hegel onwards.
Boltonian: Thanks. I am fully recovered from the op (on my hip - a problem possibly connected with the fact that I have spent quite a lot of my working life crouching in damp holes in the ground). The garden is now more or less under control, though looking a bit soggy at the moment.
Have you seen the article on the behaviour of jays and other members of the crow family in the latest issue of New Scientist? Experimental studies suggest that these birds, when hiding caches of food, adopt strategies designed to outwit potential thieves, but only if a)they themselves are accustomed to raiding the caches of other birds and b)they have been observed by other birds when hiding the cache. Which suggests that they are capable of simulating another's point of view and have developed a social intelligence, if not a 'theory of mind'.
pttp (and Biskieboo): The experiences I referred to were of altered states of perception. The first was when I was very young - not more than ten or eleven years old. I was running across a field near my home,looking at a lone stunted pine tree on the field bank ahead of me, and suddenly felt that I had to stop. It seemed as if a filter had been removed from my senses; everything seemed more vivid and 'real', and somehow charged with significance (numinous?). At the same time I experienced an almost trance-like feeling of calm and an enormous sense of joy. It probably lasted only a few minutes before one of my brothers or friends called to me. I had a second, very similar experience at the age of sixteen, walking on Marloes beach in Pembrokeshire. These experiences were, in my judgement, qualitatively different from the heightened response one sometimes has to works of art, for example, and although I have occasionally sensed a kind of echo of them, they have never been repeated. As to what triggered them, I have no idea. As far as I am aware, I suffer from no neural abnormality. Hick quotes several first hand accounts of what sound like similar, or even more intense 'spontaneous' experiences.
As I have mentioned before, I have done some reading on the subject, though not in any great depth, but as far as I can gather there is as yet no consensus on the neurological basis of such experiences, and of course it would scarcely be possible to study the kind I had under controlled conditions. Newburg and d'Aquili have conducted studies on Tibetan monks and Franciscan nuns, monitoring their brains during meditation and prayer and observed the same kind of neural correlates in both: increased activity in the frontal lobe and a suppression of activity in the amygdala. There is also a decrease in activity in the posterior superior parietal lobe, which is concerned with spacial orientation and the sense of self. What is different, of course, is the subjective interpretation which the Buddhist monks and the nuns respectively put on their experiences.
Some (but by no means all) sufferers from temporal lobe epilepsy experience hallucinations, sometimes of a religious nature, and it has been shown that electrical stimulation of the outer layers of the temporal lobe of these subjects can reproduce the same effect, but it is not clear that their experience is comparable to that of meditators. And from what I can gather, the results have been less consistent when the same was tried with 'normal' subjects.
According to James Austin (Zen and the Brain), the experience of LSD users is only occasionally congruent with Zen type mystical experience. A study by Masters and Houston showed only about 3% of subjects met the criteria for 'unitary consciousness' and these were mostly older people who had experience of meditation or similar practices, or who had a long standing interest in integral levels of consciousness.
I agree with you that such experiences, however generated, were probably fundamental in the formation of religious beliefs, along with a more generalised sense of awe in the face of natural forces and the natural world as a whole, and have certainly been the inspiration for many of the prophets of revealed religions. Whether they have been a catylist in the evolution of consciousness, I am not so sure. They must certainly have influenced ideas about the nature of consciousness, but I would have thought that a fairly highly developed level of consciousness was a prerequisite for such experiences in the first place. What do you think?
I have decided that I will subscribe to NS, which has been referred to here on several occasions. I usually buy it before long train journeys, of which there have been few lately.
Ive not looked in for a while so its great to see things have kicked off again.
Ill try to say something worth saying when Ive got something to say (its a lot easier knocking off posts on CiF)and Il need to read whats been going on
W is quite thought provoking , though I am getting a sense of 'green ink' about them .
Agree with you about endlessdyad and WML . It is odd to see someone who so regularly appeals to authority in the form of this entity called "Science" (and frequently gets it hopelessly wrong) be so sure he is right and the vast majority of Biblical scholars and near east historians are wrong .
Boltonian & SpacePenguin - I wholeheartedly agree with you peeps on the recent CiF thread. I don't like to kick a man when he's down (and not here to defend himself), but EndlessDyad's points were largely - to my mind - inadequately addressed. WML is certainly not an ignoramus - e.g. he would argue about Josephus with some knowledge about the various points of contention (and the arguments on Josephus are hardly clear one way or another) - but I fear that the principles informing his approach, if developed, would entail the collapse of ancient history departments. I am inclined to side with my erstwhile Greco-Roman/early christian professors on this one. EndlessDyad's knowledge and arguments - and biblical criticism is not his special subject - impressed me. If I can add one point (& I don't have WML in mind) blanket assertions wrt mithraism is something of a bugbear. It's not like there's nothing of interest to be said here, but serious Mithraic scholarship is far too often overshadowed by more popular (because shocking books) which operate more at a Da Vinci Code level of analysis.
I must also echo Boltonian in my enjoyment of the W-SpPe discussion, though, like him, I feel I must go back and re-read.
Wrt free will - some v interesting ideas here. A few thoughts... I wonder to what extent free will might be discussed more in relation to rationality. Another interesting discussion might be the connections between philosophical notions of free will (and hence freedom) and socio-political ideas of freedom.
I think that WML's knowledge is very superficial. He takes a dogmatic stance and simply ignores evidence that others present which contradicts his (simplistic) world view. When he feels that he has found a weakness he simply homes in on that, without addressing its importance in the discussion. Josephus, for example, is not that important a source but he elevates it in order to knock it down. The rest is charmless bluster. Also, Wikipedia seems to be his sole source. He has not answered any of endlessdyad's main points in exactly the same way that he will not answer spacepenguin's or my points in any discussion. He regards CiF as a competitive sport. I do not think he has any interest in learning, other than as a tool for exercising his ego. This is why I stopped engaging with him some time ago.
RE- the SpaceP - W debate I would love to re-read it but the entire thread seems to have disappeared. I left a reply to Steve and came back 24 hours later to find it gone. If anybody can tell me where to find it I would be grateful.
Your suggestion sounds good. I understand a bit about the philosophical concept of free will but I would be interested to know how the socio-political notion differs. Are you referring to Bentham, JS Mill and the Utilitarian ideas of 'The greatest good for the greatest number,' or dialectics of Marx, for example. Both of which ideologies, in my view, are seriously flawed.
boltonian - Paul Davies' thread is still available if you look for him under "contributors", and take it from there....often, this is the only way to find past CiF threads, for some reason....
Just read the bit from where I left off. Hey WML humbly accepting that he might be wrong. Wow! Worth reading for that alone. Bill I's satire a nice touch too - and completely without malice.
I think part of the problem with the historical Jesus debate is that the Christ issue (understandably) gets in the way of objective investigation. So, people take sides, not on the available evidence, but how they view the religious message.
I'm still trying really hard to get through The God Delusion. My energy levels are low at the moment so I'm taking it easy. The main barrier with TGD is that when I lie down to listen to it, the droning of Mr and Mrs Dawkins very quickly lulls me into a stupor. Before I know it I'm dozing away and missing huge chunks. Since last time I have learnt that life on earth was a very very very unlikely thing to happen, but it did. Also that the conditions that exist for life to occur is also very very very unlikely, but that they are indeed in existence. However, God himself is very very very unlikely to exist, and so he doesn't (???). Dawkins just doesn't seem to "get" anything that isn't to do with strictly academic, scientific, hypothesis - experiment - results - conclusion knowledge. It's like he has a blind spot when it comes to human spirituality. For example he cannot accept that there is any evolutionary advantage gained from religion. At all. He doesn't even want go anywhere near that avenue of thought. He instead decides that "religion" must simply be a by-product of something else that evolved. This strikes me as highly presumptive and very blinkered. Also, like Grayling, he is *so* on the old "Christianity is so stoopid" trip. And there is still hardly anything on other religions. The tone gets so sneery at times it makes me want to tell him to cheer up and get a life. Anyhow, I will persevere with it. I'll update again if I manage to stay wawake.
boltonian : "I think part of the problem with the historical Jesus debate is that the Christ issue (understandably) gets in the way of objective investigation. So, people take sides, not on the available evidence, but how they view the religious message."
Inevitable, though. Given my starting position, it won't be a great surprise that I'm fairly dubious about the historicity of Jesus; but I'm no historian, and have no desire to read the background on that issue. So I have to join you in The Agnostic Arms....
It's an interesting situation, because although I'm coming from a similar place to WML, I'm less impressed by his debating style than that of endlessdyad. And yet, WML may be right. How do we decide between two opposing camps - having a polite and fair mien doesn't necessarily mean you're right....and, frankly, none of us is going to learn all the background material necessary to make considered judgement of the primary sources.
So, how do you know who to trust? This is applicable not just to the WML/ed argument, but to many points of contention, on CiF and elsewhere. Gut feeling? Style? Whatever fits with your preconceptions? It's tricky....but I'd be interested to hear how others approach this dilemma....
Careful, Biskieboo....I'm sure you've heard of subliminal imprinting....fall asleep to Dawkins' dulcet tones and you might wake up an atheist/agnostic zombie, like the rest of us....
Keep plugging away. You have more determination than me - I haven't even read the first word yet. I think I know what he will say, though. I have less patience with Grayling than Dawkins - I find ACG very shallow, at least in this area.
Steve:
All we can do is to sift the available evidence and say which scenario is the more likely but be sufficiently open minded to change one's view if either new evidence emerges or compelling arguments are put forward.
My view, at the moment, is that Vermes, Sanders, Endlessdyad et al present a more coherent picture than the tendentious sources WML quotes. I have no particular interest in whether this is so or not and if the evidence (in my view) pointed the other way then I would shift my position accordingly. My interest lies in what were the causes of the phenomenon called Christianity.
Hi guys. Sorry for not posting in ages. Been reading with much enjoyment though, here and on the Davies thread which was excellent. I've been meaning to post but taking ages to digest everything. Been reading up on Quantum Mechanics and it's blowing my mind.
Really really excellent article I've been looking at: http://higgo.com/quantum/fourreasons.htm
Re the whole Jesus stuff. Hanging up on the one question his existence does seem pretty meaningless in light of QM. It's just as feasible to argue that neither did nor didn't exist as it is to accept either one position. Mucho weirdness.
Biskieboo:
Thanks for the Dawkins review. Very funny and convinced me not to bother reading the book. Thank you for the time you've saved me (in this universe).
QM is rather mind blowing. Bohr once said something to the effect that, 'Whoever is not shocked by QM has not understood it.' What it has led to is the reconnection of science with philosophy because its implications are capable of so many interpretations: Copenhagen; many worlds, multiverse, and others.
Steve mentioned the 'Agnostic Arms,' well, our patron is Heisenberg. His uncertainty principle rather sums up our views about life.
Re-Jesus. I do not think it matters one iota to non-Christians whether he really existed or not, at least from the metaphysical perspective. I happen to think that his existence is more likely than not but I accept that one can read the same evidence and come to a different conclusion. And, if that period of history or the origins of Christianity are of no interest, then the question is irrelevant.
There is a general point here about philosophical leanings and historical perspective. The older I get the more I think that these things are largely a matter of temperament - one tends to lean towards ideas that are comfortable. This is partly why the more committed (I won't use the term 'Militant') atheists are often the ones who most strongly dispute the existence of the historical Jesus.
This tribalism is now becoming prevalent in science, particularly theoretical physics. Smolin's latest tome, 'The Problem with Physics,' discusses it at length. Wherever there is a lack of proof (and let's face it that is most places) the gap will be filled with conjecture. But, the problem is, that you and I will reach very different conclusions from the same (scant) evidence.
This is fine if we both accept that we are discussing a conjecture but it becomes a problem when I elevate mine to the status of truth. There can only be one truth and therefore you must be wrong. Recipe for conflict.
This is why I find Grayling so simplistic because it is not religion that is at fault but human nature. And those very things in our nature that creates conflict are the ones that have made us a successful species.
pttp: Judging by what I have gathered from my reading, Persinger's findings may have been somewhat over-hyped. Around 80% of his subjects reported having experienced something, but in the majority of cases this seems to have been no more than a vague sense of a presence or of being watched. A group in the University of Uppsala, who experimented with the same techniques under double blind conditions, found that there was no significant difference between those subjected to tms and the control group(Persinger claimed that they were doing it wrong).
wrt the historicity of Jesus: insofar as I am qualified to judge (I am not a specialist in the field, although I have done a fair amount of reading on the subject and have some training in historical method - and I use primary and secondary historical documents in tandem with archaeological research) the evidence adduced by endlessdyad and the authorities he cites carries far more weight than the arguments of the Jesus mythologists, who all too often seem to resort to special pleading. Given that the sources, however problematic from a historian's p o v, indicate that the movement which became Christianity originated as a Jewish sect centred in Jerusalem, and that the gospels associate Jesus with the messianic prophesies, it seems highly unlikely that Jesus was not a real person. St Paul evidently believed that he was (e.g. Romans 1, 3-4)and claimed to have met James, brother of Jesus, and Cephas/Peter (and the argument, repeated by WML, that 'brother of the Lord' was just a generic term, equivalent perhaps to 'brother in Christ' does not really hold water) To suggest otherwise implies that, within two or three decades of Jesus' supposed death, a group in Jerusalem had colluded in the construction of a deliberate fiction - which seems inherently unlikely given the context, and would in any case have been somewhat risky, since there would still have been people around in the Jewish community who might be supposed to have known or heard of such a person.
While it is true that the NT sources were not intended primarily as biography or historical records in the modern sense, modern scholars, using techniques of form analysis in the context of a wider understanding of 1st century Jewish society and beliefs, seem to think that it is possible to tease out some historical information - to a greater extent, at least, than was thought, say, 50 years ago.
Do you know much about dynastic Egyptian chronology? If so, I have a few questions for you about David Rohl's revised chronology. I found his book on the subject ('A Test of Time')fascinating. He had me convinced but it is not my subject so that would not be difficult.
daddy0marcos here. That was me posting earlier as MarcusB, but I accidently posted under another handle. No for some reason I've got into an almighty muddle trying to remember passwords and what handle is associated with which email account, so posting anonymously until I can sort it out.
Completely agree with you E wrt Jesus. Obviously supposing that he both did and didn't exist is merely conjecture, as is any position one takes. But if we confine ourselves to the Newtonian realm, then the evidence does seem to suggest that he was real - if for no other reason than that it is the simplest solution.
By the way, thanks to everyone who made interesting comments on the ant colony and other questions I raised in my last post. Been meaning to write something for ages on the topic, but just end up reading and reading.
boltonian - the Agnostics' Arms (patron Heisenberg) would, I guess, have a quiz machine with a (well worn) "don't know" button; it would also incorporate the QM lounge, where one could sup a pint of Maxwell's Demon beer (half of which is boiling; the other half ice cold). Bohm's pinball machine still baffles most punters. Heisenberg's fruit machine sometimes rewards a win with chunky coins, sometimes with a beam of energy. Over in the corner, Einstein is trying to play dice with a elderly bearded guy, who seems rather reluctant. Not sure who the guy surrounded by the pretty girls and drumming his fingers on the table is, but he has a reputation for demanding *very* cold beer (he reckons it pours better) and doodling strange hieroglyphics on the beermats. Like every establishment, there is a pub bohr, although Pauli has been excluded on principle. There used to be a pub cat, but no-one seems sure what happened to it. Strange thing, though; it was completely different when I came in yesterday....
One of the regulars (with his own chair) is old Dirac. He was said said to have hated too much spin and so came up with, what he called, half-integer spin and bowled first change for the Agnostics' Arms XI, captained by Einstein. This was reputed to be the inspiration behind Shane Warne's 'Wrong 'un,' which he picked up whilst watching old footage of the 1927 Test Match in Solvay.
Dirac, by the way, was a great friend of that curmudgeonly opening batsman, Schrodinger (the Boycott of his day). It was Schrodinger's cat (not missing just playing dead sometimes) that you mentioned.
Dirac eventually fell out with the selectors over the cancelling of infinities in the QM fixture, which he felt was tantamount to gamesmanship.
E : I agree the God helmet doesn't normally produce what I would term mystical experiences. I'm going to experiment with something similar, though.
I find it disappointing that so little similar research has been done in such a potentially interesting area. Obviously, there is still a stigma attached to similar studies using drugs.
Rick Strassman's DMT studies (The Spirit Molecule) are quite intriguing. His theory is that a release of endogenous DMT induces NDEs.
Will post a bit more on freedom/free will in a while.
Just v quickly wrt historicity question (and totally taking on board the whole point that it doesn't broach the metaphysical etc questions), one more point a Jesus mythologist might want to consider - esp since some of the arguments used for the position are arguments from silence - it is interesting that there is no surviving evidence (to my knowledge) of anyone in the 1st/early 2nd c alleging that Jesus did not exist, that he was deliberately/deceptively concocted...
C : I think the consensus position on this blog is that historicity of Jesus is subordinate to other considerations, i.e. underlying validity of ethical/moral/metaphysical teachings embodied.
Even Dawkins acknowledges the advanced ethical thinking inherent in Sermon on the Mount. Even I acknowledge the mystical truth of the last shall be first.
ChooChoo : "...it is interesting that there is no surviving evidence (to my knowledge) of anyone in the 1st/early 2nd c alleging that Jesus did not exist, that he was deliberately/deceptively concocted..."
Bit of a red herring, surely? Was there much to refute at that point? Would anyone have bothered making this kind of argument *before* christianity had looked like a long-lived phenomenon? (apart from a putative 2nd c WML....)
Steve - first off, the argumemt is not a smack down argument - it is just a consideration (and one which I don't remember being addressed by mythologists).
On there being much to refute - well, it is a question worth asking - is there any evidence of anyone reporting or hinting at any sort of controversy about his existence being fabricated ex nihilo. We can assume - surely - if the mythologist position holds, there would have been some people around in the first half of the 1stc who, when they saw this emergent and rather weird bunch of jews talking about salvation and circumcision in relation to this bloke Jesus, ask - well hold on - who the hell was that? I remember Pilate and the Baptist and Caiaphas (or whoever). I note that the argument from silence is not a knockdown argument. (But, curiously, it is one used by the mythologists - so it is not excluded in kind by them). But, all in all, these are, perhaps, moot points.
I remembered having a book on my bookshelf that was to do with NDE - I've just been to look and found "Life after Life" by Raymond A. Moody. First published in 1975, it's a study of more than 100 people who have experienced clinical "death" and survived. I can't remember if I've read it or not - I'll have a leaf through later. I also just found a copy of "Just Six Numbers" by Martin Rees that I forgot I had - I know I haven't read it but it's now on my list. Continued with TGD this afternoon, which, sure enough, sent me to sleep within a few minutes, so I had to rewind and start again. It's now moved on to morality, and seems to do a pretty lightweight job of it. Dawkins acknowledges that absolute morality tends to come only from religion, but then goes on to argue that absolute morality isn't the best sort anyway. He's far more into consequentialism. He then goes on to argue that religious people aren't any more moral than the non-religious, but I wasn't convinced by the examples he gave. And even if it were true, it might just mean the religious folk would be even *less* moral if they *weren't* religious. Then there was a whole series of very bizarre moral dilemmas that research has apparently shown we all - religious or not - answer the same on. A lot of them involved very fat people being used to stop speeding trains (I'm not lying). No studies were quoted that were to do with asking people about things like abortion or euthanasia, which would probably have shown up a difference of opinion. There then followed a re-hashing of every "how horrid is the old testament" moaning that you've ever heard in your life. Nothing new there. Can't wait for him to get to the New Testament bits, which are obviously far more relevant to Christian behaviour. I think he might struggle a bit to find anything to rail against there.
I will post a synopsis of the Parnia book in the next day or so. I have taken the first step and removed it from the shelf.
Re- Jesus. Vermes' view is that Jesus was a charismatic (in the true sense of the word), eschatological preacher from the rural backwoods of Galilee. There were lots of them around, all expecting the imminent arrival of God's kingdom. There had always been such people, as there are nowadays, but they would tend to become more prevalent (and relevant) during times of oppression. The number of prophets linked to the time of the Babylonian exile is an example. Of course it might be just coincidence that their writings have survived and been handed down whilst others have perished. It could be, though, a proxy for how seriously they were taken at the time.
Why was Jesus different from all the others, who have not been the inspiration for a global religion? Well, firstly he had a message that resonated with sufficient numbers of people. If he spoke directly to the people he would have been more popular than the Jerusalem hierarchy, who had largely sold out to Rome (the chief priest was actually appointed by the Governor of Judea - Pilate).
He had a determined following - Galileans were notoriously strong-willed and hot tempered, and looked down on as country bumpkins by the Jerusalem elite.
He was convincing and sincere - a good orator and highly knowledgeable on the laws and scriptures.
He made a big splash in the crowded Temple during the highly-charged Passover celebrations. Pilate was a brutal governor, who tended to execute people first and ask questions later - he was later removed from office by the Emperor Tiberius for this over-zealous approach. Pilate was looking to make an example of somebody to forestall a full blown riot.
His execution caused outrage amongst his followers and, possibly, others who were around at the time. His death became a symbol of Roman oppression and was later used during and following the Jewish revolt (66-70 AD) by the Gospel writers as an attempt to preserve the identity of the Jews during this time of great stress. It is then that the Christ mythology began.
Paul knew of the man during his lifetime, although they never met, and later realised that Jesus was right about his eschatological message but but was out with his timing - hence (the probably accurate) cry of Jesus in his death throes - 'My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?'
You will need to read the books, I am afraid, to see whether you agree with his arguments and conclusions.
Most other scholars of the period I have read tend to take this line and the disagreements are relatively minor.
Dawkins' view of the Sermon on the Mount (Mark's sermon on the plain) is interesting. Nietzsche thought that this moral position, which lies at the heart of Christianity, was a big, fat lie. None of it has come to pass and it is nothing more than, 'Jam tomorrow.' Of course it has been used down the ages to keep the dispossessed from becoming a mob - rulers have always been terrified of the mob.
I have never been convinced, even by Kant, that absolute morality exists. Who decides what it is? Are our values at this time and in this place superior to everybody else's from other eras and locations. It is this moral superiority, in my view, that has caused so much conflict in our history.
The Jihadists who planted the recent car bombs are convinced that their morals are superior to yours and mine, whilst we denounce them as evil (therefore completely devoid of morals).
If you have heard this one before please let me know.
NDE summary part 1:
I find that I will probably need to read the book again to make sure that I am reporting the findings accurately. This is just a quick outline.
The study was carried out at Southampton University Hospital over a number of years from 1987.
The first stage was agreeing a measurement system, which seems to be a refinement of the Ring and Greyson scales - I will explain later. Also, an agreed definition for what 'Near death' meant. Strangely, this had never been articulated in previous studies.
The second stage was to examine possible causes and three were examined: 'The dying brain (lack of oxygen, carbon dioxide, or some such, creating hallucinations),' 'Psychology (a sub-conscious defence mechanism)', and 'Transcendental experience (that the soul really does float above the body).'
The next stage was to carry out the experiment and report the findings. My memory of the book is that the study, rather disappointingly, ran out of funds before it was completed but that there were some useful emerging data before this happened.
I will carry on reading and post the next exciting episode in the next day or so.
I have finished skipping through the Parnia book, which was easy because most of it comprises unsubstantiated anecdote. Here are the main bits:
- The study was never completed. - the sample size was only 60, of which 4 (6%)remembered a NDE. - Other research was quoted,including Greyson's study of 1,500 cases in the States. There about 10% remembered experiencing NDE. The most any study has unearthed from a reasonable sample size is 23%.
- Lack of oxygen/carbon dioxide to the brain is unlikely to be the cause.
- Religious beliefs varied from atheism, through scepticism and mild belief to strong faith. NDEs did not favour one group over another, although interpretation did. For example, a Christian claimed to have seen Jesus.
- The rest of the book was taken up with discussing the mind/brain conundrum and what role quantum mechanics and brain-made chemicals such as endorphins might play. No firm, or even provisional, conclusions. At the end Parnia seemed to be in a rush to finish the book and start his new job in the States.
He and others have set up a charitable organisation to carry on the research. It doesn't seem to add much to the book but try it for yourselves: www.horizon-research.co.uk
Out of body experiences were too vague and scarce to draw any conclusions. This was the whole purpose of the experiment at Southampton - to ascertain whether out of body experiences are illusions or genuine.
van Lommel published a prospective study into NDE's in the Lancet . It was a controversial but well executed study as I remember . The link doesn't go to that paper , but it might be interesting reading nonetheless .
re David Rohl: My field is, broadly, British archaeology, so my knowledge of ancient Egyptian and middle eastern chronology is fairly superficial. Nor have I read Rohl's book, although I did see the TV series in which he presented his theories a while back, and i have read various summaries and discussions of them.
It seems that the revised chronology which he proposes has not been accepted by the majority of Egyptologists, for various reasons. For some of the arguments pro and con see:
http://www.bga.nl/en/discussion/
Egyptian dynastic chronology, based on King lists and records of regnal years, with records of astronomical observations providing a few supposedly fixed points and the gaps filled in by dead reckoning, has, give or take a few fairly minor adjustments, been established for about a century, so it is perhaps understandable that people are reluctant to reconsider some of the basic assumptions. The arguments concerning the adjustments to the chronology of the Third Intermediate Period and the 21st and 22nd Dynasties seem to be equally balanced on either side: the main problem seems to be the knock-on effect the 'new' chronology would have on the Hittite, Assyrian and Babylonian chronologies which are interlinked with the Egyptian, and on interpretation of the archaeology of the near east. For example: there is surviving diplomatic correspondence between Ramesses II (19th Dynasty) and a Hittite king Hattusislis, one of whose daughters he married, and a letter from Hattusilis to an Assyrian king named Tukulti-nunurta, in which he refers to correspondence between his nephew Mursillis II and another king named Salmanesser. There were several Assyrian kings with these names, and the identification in this case is of crucial importance.
According to Rohl's chronology, the dates for Ramesses II are 932-866 BCE (conventional dates 1279-1239 BCE). The Assyrian system of dating was by reference to senior officials who each held office for one year and whose names were recorded in the so-called limmi lists. These lists are complete from 911 BCE onwards, so for that period the dates are regarded as secure. The lists before that date are fragmentary, leaving some room for adjustment. Rohl and his supporters argue that the Assyrian kings with whom Hatusillis and Mursillis II corresponded were Tukulti-ninurta II (890-882) and Salmanesser III (858-821), but the internal evidence of the letters excavated in the archive excavated at Assur indicates that they were in fact Salmanesser I (c.1273-1244) and his son Tukulti-nunurta I (c.1243-1207), which would mean that the conventional dates for Ramesses II are correct.
One other effect of Rohl's chronology and his identification of Ramesses II as the Shishak of the Bible, rather than Shoshenq I, is to bring forward the date of the Late Bronze Age/Iron Age transition in the region, This would place David, Solomon and Rehoboam in the Late Bronze Age, and the archaeologists are not happy with this at all, since the biblical account had Saul and David fighting the Philistines, and the artefacts identified as typical of the Philistines occur only in Iron Age contexts. This is not necessarily an insuperable problem in itself, since the material culture of the earliest Philistines might have been indistinguishable from that of the Canaanites already established in the region, but there also appears to be documentary evidence. An Egyptian official who was in Byblos in the 23rd year of a Pharaoh identified as Ramesses XI (1075 BCE according to conventional dating; c.807 BCE according to Rohl's chronology), reported that the city of Dor was then occupied by the Tjeker (Sea Peoples) - the predecessors of the Philistines. But Dor was captured by David from the Phoenicians who occupied it after the Tjeker, and David's dates, based on biblical chronology, which is accepted by Rohl and essential to his argument, are 1011-971 BCE.
As things stand, it looks as if either the whole methodology of dating from king lists and limmi lists is seriously flawed, or Rohl is on very shaky ground. A good series of C14 dates or, better still, dates established by dendrochronology might resolve the matter, but I get the impression that Egyptologists, Assyriologists and others working in the region have not done much in this line as yet.
The Agnostics' Arms sound fun, just so long as they don't serve lager brewed in Copenhagen!
Here's a few snippets from the Raymond Moody book: - no two experiences were precisely identical - they share common elements from the list below, though not all accounts have all the elements - feelings of peace and quiet, "buzzing" noise, dark tunnel, out of body experience, meeting others, the being of light, the life review, the border or limit, coming back - the being of light was interpreted as Christ by most Christians, and as an angel by two Jewish subjects, and as simply a "being of light" by others - those whose NDE was due to a suicide attempt had unpleasant experiences
Moody admits he has no cross-cultural cases and acknowledges that his study is not scientific because the group of people interviewed was not a random sample of human beings.
Many thanks. It seems that the chronology is unresolved as yet. I note the objections to Rohl's revised chronology but what of his objections to the standard version, I wonder, such as the etymological derivation of Shishak, which he states is nothing to do with Shoshenk and much more likely to be Ramesses II; and the fact that nothing was going on in early Iron Age Palestine but lots was happening in the Late Bronze Age and thus much more likely to be the time of David and Solomon. His book (well worth a read) tries to expose the standard chronology as being based on flimsy evidence and early so-called 'Anchors' that have never been seriously challenged.
Biskieboo:
Thanks for the reference. It seems, from what I can gather, that there is very little sound research into this phenomenon. I remember reading something by Robert Graves 30 years ago stating that the very last moment of the brain's life will determine our fate because that thought will, perforce, last forever. So, if one has an easy conscience it will be a pleasant future; the alternative might be quite so pleasant. I cannot remember what evidence he produced to support this view.
Oh yes, I nearly forgot - only real ale in the Arms. How real is real, though? We cannot, of course, be certain but Heisenberg (our patron) prefers it to lager.
I picked up a copy of A Test of Time yesterday morning, although I haven't yet had time to do more than dip into it to check one or two points. I have, however, been looking a bit more into the question of the dating of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age on biblical sites, and the results of recent excavations seem to undermine Rohl's hypothesis pretty conclusively.
In particular, Dr Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University is directing extensive excavations at Megiddo, the site of the Late Bronze Age palace which Rohl associates with Solomon. The palace and the treasures which it contained were originally discovered during excavation conducted between 1925 and 1939 by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Twenty major levels (strata) of occupation were identified on the site, the palace being in Stratum VII, counting from the topmost (i.e. latest) level. The end of this phase was marked by the burning of the palace and an associated structure identified as a temple, and was divided by a layer of debris from Stratum VI above it. Stratum VI contained the first iron tools and was assigned to the Early Iron Age (I.A. 1), although the pottery and other material from it was little different from that in Stratum VII, suggesting cultural continuity. Whereas the earlier excavations concentrated on the major, important buildings, Finkelstein and his associates have also been examining outlying areas, and have established that, although the Late Bronze Age structures appear everywhere to have been temporarily abandoned and left in ruins, the burning did not extend over the whole city. In the overlying Stratum VI the buildings, some of which were substantial, followed the same layout and covered the same area (i.e. there was no reduction in the size of the city.) This city was destroyed in a major conflagration, and Stratum VI is separated from the later Strata V and IV by a deep layer of burnt rubble. Strata V and IV, which contain the remains of imposing buildings, including the complex generally known as the Stables (although the function is debatable - they could have been palace store rooms) are the levels which have, until recently, been assigned to the Solomonic and immediately post Solomonic periods.
In assigning the palace of Stratum VII to the Solomonic period and dating it prior to Ramesses II Rohl appears to have overlooked two important bits of evidence. One is the plinth of a statue of Ramesses III which the excavators claimed was associated with the palace, and a miniature pen holder marked with the cartouche of Ramesses III which was in one of the caches of treasure in the palace. Pre-war excavation methods were crude by modern standards and, if the statue plinth was not firmly in situ (I don't know the stratigraphic details) it is conceivable that it might have been, for example, in a later pit dug into the palace layers but not observed by the excavators, but the evidence of the pen holder with the cartouche seems conclusive. Ramesses III lived about 30 years after Ramesses II and, in Rohl's chronology, about 60 years after the date at which Shishak attacked Megiddo, so Rohl's identification of Ramesses II as Shishak seems to be ruled out. A series of carbon samples from the recent excavations of Stratum VII have been sent for dating, and the results are pending.
A large number of samples from Strata VI and V/IV have also been dated. Samples from timbers can give a result significantly older than the date of deposition, especially if the sample is from heartwood, but when the results from numerous samples of charred grain from the two levels, calibrated at 1 sigma, were analysed statistically, those from Stratum VI provided a date within the range 1025-925 BCE, and those from Stratum VA/IVB dates within the range 900-805 BCE Dates from the equivalent levels of other sites at Hazor, Resh Zayr, Rehov, Dor and Aphek were within a similar range, between 890-790 BCE. Depending on how the dates are calibrated, a chronology older by around 70-100 years is possible, but the younger chronology is statistically the more probable,
On this basis, it is Stratum VI at Megiddo which equates with the biblical dates for Solomon, placing him in the period designated Iron Age I, rather than Iron Age II as thought previously. The destruction level capping Stratum VI could then be identified, at least tentatively, as the result of the attack by Shishak c.926 BCE.
I note that Rohl discounts the evidence of C14 dates entirely, on the grounds that dates for the New Kingdom came out about 300 years too early and he regards the dendrochronology used to construct the calibration curve as unreliable, but his arguments suggest that he does not fully understand the techniques in question. From what I can gather, the suspect dates were from only a few isolated samples which may have been excavated many years previously, some possibly from large timbers and others possibly not stratigraphically secure. Dates from samples from the Old and Middle Kingdoms, obtained under more strictly controlled conditions and assayed by modern, high precision techniques, have tended to be broadly consistent with the conventional dating.
As you say, it looks like curtains for Rohl's hypothesis.
What do you say to his etymological point about Shishak and Ramesses? Also, do the revised dates that you have suggested tie in with Shoshenk as the likely destroyer of Megiddo?
I look forward to your review of the book.
BTW, what is your specialist period? I studied Neolithic Britain to a fairly superficial degree many years ago. I am less secure on the Celtic period and know almost nothing about Roman Britain.
I picked up the story again from early Anglo-Saxon times.
Boltonian - some v interesting issues on the Paul Vallely(?) CiF thread. Perhaps this is a better forum to reflect upon them.
I am particularly interested in two things raised by you among others. First, is how we are to understand human communication/language. As I said on the thread, there are undoubtedly interesting affinities with the communicative schemes of other animals. For instance - I speculate but it seems plausible - when we see someone we know and say hello/hi/how you doing etc, it's not so much the propositional content of these phrases as their use to signal, say, a welcoming recognition. Perhaps bonobos and whichever animals do similar kinds of things. At the same time - and our ignorance of communicative schemes, particularly of complex marine creatures like dolphins notwithstanding - our ability to formulate abstract thought seems quite particular. I am inclined to say that it is a difference of kind rather than degree. For instance, we can speak and think (and act) in terms of conditionals, or counter factuals etc. Wonder what the word on the (boltonianblogspot) street is.
Second, wrt our ability to interpret and engage with the words and actions of others. I agree - as I said - that our experiences as subjects are incommunicable. At the same time, however, I am not convinced that we are wholly incapable of reasonably understanding others, with differing degrees of accuracy, of course. I wonder - again I speculate - the communal nature of our language(s) sits uneasily alongside a presentation of humans as atomised islands. (I wonder, on a sidenote, how we are to understand Descartes' most famous passages when we bear in mind how public, non-individual language is).
As a final little bit of food for thought. It's interesting that medieval (scholastic) philosophers had no qualms about writing of humans as animals: people like Aquinas could do so without flinching. (Of course, there is that old image of man being between animals and the angels. More importantly, the idea of the imago Dei is - whatever one thinks of the Deus bit - undoubtedly fascinating).
And apologies for using "I wonder" so many times. At best, I'd like to think that it reflects an inquiring nature etc. More likely, however, it was just plain irritating.
ChooChoo - Though I haven't posted on it, I've enjoyed your discussions on the Vallely thread immensely.
An interesting article in the current issue of New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19526111.700-why-we-are-all-creatures-of-habit.html
Basically it argues that we are far less rational and consciously in control of our actions and more like other animals in our decision making than we think. The conditionals and counter-factuals - at least where it influences behaviour - come after the decision has been made to act in a particular way.
Clearly everything we see around us is how it is because of humans' capacity in abstract thought and how this has impacted on our historical trajectory as a species. I wonder though. When we attribute awareness - self or otherwise - as a key component of consciousness, how many people are aware of this trajectory that has shaped what it currently means to be human?
Re-reading that last paragraph I'm worried that it may sound awfully arrogant, and I honestly don't mean it to be. I guess what I'm trying to say, in a round about way, is that if abstract thought is indeed a difference in kind of communication rather than degrees - I am open to the idea but unconvinced; perhaps it is more a form of communication to ourselves? - then maybe we overestimate its importance a defining characteristic of our species.
Boltonian - Sorry for not responding earlier to your question of what I've been reading. I enjoyed Paul Davies' article on CiF and also in New Scientist so much that I am currently reading the Goldilocks Enigma. I shall let you know what I thoughts the further in I get, but so far I'm enjoying it.
SpaceP's link to van Lommel's NDE study was also fascinating and induced me to start thinking about them a bit more seriously. Previously I had associated NDEs predominantly with oxygen deprivations to the brain, but clearly this now seems like an insufficient explanation given people's experiences of them.
I did an archive search in New Scientist on the subject and found this piece: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19225731.300-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel.html, about a study attributing NDEs to "REM intrusion" and linking it with narcolepsy. It struck me as a somewhat contrived explanation, and it seems the study is methodologically far from ideal.
It seems to me that if nothing else, NDEs a new model for consciousness is needed less mechanistic than the prevailing bioligical one. Don't ask me what I mean by that, suffice to say I really need to follow up SaraB's recommendation of reading up about Pribham's work.
Just saw ACG's second thread in two days over at CiF. Find it amusing that someone who crouches his criticism of religion in such hyperbole, undermining whatever salient points he might have, can be so sensitive to criticism.
Think I'll stay well clear of that one. One thing though that occurred to me today about those who would put religion and science in opposition to each other: I grew up an atheist and had no great interest in science, but as soon as I started becoming more "spiritual" (still don't like using the word), so my interest in science grew also. Go figure that one out.
Well, TGD had to go back to the library with the last tape unlistened to due to lack of time. I didn't fancy paying another £1.80 to hear the last chapter, especially as the paperback is only £3.99 on Amazon. There was, eventually, some discussion of Islamic belief. No doubt thrown in to try to balance the anti-Christian flavour of the book. I don't find Dawkins' view that moderate religious beliefs encourage fundamentalist ones at all convincing. I understand entirely his worries about American Christian fundamentalism, but I really do not appreciate being tarred with the same brush as my own views are so disimilar. He brings things into the debate that practically every sane person on the planet (religious or not) would agree was wrong, and then holds up his hands and says "well, that's what religion does!". The stangest example of this was a long discussion of a case where a child was taken from his Jewish parents by Catholics and subsequently brought up as a Catholic because a Catholic servant girl had secretly baptised him when he was ill, fearing he would go to hell otherwise. This did not happen any time recently, I hasten to add. Now, call me mad, but would Dawkins really find anyone who today would say "Yes, that was exactly the right thing to have done!"? I very much doubt it. I don't know why some people insist on living in the past. The past is in the past, we can't change it, all we can do is learn from it and act in the present.
By the way, the whole of the New Testament was dismissed in the blink of an eye by the explanantion (?) that whenever Jesus spoke about "thy neighbour", what he actually meant was "only your Jewish neighbour". Dawkins clearly wasn't paying attention to the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Sorry you didn't make it to the end of TGD but you have given me sufficient info to relegate it to the must read later (much later) category :-).
I will be very interested in your next venture. I have read a couple of Rees's books and I find them well written and thought provoking - not that I always agree with his conclusions.
I'm assuming that it's a-ok to give running recommendations (or, if appropriate denunciations) of recently read books...If not, apologies for what follows.
Thanks, first off, for recommendations of Goldilock's Enigma - will borrow it from my place of work when next in. (Biskieboo - with you on TGD - I must admit to finding it a bit tiresome (and thus it lies unfinished), and as I've said many a time on CiF - though more diplomatically - the chapters on ethics and trad arguments elicit responses that border on the physically painful and make good headway into the land of the mentally disheartening).
Recently read a book called Scientism:Science, Ethics and Religion by Mikael Stenmark (it's published by the hideously overpricing Ashgate, so it's strictly borrowing material). Relatively interesting (and critical) discussion of various claims (epistemological, anthropological, ethical, and - my fave - metaphysical) made by scientists like Wilson, Dawkins, Ruse etc. Good read, though it's a shame that he doesn't look at philosophers who propose similar ideas (there is an interesting website by someone called - pseudonymously, I assume - Bede, whose author is, ultimately, in diametric opposition to Dennett, but clearly and rightly admires his interesting ideas).
Another recent fave are the short stories penned by the "Hillbilly Thomist" (Flannery O'Connor) - heartily recommend, esp if you are partial to the 'groteque' denouement. For some reason - not sure if people will agree - my brief forays into works by writers from the American South have all been most rewarding. From the same stable, Walker Percy's The Moviegoer is a little gem of a book.
Finally, am plodding through a book called Footbridge to the Other, on the philosophical anthropology of Karol Wotyla (who would go on to become John Paul II). It's interesting - and possibly relevant to the issues raised here and on CiF - though allow me a bit more long-windedness in giving a background. Basically, Wotyla was a philosopher. He learned at the so-called 'Lublin school', which was heavily influenced by the inception of phenomenology at the turn of the century. (The reason I have started it is to get more of the flavour of phenomenology). The Lublin group (incl Wotyla) at the same time were metaphysical realists. So the book shows an interesting concern with both accepting both, for want of a better word, the substantiality of persons alongside a sensitivity to our incommunicable subjectivity. There is lots of interesting stuff on (and risking sounding satirical when I'm not trying to be) I's and Thou's.
The reason it may be of particular interest is the emphasis laid by Wotyla - and he was not unusual in this - on how we come to understand ourselves better or more fully in the other when the other is recognised as another 'I' with her own incommunicability.
One problem I have with phenomenology - a problem in me as opposed to the methodology developed by Husserl et al - is that it often feels like trying to understand something when one is pressed up right next to it. At the same time, I have inklings - after rereading following initial incomprehension - that there is much of interest.
Ok, have gone on for way too long. Finally, I hope this does not seem a bit pompous - it's not like I have read the above just in the last day or two.
PS - apologies for giving you the 'I wonder'. I'll strike the bugger I caught it off in the first place if ever I lay hands on him...
Boltonian - hope you get well soon. (I was only joking about giving you the 'I wonder' bug...)
Daddy0Marcos - v interesting thoughts. (Unfortunately, the N-S article requires subscription, but I think I get the gist from the opening and your summary). I dare say a large part of what we do is instinctual. I guess we both agree or admit to a certain poverty of knowledge in this area and, while remaining open, I edge more towards difference in kind and you to difference in degree in terms of human communicative/interpretative schemes.
"The conditionals and counter-factuals - at least where it influences behaviour - come after the decision has been made to act in a particular way."
Again, perhaps it's often true that we engage in such conditionals etc after the fact. (This is not always true, I would argue). But, there is a possible tension here: does complex reflective thought - on conditionals, for example, with a view to practical reasoning - occur distinct from 'behaviour'? Or isn't this as much human 'behaviour' as anything else? It's the fact of engaging in conditionals etc which I find interesting in this regard: to separate this out from 'behaviour' (and positing - not unreasonably - that 'behaviour' is instinctual) risks overlooking the abstract thought itself - is this instinctual? (Is modal logic or social historiography etc 'instinctual'?)
It is difficult, to my mind, to account for this in terms of reaction to environment (=cause by environmental factors?) insofar as an important propellant in such action (and it is action even if most of it is silent and mental) is what is (perceived and argued to be) true; this does not readily or obviously translate into efficient causation.
Your paragraph certainly did not come across as arrogant. (This will sound like treacle, but I can't imagine you writing a paragraph that really did). I wholeheartedly agree with your implication - if this is what you're getting at - that most people are not "aware of this trajectory that has shaped what it currently means to be human".
I'm not entirely clear on your last point(s) though I'm sure this is more to do with me than with you. When you suggest that abstract thought might be, ultimately, "communication to ourselves", do you mean we communicating among ourselves (in which case, I can go along with you) or we, individually, each communicating to him/herself (in which case I have qualms)?
There is another imp q you raise which is that even if we agree upon a difference in kind type argument, do "we overestimate its importance a defining characteristic of our species"?
Not sure, but I can come up with some fumblings about this. Assuming for a minute that there is this difference in kind (when it comes to capacities for thought etc), I think the hackneyed notion of man being between the angels and beasts may be of some (limited) use. This is not to deny our animality. Aristotle, for example, in his theory of souls, argues that humans have a 'rational soul' which embraces the capacities of other animals (which have 'sensitive souls') while also entailing more. (We need not get too bogged down in particulars on this - and I hope the word 'soul' does not scare anyone off. We tend to think - perhaps post-Descartes? - of 'soul' as a distinct, reified 'thing', while for Aristotle/Aquinas et al, the soul is the 'form' of the body, it is not a reified thing but rather like a principle of organisation).
In sum, we have these capacities (again - forgive me for speculating while assuming for an answer to the question above) but won't use it all of the time. The questions are: is there something distinctive insofar as we have this capacity (however much or little we use it); and ought we to cultivate it, does it pertain to our 'nature' to cultivate it?
Please forgive the question-begging in the name of (clumsy) inquiry.
On a tangent - though one that may be of some interest - I remember being told about Maximilian Kolbe by a friend some time back and being struck. (The wikipedia entry gives a decent enough summary - go down to the Auschwitz bit).
In sum, the thing I am interested in is his giving up of his own life for a stranger.
To summarise: at Auschwitz, there was some sort of rule that if a prisoner escapes, ten will be killed. A prisoner had 'escaped' (but, ironically, was later found dead in a latrine). Ten men were selected. One of them instinctively started crying out something about his wife and children. So, Kolbe stepped forward and volunteered himself instead. (There are accounts of his cheerful death by execution after starvation hadn't killed him after a week or two, which may be of interest). In what must have been the horror, the petty (but totally understandable) selfishnesses that accounts of Auschwitz (or for that matter the Gulag Archipelago) provide, this act stands out. And as far as I can see, it does reflect - almost ineffably - something distinctive about human animals (as, of course, the very existence of these camps also do).
Hope that by the time you come to read this you will be feeling better.
Now to interrupt an interesting discussion by referring back to the questions you posed earlier.
In the matter of the etymology of Shishak/Ramesses I am not qualified to judge. Rohl's argument looks plausible, but if the chronology based on the regnal years of the kings in the biblical narrative can be relied upon, his identification of Ramasses II as Shishak cannot possibly be correct. In the stratigraphic sequence at Megiddo, the destruction of the palace in Stratum VII provides a terminus ante quem for Ramesses III, and the C14 dates suggest that the destruction of the succeeding phase of occupation in the city (Stratum VI) took place some time in the mid to late 10th century BCE (the samples used being grain presumed to have been charred in the destruction). It will be interesting to see the C14 dates for Stratum VII when they are published, but they could well support the conventional dates for Ramesses III (1183-1152 BCE), assuming that the statue plinth and the model pen case bearing his cartouche date from some time before the destruction of the palace with which they are associated, and that Stratum VI represents a span of 100-150 years. This still does not mean, of course, that the identification of Shishak with Shoshenq I is necessarily correct, although it looks the most likely option. The dating of Shoshenq I is based on the date for Shishak according to the biblical chronology but, failing that, the evidence for the dates for the 22nd Dynasty to which he belonged is somewhat shaky.
The question remains as to how much trust can be placed in the historical narrative in the books of Judges, Kings and Chronicles, and the chronology which is derived from that narrative. Finkelstein discusses this in 'The Bible Unearthed:Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts' by Israel Finkelstein & Neil Silberman (paperback edition Touchstone Books, New York, 2002 ISBN 0684869136). I have not read it (yet), but there is a fairly lengthy synopsis in Wikipedia, and another at http://www.theosophical.org.uk/Biblunsd.htm. He argues that although David and Solomon almost certainly existed (a 9th century BCE inscription from Tel Dan refers to 'the House of David'), there never was a united monarchy or a Solomonic 'golden age', and that until its destruction in the 8th century BCE, the northern kingdom of Israel was far richer, more powerful and populous than the kindom of Judah. In his view, anachronisms in the biblical narrative point to it having been constructed in the 7th century BCE as a kind of political and religious manifesto, drawing no doubt on various historical and folk traditions. It exaggerated and 'spun' the importance of the kingdom of Judah and its royal dynasty in order to enhance their status and to justify a claim to the lands of Israel once the northern kingdom had ceased to exist.
The chronology may nevertheless be reasonably reliable, since it is quite probable that king lists and regnal years were preserved in oral or written form. Independent evidence exists for the dating of at least two kings of Israel in the Assyrian record - Ahab who died in the battle of Qarqar 853 BCE, and Jehu, who is depicted on the Black Obelisk of Salmanesser III, together with a record of the tribute he brought to that king c.841 BCE.
You asked also what is my specialist period. As far as possible I have always tried to avoid becoming too narrow a specialist, although to some extent it is inevitable, I suppose. Instead my focus has tended to shift from time to time over quite a wide area (symptom of a butterfly mind, perhaps?). My first degree was in British and European prehistory (U of Edinburgh), and for my doctoral thesis I researched aspects of Late Neolithic/Bronze Age domestic sites in Britain. At the same time, though, I was spending my summers working as a supervisor on the excavation of the Saxon Old Minster in Winchester. After that I spent a good many years in jobs which required me to specialise in Neolithic and Bronze Age prehistory, with regular 'busman's holidays' assisting in the excavation of a Saxon/Viking site at Repton. Then I got a job as what can best be described as a 'specialist generalist' (i.e. I was required to have a working knowledge of everything from the Neolithic period onwards, up to and including Cold War nuclear installations - although I could never summon up much enthusiasm for the military sites). In the process I became particularly interested in the archaeology of late medieval and post-medieval gardens, medieval settlement sites, and landscape archaeology in general, and my most recent project has been to research one medieval township, using the archaeological remains (mainly earthworks) and an unusually complete and detailed late 15th century survey, together with other documentary sources, to reconstruct a map of the medieval village and its field system, and to analyse changes in the pattern of tenure from the 14th century to the mid 17th century.
@ daddy0marcos & boltonian : apologies for not replying to your good points yesterday. My computer got a demon, and although it has been to the exorcist today, it's still not right....it's returning for further holy software treatment tomorrow....is it only us heathens who get smitten in this way?
Anyhow, *if* this post succeeds (and please can someone post & say if they can read it) I'll try with a substantive reply later. If not, I'll beg boltonian's indulgence to post a fuller reply on his blog in a few days....you have no idea how frustrating it is to (at last!) see a decent pair of atheism/theism threads, and be excommunicated....the next button I click could be the last for this atheist ex machina....here goes....click
PS I tried to post the above on Vallely's CiF thread, but no go....I'm trying now on boltonian's blog....if *this* succeeds, maybe one of you can post on Vallely's & Grayling's on CiF and apologise for my absence....ego, I know, but hey....
Funny, it worked here, but not on CiF. Apologies, boltonian, for using you as a test site. Now, give 'em hell from me over there....will return substantively when exorcised....
Thank you for your best wishes. I am feeling much better this morning but I am now miles behind with everything, so I will need to comment bit by bit, if that's ok.
Steve:
No problem about using this as a test - I hope you are up and running again on CiF. I will not be able to post anything there for a day or two and the interesting threads will have closed by then.
If anybody there wishes to carry on here please invite them. I am thinking in particular of CommanderKeen and bitbutter.
ChooChoo:
I am aware that I owe you a response from CiF as well as here. I wonder if you could paste the relevant post on consciousness from the Vallely thread here.
daddyOmarcos:
I do not see spiritual feelings as opposite to science. What you witness on CiF is tribalism. Also, the format tends to encourage gross over simplification of complex concepts. Will expand later.
E:
Many thanks for your exposition of Rohl's thesis. I think I will buy the Finkelstein book - it sounds interesting.
You have had a very interesting career by the sound of it. I think, if you don't mind, that I will pick your brains from time to time - many of those periods are of interest to me. One subject I keep meaning to research is the plague villages of England, of which, I imagine, you know lots.
To those involved in the Godel discussion on CiF:
I was fascinated but didn't understand much of it. Could one of you try to explain to a non-mathematician Godel's main thesis in this area.
Glad you're feeling better. You're right about the tribalism. Have enjoyed longsword's posts on CiF a lot and hope he joins us here. Would like to know more about the Lakota Sioux.
ChooChoo -
Lots of very intersting stuff to get stuck into in your post. I will try and post a reply soon, but for the last few days have been procrastinating over an article I am supposed to be writing to the point I am now in mortal terror that my editor is about to smash through the window and start shaking me by my neck until I come up with it.
I'm always late! I've always enjoyed your posts on Cif so first of all, thanks for creating this blog; Looks like it is THE blog-club for the cream of CiF metaphysics enthusiasts to discuss.
Click*add*to*favorites*
I'll be back and hope to be able to contribute to some extent. Best Regards,
Welcome aboard. The feeling is mutual and I look forward to your contributions.
Yes, I think we have some pretty hefty brainpower here but more importantly we can discuss issues at some length and without the feeling of having to defend a particular position.
BTW you don't just need to join in an existing discussion - if anything grabs your fancy from CiF, or anywhere else, just post something and somebody will respond, even it's me asking idiot questions.
daddyOmarcos:
Thanks and I completely agree with you about longsword. When you next bump into him please invite him over.
Current reading. I am miles behind as usual. I was plodding along quite nicely with Taleb's 'Black Swan,' Karen Armstrong's, 'The Great Transformation,' and dipping in and out of Stephen Jay Gould's 'Richness of Life,' when somebody on CiF recommended 'A Different Universe,' by the theoretical physicist Robert Laughlin. I have abandoned everything else in favour of this one.
I will give a view when I have finished it but the general thesis is anti-reductionist. He believes that what we see is the result of nature's emergent organisation and a reductionist approach will completely miss the wood and not give us even a very accurate description of the tree.
Has anybody read it? Spacepenguin, perhaps?
The next one on the list (unless I get diverted again) is a collection of selected Existentialist writings.
E: it has occurred to me that you must know Julian Richards of TV's 'Meet the Ancestors' fame. I think he specialises in British pre-history in his day job.
I just wanted to ask if anyone here have read "In search of the Miraculous" by P.D. Ouspensky. Book which I am currently reading. I have to say, so far I find this book fascinating and addictive. A very interesting take on cosmology and consciousness. I'd be happy to discuss some of the content with fellow posters. Have a great day,
You are welcome to pick my brain, such as it is. And yes, I know Julian Richards - he was a colleague of mine for a short period a few years back (very good at producing videos for presentations, so maybe he already had his eye on a career in TV). Haven't had any contact with him since, though.
By 'plague villages' I presume you mean deserted medieval villages although, with the possible exception of a very few small hamlets which were completely depopulated as a result of the Black Death, the plague was not the primary cause of their abandonment or even a major factor. The real reasons were complex, but mainly economic, and go back much further than the 14th century. The final blow for many, especially in eastern England, was a shift from agriculture to the more profitable sheep farming. This is not to say that the Black Death did not have important social consequences, because the resulting labour shortage placed the feudal landlords at a disadvantage in relation to their tenants, thus enabling a greater degree of social mobility and hastening the decline of the system of feudal tenure.
I have ordered the Finkelstein book, which I am told should arrive by the beginning of next week. I will let you know what I think of it in due course, though it should be good. Finkelstein is, I believe, one of the leading authorities on the archaeology of the near east in the Bronze Age and Iron Age periods, and things have evidently moved on a great deal since my rather sketchy introduction to the subject at university.
I bought the Karen Armstrong book several months ago, but have not yet got round to reading it. How far have you got with it? And what do you make of it so far? I gather that the starting point is Karl Jaspers' concept of the 'Axial Age'.
I have just looked at the Vallely thread on CiF but having been away for a couple of days it is rather overwhelming but I have invited Longsword to contribute here.
PG(if I may):
The book sounds v. interesting and right up this blog's street. Could you summarise for us when you have finished it.
E:
Yes, that is what I meant by plague villages. Your explanation is very interesting.
It chimes with a dead village in the Yorkshire Wolds (where there are lots), called Wharram Percy, that I visited some years ago. It took quite a long time to die and it finally gave up the ghost only recently (1950s I think). There even used to be a railway station there. Presumably this was partly caused by the change to sheep farming.
I look forward to your views on the Finkelstein book. This and the one recommended by PlasticGypsies will be added to my (growing) list.
Re- the Armstrong book. It is a bit heavy going at the moment and I confess to speeding through some of the denser passages. Yes the Axial age concept is core to her thesis.
I am up to 'Suffering' (600-530 BC), which is about half-way through.
PG : I've read ISOTM and Ouspensky's other books. Certainly they are more accessible than Gurdjieff's Beelzebub, which I failed to complete. Meetings with Remarkable Men is a good read, though.
The one thing that's stayed with me is the practice of self-observation.
Biskieboo : The moral dilemmas in TGD are quite interesting, because the data from internet questionnaires seem to point to a universal morality, which doesn't depend upon religious beliefs.
Boltonian : I'm a big fan of History of God, but have found Karen Armstrong's subsequent work of lesser value (eg. Buddha, Fundamentalism).
I take your point, but I don't think the studies were great because they were based on dilemmas that we are extremely unlikely to ever find ourselves in. And studies on *actual* behaviour would be far more valid. I would have liked to have seen moral dilemmas such as abortion and euthanasia discussed. Are there differences here in actual behaviour due to religious beliefs? I would hazard a guess that there were. We may all have a universal sense of moral behaviour, but what difference does that make if we don't act on it in the real world? Another question could have been "are those with religious beliefs more likely to give money to charity" or "....do voluntary work" or "....less likely to lie on their tax returns" or any other question where beliefs are relevant to the real choices that people make. Ethics and moral behaviour are integral to my reasons for being a faith-head, so I was sad to see such a light-weight job done of it.
Thanks for your book recommendations - please keep them coming.
I have just been reading the latest few posts on the Grayling thread and an uncharitable thought occurred - because Grayling does not have a spiritual bone in his body he assumes no one else does either. So, they must either be mistaken or lying.
I am sure neither of these is completely true but it set me thinking about the human condition. If you say to me that you have seen ghosts and I ask you to prove it; you might reply by saying that only certain people can access their world and clearly I am not one of them. Also, ghosts themselves are very sensitive and would not appear to order.
What do I think of this? that you are mistaken, deluded (to use a famous CiF word), mendacious (even though I would trust you with anything else), mad (with no other corroborating evidence), or completely sane and trustworthy.
What constitutes proof? Science is not very good at rationale. It is quite good at finding evidence and very good at testing it but not interpreting what that might mean.
So, how can we sift and make sense of others' experiences if they lie so far outside our own that they make no sense to us?
I will give you a mundane example. Many years ago my mother complained of stomach pains and the doctor merely prescribed indigestion medicine, which did not help. Every time she went to the doctor he just suggested another drug, none of which had any effect. My father was very unsympathetic and thought she had become a hypochondriac. Eventually, when the pain became unbearable, the doctor was persuaded to send her to the hospital for an examination, where a duodenal ulcer was found. Nobody in the family had had an ulcer and if one's stomach was upset one either put up with it or took indigestion relief. Why did my father assume my mother was making it all up? Because her ailment was completely outside his experience, whereas phantom illnesses were not. This still rankles with her now, even though my father has been dead for more than 20 years.
One thing I tried to explore earlier was the idea of scale. I used the example of a beetle - it would comprehend (although we cannot know what that means for a beetle) things a bit larger and a bit smaller than itself but it would be unlikely to be able to perceive a human being, except perhaps how we might feel the arrival of an earthquake.
Our technology has allowed us to stretch our boundaries, as it were, to encompass the observable universe and sub-atomic particles but nothing beyond those extremes. Why do we suppose that we are nearing the limit of what there is? I used the example of Carl Sagan, who said that if we could break open an electron (a fundamental particle)we would find a multiplicity of universes.
Also, we are severely limited by our sensory and intellectual equipment, so we are having problems understanding what Dark Matter and Dark Energy are, and these two account for something like 96% of the make-up of the universe.
Just a thought on morals, bitbutter on CiF referenced something from Stephen Pinker that we are becoming less violent as a species. What do you think?
The link is: www.edge.org/3rd_culture/ pinker07/pinker07_index.html
I don't know what happened. Ulrich Beck had an article on CiF that spoke directly to my principle concerns. It disappeared after 18 comments. I've searched the Guardian website for it, but its not to be found. Just disappeared. So, I decided to pop over here.
But the prospect of going through 287 comments so as not to be redundant is a little intimidating. Anyway, I'll do my best to contribute something meaningful (and not redundant) to the discussion.
Have you come across 'The Lost Villages of England' by Maurice Beresford? If not, you might find it of interest. It was originally published in 1954 and so in some respects is a bit out of date, but it is still probably the most comprehensive work on the subject, and a revised edition published in 1998 has an introduction by Christopher Dyer which discusses some of the more recent research and the shifts in perspective which have resulted. Beresford, incidentally, conducted the first excavation on the site of Wharram Percy - work which was continued over many years by John Hurst, making it one of the principal type sites of a DMV. 'Wharram Percy: Deserted Medieval Village' by Beresford & Hurst (London 1990) gives details of the excavation results up to that date.
************
Some interesting points raised in your last post. I, too, have been struck by the apparent inability of Grayling (and like-minded commenters on his and similar threads) to comprehend that spiritual or religious ideas could be based on anything other than deliberately perpetuation of fictions or some form of mental derangement. Likewise, there seems to be a simplistic assumption on the part of some CiF posters that religions originated as nothing more than an attempt on the part of people in a pre-scientific society to explain natural phenomena, or as systems devised by cynical elites to keep the plebs in line, whereas I would argue that these were only a part (and probably a small and secondary part) of a much more complex process, which had at least as much to do with people's attempt to engage with the world (seen and unseen) and their own nature on a much more profound level.
Given our limited faculties, there seems to me to be nothing particularly irrational in positing that there could be levels of Reality which we cannot perceive directly or empirically, but which might be glimpsed intuitively or imaginatively in part. Perhaps theoretical physicists, approaching the conundrum from the other end, may eventually meet the mystics half way (?).
On the question of whether humanity as a species is becoming less violent, this is probably true, relatively speaking, although it would, I suspect, be a mistake to generalise too far. Reading the Pinker article, I was particularly taken with the views of Peter Singer which he cites, about the extension of empathy from the immediate kin group to larger social groups as society developed and became more complex over time. This chimes, in fact, with something I wrote here a while back). Early anthropological studies of tribal societies found a tendency to regard members of other groups as somehow less than fully human (often a tribe's name for themselves translated simply as 'the People), but historically, where increase in population meant that clans, tribes, nations or whatever had perforce to engage on a more intimate level with each other, it presumably became easier to identify with 'the other'. Also it would become more obvious that an 'always cooperate' strategy was generally more advantagious than 'always defect'. On the other hand, when nations engage in war, one of the first effects still seems to be the tendency to demonise or dehumanise 'the enemy' (see the attitudes attested in the accounts of US soldiers returning from tours of duty in Iraq, as reported in G2 today). Moreover, when it is possible, as now, for one person to kill hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands without ever seeing the people whose lives are extinguished, it is all too easy to eliminate any feelings of empathy. (Just as an aside, there is evidence that in some tribal societies in the past, warfare may have had a much more ritual aspect. In the Irish epic Tain Bo Cuailnge, which recounts the legends of an Iron Age society, and also in the Homeric legends, the warring groups are often depicted sending single, representative champions to decide a battle. Boudicca's followers, it is true, torched whole towns and slaughtered their inhabitants, but how far were they influenced by the example of the Roman methods of warfare they had witnessed).
As for falling murder rates (if the statistics are correct), does this indicate we are becoming more moral/less violent as a species, or is it simply that modern forensic techniques make it more difficult to get away with, and this act as a deterrent?
I am another CiF thread refugee (one who is familiar or was, years ago, with "G" and Uspenksii) -- presently occupied with far too many "work" related tasks to do much more than scan, quickly, but hoping to join in, eventually....
You are very welcome and I look forward to your contributions. I have much admired your posts on CiF.
I don't expect you to read all the posts before contributing. It is a free and easy site with a loose agenda. If any of the posts that you have read provokes a thought, a question or an opinion that would be great but please let us know anything that interests you or catches your eye from CiF or anywhere else. I have asked people what they are reading at the moment, or have read recently. I shall try to summarise each of the books that I finish in case it might be of interest.
I does not matter if the subject has been aired before as most would bear repetition and the active personnel here change from time to time. Much of what I have posted here is reiteration. It will be interesting to see how my views have modified in the light of these discussions over time.
E: Thanks for the Beresford recommendation.
I agree that the part religion plays in our development is highly complex. Some of it is certainly to do with the formation and imposition of a moral code. I have said this before a number of times but we have a deep need to construct complete pictures from scant evidence and myths help us to do this.
The huge pace of change in our knowledge that has occurred during the last few hundred years has been very unsettling for many people, I would guess. We still have that need, however. Just look at the number of books written by scientists attempting to interpret the data and come up with explanations. I am sure that in a couple of hundred years or so people will look back at our feeble attempts and think how primitive humanity once was.
Re-improving behaviour. I think we should be very careful about leaping to conclusions on recent data showing we have become less violent. You are right about the fact that the more interdependent we become, through trade etc, the less we would want to murder our neighbours. Matt Ridley, in 'The Origins of Virtue,' suggests that our default position (which has allowed us to survive as a species) is what he calls 'Generous.' This is a better survival mechanism than either 'Always defect' or 'Tit for tat' at the level of a certain population. 'Generous' says that if you insult me once I will regard it as a mistake if if you do it again I will kill you and all your family. So, the initial reaction is restraint but the penalties for further transgression are penal.
That does not, however, preclude the existence of 'Always defect' or 'Tit for tat.' There is still pre-emptive and retaliatory violence around but at the species level it is not the dominant behaviour, otherwise we would have murdered ourselves out of existence.
An example of this is the campaigns of Alexander the Great. Often he would spare the local conquered population and leave a small garrison behind but if the garrison were attacked he would return and massacre everyone in the town.
We are a tribal animal and have always been suspicious of strangers. Also, we are not very good at thinking at the level of fine detail, so we tend to generalise and categorise. CiF, for example, is very tribal - all atheists are x; all Christians are y; even innocent agnostics like me come in for comments based on some generalised pre-conceptions, rather than on what I have actually said.
I promised replies to Daddy0Marcos & boltonian to their comments on Vallely's CiF thread:
Daddy0Marcos : "However, I'm nevertheless going to ignore most of your points and focus in on one point in particular, which strikes at the heart of why I classify myself as an agnostic.
[steve]: "There are many things which *might* exist, but for which I cannot provide disproof of their existence. (Insert your own daft example here.) Nevertheless, I am justified in discounting their possibility since they're just so unlikely. And "god" comes within the scope of those extremely unlikely things, whether he be defined anthropomorphically, or spiritually a la Vallely."
My simple question is why you think a "spiritually" defined "god" is as unlikely as an anthropomorphic one? There are very good reasons for discounting an anthropomorphic god that I won't bother repeating here as they've been gone over ad infinitum. However, if we hypothesise that a "spiritual" god is, for example, some form of deeper universal consciousness, it would seem to me that our current scientific understanding of consciousness is so flaky that all bets are still on. Of course, that situation could plausibly change at some point in the future, in which case I will change my position.
Granted, there is no scientific reason for believing a "spiritual" god exists. However, there are good intuitive reasons for doing so, even if they are roundly dismissed by atheists simply for being "mystical".
My deepest apologies to Spacepenguin for possibly misrepresenting him by pulling a quote out of context, but I always love his posts and think that on the second Grayling thread the following point he makes is very pertinent:
"Surely when discussing something for which there is no empirical evidence for or against the most important matter is the motivation for belief . Unless you actually saw a pixie , what would motivate you to believe in the existence of pixies in the absence of someone telling you they exist ?"
To me, 50/50 seems to me a reasonable probality on the existence of a "spiritual" god. But even if the odds are, say, 5/1 against, this hardly falls into the Flying Spaghetti Monster category. What makes you think the odds are so significantly longer than that?"
My reply: It just seems so unlikely, despite your assertion....we have no real conclusive evidence for *any* supernatural phenomena; daily, I see a lack of evidence for a god of any sort....this lack of evidence (LOE) accumulates and, to me (and many others) becomes evidence of non-existence (EONE). Granted, there is a different threshhold for different people as to when LOE becomes EONE. But isn't there a point where *everyone* should become sceptical, lest they be credulous? As a PS, I suspect you don't really believe the odds are 5/1 against, otherwise you'd call yourself a believer, a la Pascal, rather than an agnostic....
And thanks, D0M, for copy'n'pasting my earlier piece here to Vallely's thread. Much appreciated.
boltonian : "Steve:
Re-the continuum - I would argue that we cannot know where most of these things lie along the continuum. Where do the following lie:
Let's take the last , which is being discussed seriously by many theoretical physicists, including Paul Davies. He thinks that if the many worlds hypothesis is true there are likely to be far more simulated worlds than real ones, thus increasing our chances of living in one. So,in his view (and others), it is further towards the likely than not likely end of the continuum. If this is so, who or what is doing the simulating? Where now sits the idea of God (or gods) for we would, if ever there was an encounter, find them indistinguishable from gods?
I just use this as a way of demonstrating how difficult it is to know where our state of knowledge actually lies. And this is only from conjecture already being discussed - there will be millions (billions?) of other possibilities that nobody has even thought of. My own view (today, at least) is that whatever the real world is like it is nothing like how we perceive it, nor, possibly, how we are capable of perceiving it. Why? Because everything come to us through our senses, mediated in the brain. Every creature on earth (including different human beings) see the world differently - and probably very differently. It would be a remarkable coincidence if our perceptive equipment were capable of seeing things as they really are."
Ah, well, you've cheated a little, by picking all the half-way houses ;-} although my personal view is that string theory is out since it's just so *daft*....multiverses too, I reckon....
And I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on the "perception" thing. I'm firmly of the opinion that you have to start somewhere, purely on practical grounds, and if we can't accept what seems to be reality as reality, then we'll never get anywhere. If every question becomes bogged down in a series of meta-questions, then we have no need for the word "answer"....I do realise, as in my reply to D0M above, that the point at which one defines "reality" may be arbitrary, but one can't defer this point indefinitely....I see this as a practical, and possibly "anti-philosophical", approach....
PS Thanks, boltonian, for being understanding above re my posting problems. We're still not out of the woods, although now I can strangely post on *some* CiF threads, but not others....I should be OK to reply over this w/e (14/7 & 15/7), but will then be MIA for a few days.
Boltonian... "I have just been reading the latest few posts on the Grayling thread and an uncharitable thought occurred - because Grayling does not have a spiritual bone in his body he assumes no one else does either. So, they must either be mistaken or lying."
It's unfortunate that the Grayling thread came to an end (snip!), because this is one of the issues I had wanted to address -- a serious flaw in Grayling's approach -- that his sanctified "facts" have the same ontological status as faery dust and pixies.
There is scarcely a "fact" that has survived historical scrutiny, for one good reason. Facts are mortal. They are images of truth and not the truth itself. And because facts are "made things" (that is, things made in the image of truth) they are subject to the law of the earth -- which is entropy. They become frayed at the edges, weaken, and eventually die.
This is one reason why authentic religion has never considered "facts" normal, in the sense of being the norm for conduct. Truth was the primary reality. "Facts" were but images of this primary reality, secondary abstractions from lived life, and therefore resembled idols. Truth, it was held, was eternal and immortal. Facts belonged to the saeculum and were consequently mortal. Aeternitas and saeculum, truth and fact, immortal and mortal, immensity and mensity belong together as a single constellation of meaning. So, of course, they speak past each other.
All reason does is struggle to re-present the primary truth, which is our experience of reality. Facts are always post hoc, the products of reflection. And there is a necessary time lag between the experience of some truth and our representation of this truth in the form of "facts". Mentation (which belongs to mensity) is honest only as long as it strives to be faithful to the truth. Sometimes (frequently) it fails. Often it is demonstrated to be incomplete, or a misinterpretation of experience. But facticity is always only re-presentational, whereas truth is the primary presence.
Grayling represents an orthodoxy of his own. He wants a privileged position for facts as opposed to pixies. But anyone with a knowledge of intellectual history knows, too, that "facts" have pretty much the same status, and few (if any) have survived the crucible of time. Here man, and not evolution, via his consciousness is the active principle of selection, and those who were weeded out by this "supernatural" principle of selection, and lost their share of history, were those who refused to give up their belief in the facts, or failed to discern and discriminate sufficiently between truth and fact, between primary and secondary orders of reality.
Those who claim the primacy and supremacy of the fact even wrong their own authorities. The sceptical method applies even most of all to our reason and its product -- the fact. But by confusing and conflating truth and fact, they also confuse two things which should also be not be confused -- lucidity and rationality, consciousness and mind.
It seems to me that your positioning of those things along the continuum (I agree that I did not include FSMs etc) is arbitrary and subjective. If I asked a string theorist, for example, he would give me a very different view. Likewise Leonard Susskind, who is not only a string theorist but a firm believer that the multiverse is a reality and not a metaphor or a possibility only.
If I took a straw poll here there would be a disparity of views based on very little more than gut feel.
Perception is interesting. Popper was notoriously dismissive of those who tried to understand reality. His view was that if we couldn't access the noumenal world (as Kant termed it) what was the point in even discussing it? Popper hated Plato, where many of these ideas came from, which might explain his irritation.
I happen to think it is an interesting topic but I have a difficulty when it comes to reconciling our perceptions with what is really out there (if anything). And the more I learn about physics (particularly quantum theory) the more unlikely the coincidence of perception and reality seems. There might, of course, be no such thing as objective reality.
longsword:
I agree with your thesis that there is a tendency to confuse fact with truth and that facts can and do change over time. They also change depending on the level of accuracy one requires. For example, 'This table is made of solid wood,' is sufficiently accurate for 99% of life but absolutely useless to a chemist examining its molecular structure or a particle physicist looking at the behaviour of individual atoms under different conditions.
But what is truth? Facts are objective and out in the world for anybody to use but truth is not. For me truth is subjective - a personal issue that might not apply to anybody else.
I have just finished listening to the 'Prom' from the Albert Hall. The final piece was Beethoven's Ninth symphony. However many times I hear it the sound of a full choir singing, 'Freude, schoner gotterfunken, tochter aus Elysium' reveals something to me that mere facts cannot. It is not the words but the music, or rather the combination, that creates the magic.
Even a line from a simple, beautifully sung English folk song can have a similar effect.
A poem, a painting, a sunset etc. These describe truths to me (but only some) and although they are outwardly available to anybody, nobody else (I surmise) will experience exactly what I do. A classical musician friend of mine hates all of Beethoven, for example, in much the same way as I cannot enjoy Wagner.
For others, that kind of spiritual connection comes to them through religion.
Here is an attempt to unravel the psychology of Grayling and his allies.
He hates religion for its past (and occasionally present) intolerance and persecution of those not subscribing to its doctrines. He thinks that this has held western society back for hundreds of years. He is a progressive, therefore religion has harmed him personally, for which he cannot forgive it.
He misses a number of things here. Therevada Buddhism is not a doctrinaire, or even a theist, religion. There is no punishment for apostasy or heresy. Yet the Christian, oppressive West led the way in scientific discovery and produced the Enlightement when South East Asia was still more or less an Iron Age culture.
Secondly, it is humanity that is tribal (not some abstract concept called religion)and which wishes to encourage, then persuade, and finally force its values on others. Organised religion is merely one vehicle for doing so. In Thailand, for example, it was the institution of an absolute monarchy, rather than religion that played that role.
Anyway, I would be very interested in your definition of truth. Do you have examples and does it connect us to reality, as Schopenhauer felt music did? And Kant morals, come to that.
I think that my view is that we cannot say and does it really matter? It is another dimension to our existence that is precious and not reducible.
For Olching Hope this does not interrupt another conversation! Allow me to attempt your questions... What is this god? Creator of Heaven and Earth. Being. The ground of our being. What makes one's god different from other gods I'm not sure they are - all talk of God is provisional. It might be that all of these are imperfect descriptions of the same reality.(or the absence thereof)? If I've understood this correctly it's a reference to atheism/agnosticism. There is truth, reality and reason in humanism in its struggle to resolve the problems of the here and now. How can Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, mystics etc all be considered equally right or legitimate? I think they're imperfect attempts to describe the Ultimate reality. As an undergraduate many years ago I read Juan Mascaro's translation of The Upanishads (published by Penguin)and was very moved by the way in which he was able to make comparisons with Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Islamic writings. It's far more eloquent than my incoherent ramblings. If so, what's the point of religion. This is a personal response - it contains a source of ancient wisdom. and how can an idea of a Christian, Muslim or other god(s) be maintained? At the risk of putting words into the mouths of others even a lot of zealots would balk at describing God as an adherent of their religion. "In the end, we know God as unknown" - not the words of a new age liberal but Thomas Aquinas. When God is described as Christian/Muslim/Jewish not as a way of describing these religions' views of God but as a way of describing God it is idolatrous.
Cheers - time for bed
PS Just in case you were wondering examples of atheists I admire include AJ Ayer, Peter Singer. I like the fact that they adopt unpopular positions because that's where the logic takes them - even though I obviously take different views.
boltonian - I was being somewhat facetious about the string theory/ multiverse ideas....but I wanted to say seriously, without giving examples, that most things are very likely or very unlikely. Tables, beer, teapots and beauty are very far from invisible tables, superfluid green beer, independently flying teapots and zwrelgty on the scale of likelihood. So you know what mean, and I know what you mean, by our various examples.
And don't you have a starting point for your musings? Surely you have to assume *something*, or have some axioms, otherwise (to parse), it's questions, questions all the way down.....I just feel there has to be some starting point (to which one can return later, and re-examine if necessary), otherwise the questions go on forever, with no point, and no *possibility* of answer. I frankly can't see the point of that. And what *we* see (hear, touch, detect, whatever) seems the best place to start. Otherwise, one *could* answer each of your posts about a different book you've read ; "how do you know that's what you read? Maybe you only *think* you read that....Are you sure you "remember" correctly? What do you mean by "read"? Maybe that book says something different *today*....Maybe I would see different words?" And then there'd be no point in discussing *your* perceptions of the book, we'd just get bogged down in the meta-questions....You see my point? We need to agree a reference point; and to say there can be no such thing means that it's futile to ask further questions....
boltonian... "But what is truth? Facts are objective and out in the world for anybody to use but truth is not. For me truth is subjective - a personal issue that might not apply to anybody else."
I would say that the inverse is the case. Facts are consensual percepts. Truth is wholly objective (although I use that term "objective" in the sense of not- being-dependent-for-its-reality-on our-perceptual-organic-organisation.).
Truth comes to us as a whole. Facts come to us piecemeal and second-hand, as the result of analysis (a word which has an interesting geneaology in itself). Truth is immediate. Facts are mediate. Truth is presence, while facts are re-presentation. Truth is the primary reality, while all facts are secondary abstractions from primary reality.
David Bohm once described primary reality as "wholeness in flowing movement". Of course, in even stating that he transformed the immediacy of truth into a symbolic form -- the statement of fact. This is the kind of subtelty that almost prevented both the Buddha and the Christ from speaking and teaching. Both, legend has it, experienced a moment of grand hesitation (as did the anonymous person otherwise known as Lao-Tze).
All statements of fact resort to the copula "is", in the form "life is such and such" or "love is such and such", etc. This is called the indicative form (ie, "pointing" or index form). As such, "fingers pointing at the moon," as the Buddhists say. But, before we can say what something "is" in that sense, we must first have passed through much experience in time before we can issue our "conclusions" in this form (and all conclusions are terminations, endings, definitions of an action or process which has ceased to be operative). The sequence is "Love!" (imperative form, dramatics), "May I love!" (subjective response, optative form, lyrics), "we have loved" (narrative form, historical, epics) and only when the action ceases can we say "love is..." (analytics, indicative form, Understanding stops action). Love is frozen into "fact". But before it was so frozen, it was experienced as a living and life shaping process. That is the nature of truth -- fact is the last stage in truth realisation, and not the first.
You ask for my "definition" of truth. Since definition means "to place limits upon", I can offer you none since truth comes to us as a whole before we participate it through the action of ratiocination and mentation, and to define truth in such a way is to reduce it to fact once again -- a particular, not the whole. The whole truth is in the phases I described. Truth, truce, trust are three aspects of one process ("the whole in flowing movement"), which the religious imagination could only represent symbolically in terms of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In the last stage (the fourth) as a "fact" the dynamic dies and is entombed. Any "conclusion" is an ending.
I really felt for Vallely. I know what he was trying to communicate. But he was trying to make concessions to Grayling's demand for the brute facts (Grayling's own fetishism), and in trying to accommodate, Vallely was being too generous to Grayling. Really, a book could be written about that encounter in The Guardian, because there was much more involved and implicated in the 1500 words allotted to each for their say than could possibly be accommodated within that limit. The relationship between truth and fact has some subtelties, nuances, and intricacies (and a long history of sibling rivalry) whose meaning would require unfolding at length.
Much food for thought. I will not have much time to respond today, until perhaps later this afternoon.
What do others think?
Gerry, there is no such thing as interrupting conversations here. Just post whatever you wish to say.
Quickly - Steve. Yes, of course we must agree some anchors but we must also nail down precisely what we mean. We also need to understand that these definitions are provisional. Lots of other things to say but no time just now.
Longsword, I would really like to explore your concept of truth in some depth. I will return anon.
"cynicalsteve Comment No. 697782 July 13 23:29 Biskieboo - so I'm right in thinking you couldn't be bothered to follow the link, missed the whole point of Grayling's thread, and have been arguing from a (shall we kindly say) factually challenged standpoint?
You may reassure yourself, however, that most other posters above are in the same self-imposed position, and prefer to score cheap points, rather than engage with his argument...."
Oh come on Steve, it was Friday night - I didn't have time for a wind-bag reply cos I was going out.
I *did* read the link before I posted so you are wrong about that. After reading it it became clear that knowledge is a slippery beast, and sometimes we just have to do our best with it. Well, that's what I got out of it anyway.
I am well aware that some people have not had the same experiences as me, but that does not mean they are in a better position than I am to sit on judgement on them, and write things off as mere coincidence when they do not know the ins and outs of the things that have happened to me.
I would have to write a book to explain all the challenging experiences I've had, and how I believe I have been helped through my faith in and prayers to God. I can safely tell you that most people who had lived my life, especially the last ten years of it, would be gibbering wrecks in the local psych unit by this point.
But unfortunately (but not for me)I can't go back in time and re-run my life with an absence of belief and prayer in order to prove this to anyone.
And before you start, yes I know it *could* just be that the belief in God itself has helped, and that all the help that I believe I had was coincidence, but I find on weighing up the probabilities, that this would be highly unlikely.
It saddens me that whenever I mention something really interesting such as the dream that I had, it is totally ignored. I can only assume that people think I'm lying about it, which I am not.
Gerry, thanks for your answers. Of course I still have some questions: First of all you say that the numerous religions available are imperfect descriptions of the same reality. That's fair enough, but how does one select which one to go for? Clearly, these are simply human construct, which are almost entirely dependent on geography. For instance, are you, Gerry, an adherent to a particular faith? Why bother if they are all the same? How do you select that? I won't even mention the fact that they are so obviously based on plagiarisms and so on.
I also struggle to understand how easily you draw the line between what you call 'the here and now' and something called 'ancient wisdom'. I don't see how there can be such a strict differentiation. If I just go along for a second with the idea that 'ancient wisdom' or something 'divine' exists, then surely the two must overlap; in fact they do (just look at what we are doing right now). But to you, so it seems, there is something which (without really being able to explain how) explicates everything (the universe and all that jazz), but somehow the here and now can only look at trivial details (let's ignore the Hubble telescope and so on). How can you draw such a rigid differentiation: there's one thing that explains the one big answer of 'the meaning of life and everything', and then there's another sphere which fills in all the details, although clearly those details challenge the former sphere. I don't get it. I just don't get it.
And that leads on to a third issue: I'm an atheist. I don't see or feel or sense anything spiritual, mystic, religious. Will that have a negative effect on me? Will it have some ramifications for me either in the here and now or (if I just accept for the length of this sentence) in some kind of afterlife? If not, what's the point of mysticism, religiosity, spirituality? What difference does it make whether I believe in something else or not?
P.S. Singer is a good read, but a bit too utilitarian for me... :-)
No problem. Just a shame you were having trouble posting. Hate it when CiF gets all flaky.
Scepticism is indeed a useful shield against credulity and is the main reason why I call myself an agnostic (more on that later). However, you don't want the shield pressed so close to your face that it blinds you to seeing things as they are, or at the very least how they might be. I appreciate your "anti-philosophical" approach and its practical benefits. However, I don't see how you can extrapolate from it that there is no god.
Regarding the supernatural, the problem is that outside the crucible of scientific practice, what constitutes evidence, as distinct from proof, becomes much more subjective. Lack of conclusive evidence is not the same as lack of evidence. People are continuously saying that they have experience of the supernatural. Sure, this doesn't prove anything. But anecdotal evidence is still a form of evidence. And there may simply be some things that science is just incapable of explaining, yet are real nevertheless. This is the essential problem I have with your position. See it's fine to be sceptical, the higher you set the bar for what constitutes acceptable evidence, the higher should be your threshold for when lack of evidence becomes evidence for non-existence.
Or to put it more bluntly, surely an anti-philosophical approach would preclude such a philosophical stance as *strongly* believing in the non-existence of god?
Re the PS. If I thought the odds were 5/1 that the zealots are right and there is a vengeful God who would consign me to Hell, then I would probably hedge my bets. Except which zealots to choose? Wouldn't want to piss Him off any further.
That aside, I calculate odds when playing poker because I can and it makes sense to do so. It's pretty meaningless to do so on the existence of god, which I see as nothing more than a three-letter word anyway (before I was assigning probabilities merely for the sake of argument). However, for all that his debating style may grate, WML did once say something that made me laugh a lot when he said that agnostics were Deluded who just hadn't yet mastered the doublethink skills required to commit to a religion. I found it funny because, speaking for myself only, I recognised an element of truth in his joke (though I'm not deluded... well, apart from sharing with ChooChoo a belief borne from wishful thinking that Arsenal might just win the league next season).
To elaborate a little, I stopped calling myself an atheist after a mushroom trip I had a few years ago. It wasn't my first experience with psychadelics, but certainly the first I would describe as "spiritual" (btw, it was this trip that inspired the ant question, and thanks for the reference a while back to GEB, I shall endeavor to read the relevant bits and hopefully even the whole thing at some point). Part of it involved a sense that everything around me was alive, not just the animals and the trees but also the soil, the rocks, the waterfall and even the air. Looking back, I would interpret it as to say the universe is a single conscious entity that we are a small part of. Though I wouldn’t do so myself, others might call this entity God.
The fact that this feeling was brought on by the mushrooms is neither here nor there to me - it gives a biological cause for the altered consciousness but says nothing about my reality of the experience. However, I do retain sufficient scepticism to accept the strong possibility that there really was nothing more to it than the mushrooms playing with my mind and that all this one entity crap was just so much bollocks. I don’t think so, but this possibility is why I call myself an agnostic.
Boltonian,
Uncharitable or not, I think you have hit the nail squarely on the head regarding Grayling. The problem is that words are inherently limited in conveying meaning - they are simply no substitute for direct experience. And it doesn’t help when the words come laden with baggage. This is partly why though I read the CiF threads on the topic, in the past I rarely commented much – it seems like an exercise in futility sometimes.
I do think the inner world of consciousness is as real as the chairs, teapots etc. and seperate from it, as opposed to just a brain state. There’s a metaphor I like to use to describe what I see as the complementariness of science and Buddhist thought, insofar as I understand it. Science can be seen as a pyramid, with Aristotle as its architect. It is rigid and hierarchical but with a solid base. Buddhism is like concentric circles. The everyday reality most of us experience on a daily basis is the outer circle, but through meditation people can reach deeper levels of consciousness.
Now if you put the pyramid on top of the circle, then the additional height you get will allow you to draw much better maps of the surface, which is a pretty damn good thing given that’s where most of us inhabit. But it can’t tell us much about what lies beneath. Physicists are beginning to deduce, by observing the horizon, that the world is round, but there are those who continue to insist that it is flat.
Meanwhile, Buddhists are saying, “Tell us something we haven’t known for over 2,000 years.”
ChooChoo,
I haven’t forgotten your post and will respond to it shortly.
daddy0marcos "Part of it involved a sense that everything around me was alive, not just the animals and the trees but also the soil, the rocks, the waterfall and even the air. Looking back, I would interpret it as to say the universe is a single conscious entity that we are a small part of. Though I wouldn’t do so myself, others might call this entity God."
I empathise. I have had the same experience, although I wasn't on 'shrooms at the time. Having had the experience, I also see the limitations in Grayling's approach, but also the incompleteness of Vallely's.
We might put it this way -- do we have a universe or a cosmos? Again, these terms are often employed as being synonymous (consistent with a whole host of confusions, like "totality" and "whole", or "truth" and "fact," or "assimilation" and "integration,")which reveal the breakdown and collapse of discernment and discriminating reason at "the end of history," which I refer to as "the breakdown of perspective consciousness" in formation over the last 500 years.
So, at the end of history we have reached an impasse (you only have to look at all the articles and books that begin "the end of..." this or that to observe the widespread sense of an ending in religion, science, politics, philosophy as postmodernism, etc). The Modern Era is over. Can we outrun it? Which is no more than to ask, wherein lies our survival knowledge?
Here I return to what I consider the root confusion of our dying age -- the mistaking of "totality" or "the whole". The universe, as it has evolved as a fact of our experience, as the sum total of laws, the system of objects we call "reality," a sum of particulars, is incomplete. By establishment, since Descartes and Newton, it omits sentience and the action of sentience as the exceptional instance. Mind and body occupied discrete and incommensurate realms of experience, with their own laws, etc. Our "universe" is not a cosmos, therefore. If "universal reason" omits, therefore, entire dimensions of experience (not least of which is the meaning of time, which Descartes simply declared a miracle daily created by God), it is no wonder we cannot reach the integral theory and so complete our consciousness. The cosmos is the whole, while the universe -- the domain of the ratio -- is only part of that cosmos.
Therefore I hold that we must make the leap from "Universal Reason" to "Cosmic Consciousness," even though I know well how much "New Age" baggage is often associated with this term. But I draw, from my experience, a sharp distinction between rationality and lucidity, and for the same reasons I discriminate between fact and truth, mind and consciousness, totality and whole, assimilation and integration, etc. Since I do not see consciousness and world as isolated realms of experience, these confusions attest to an alarming contraction of our being, sometimes described by others as "culture of narcissism," (Lasch) "closing of the Western Mind" (Freeman, Bloom), "vicious downward intellectual spiral" (Jacobs), "closing circle" (Commoner), or "Dark Satanic Mill" (Blake). These are all images of mind descending into tautology -- the original state of the self-devouring ouroboric dragon, which is the image of mind caught up in cyclic time, fatalism, resignation, eternal recurrence of same. And a lot of mainstream intellectual culture is just that -- self-devouring tautology. A Dark Satanic Mill doing little else than manfacturing infinite unrelated facts as its chief product.
The role of God throughout history has been as determinant counterpoint to the multiplicity of forms, the plurality of things and events, and the fragmentary facts of the matter. Man cannot live in such a fragmentary world. He goes to pieces just as it goes to pieces. Therefore he has always insisted on a synthetic, unitary, integrating principle -- a whole against the mere totality of things, truth over facts, which integral principle is named "God" as All that is, omniscience, omnipresence, or ground of being and the whole that reconciles within himself all irreconcilables and contradictory instances.
This is why people cling to God tenaciously, and why Nietzsche's declaration of the "death of God" was truly ominous. It meant loss of the integral principle, the monad that holds the Cosmos together and which prevents it from sliding back into a Chaos of disconnected facts, unanchored images, babble, and incoherence. And in the absence of "God" or an integral principle, men will resort even to absurdities like substituting Evolution (capital E) as an explain all principle. (I believe someone over in the UK even wrote a book called "Evolution as Religion"? -- a Mary someone).
In the past this integral principle, which human consciousness seeks desperately, has been called "Logos", "Dharma", "God", Elixir, Philosopher's Stone, Holy Grail, Tao, or Theory of Everything (TOE). Men cannot live in a broken world, because this fracturing is autobiographical. There is no ultimate separation between consciousness and cosmos, for the cosmos has an uncanny way of mirroring back to us ourselves. And if the universe today seems meaningless, pointless, and purposeless, it has a lot to do with the mood of "the end of history" and a certain exhaustion of the Modern Era's original inspirations -- to effect, "that you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free", of which the secular era represents only a continuation.
In other words, "meaninglessness", malaise, pointlessness, purposelessness only reflect our exhaustion, world-weariness, aetiolation, and the expiration of an original inspiration. Dutifully, the universe reflects us back to ourselves.
It is this "uncanny" (as one physicist put it) capacity of the universe to reflect us back to ourselves that even suggests to me the entire purpose and meaning of the cosmos in a way that reconciles science and religion, reason and faith, and overcomes all the internal divisions of the human psyche -- ie, that we are here to learn to create a world, a cosmos - a kindergarten for the gods, as it were. For it is even written in the NT, "Is it not written in your books, that ye are gods?"
"Be thou therefore perfect, even as thy Father in Heaven..." launched the Christian Era and the process of history as godman-making. There is a certain irony in the fact that we now use the term "genius" for ourselves, which was originally only the name of God as the first Genius of Genesis. And the "atheist" Nietzsche, with his "overman" (the transhuman) is even only a continuing response of man to the Christian imperative -- that man, as "divine spark" of the Light of the Great Fire, should become "brilliant" and be as God is.
olching... if I may interject into your discussion,
"First of all you say that the numerous religions available are imperfect descriptions of the same reality. That's fair enough, but how does one select which one to go for?"
You don't need to select one out to the exclusion of others. Look for the invariants in all of them, the items that make for unanimity (a word meaning literally unus animus or "one soul").
Let me give you an example, if I may. I have found that for almost every "law" that comprises the scientific description of reality, there existed a corresponding understanding in antiquity, albeit articulated differently and in terms of the mode of understanding and perception of the times.
Take Newton's law of reciprocal actions, as a first example. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This is, in a sense, only a translation, into a scientific idiom, of the law of karma, the Buddhist doctrine of action and reaction. Where they differ is that Buddhism does not isolate consciousness from the web and woof of reality. Desire, thinking, reasoning, all belong to the same web of interconnected being, and their actions also affect the web. We too know this, when we state, for example, that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". Intention also is action, and has hidden, unanticipated consequences for both good and ill.
Now, if we turn to Greece, and to Heraclitus, we find that Newton's law, and the law of karma, also finds its representation in the principle of "enantiodromia" -- reversal of fortune, in which processes change into their opposite at the extremity of action. Roughly, the sequence described by the word "en-antio-dromia" is "version-perversion-inversion" when we parse out the meanings. I want here to ascribe no moral interpretation to the word "perversion", which simply means a turning through or passage through from the action to the reaction.
Now, if we turn again to tribal society, and magical man, we also find the law of reciprocal action, the law of karma, and the law of enantiodromia represented in the form of honour killing and retribution (eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth). It is the law of vengeance. Wotan and Thor chase each other across the sky forever in a vengeful cycle of action and reaction. Today, this intuition of the fundamental law of action and reaction, of enantiodromia, is formally represented in Chaos Theory. Chaos Theory may even be said to be the self-consciousness of enantiodromia as reversal of fortune.
These are all describing, in different idioms, the same intuition about the supreme law of reality -- the basis for homeostasis and equilibrium being reversal at the extremity. The same consciousness undergirds all these different representations. But it is only by relating these to each other that we come to a more holisitic or more perfect understanding of the law of action, because each supplements the missing factor in the others. Newton's law omits the action of consciousness, with Karma underplays the realm of action described by Newton. Whereas, in the tribal and religious forms they also appear differently. For tribal man is driven by necessity to fulfill the law of action in the form of vengeance and honour killing. But in religion "justice is mine, saith the Lord") which relieves man of the compulsion of action and necessity. Forgiveness is made possible, which overcomes the compulsion of action and reaction. It is precisely to become free of that fatalism of action and reaction that foregiveness is elevated in Christianity to a principle of emancipation and dissolved the fatalism of the pagan order of time. Once that once done, historical progress became possible, since man's psychic energy was freed up from the necessity of sustaining, as an image of the natural order of things, the cycle of action and reaction.
All in all, they represent the same consciousness (today also found in ecology, as the equilibrium of the niche), only valuated differently.
@Olching How does one select which one to go for? Clearly I can only speak for myself in this regard but I was brought up in the Christian tradition and so its traditions and narratives have a resonance to me. As you rightly point out this is almost entirely Geography (with a bit of History thrown in)For someone like my wife ,for instance, who was brought up in the Jain tradition this does not have the same resonance although bits of it appeal. For someone whose experince and upbringing has led them to an entirely secular view traditions such as these may appear charming at best, dangerous superstition at worst. In a way it seems like the tradition selected me rather than the other way round. I'm not so sure if I explained myself properly re the ancient tradition. Tomorrow many Christians will hear at church the parable of the Good Samaritan. This two thousand year old story speaks to me very directly. It reminds me that I have an obligation to all those who require my help beyond ethnic, political and perhaps above all religious differences. It seems to me that this piece of ancient wisdom applies in a particular way to our time and condition. As for your third point well I don't think so if you find fulfillment in your life and are sensitive to the needs of others and find inspiration from nature, art or some other source then I would suggest that you have already found enlightenment - I know how trite that sounds but can't seem to make it sound less like cheese. As to what's the point of it , what difference does it make...well for me it acts a source of consolation, of inspiration, it provides me with a sense of place and purpose in the universe. If you already have these things then I really don't think it (mysticism/spirtuality/religiosity) has much left to offer you.
boltonian - good to see that your blog is taking off with all the new blood (and, if I may be allowed a personal view, some pretty good new blood....although given the number of recent plugs, you're bound to get some unwelcome types sooner or later....) I know you're a busy guy, but can I make a request that you give some thought to a format change here, in that a few relevant threads be identified and split off on separate pages? Otherwise this one will become unwieldy & slow to load....
Daddy0Marcos - as I've said on a few CiF threads, I start from the position of believing nothing until some kind of evidence is presented. And I maintain that the logical corollary of this is that atheism is the default position; any theory with ambition to displace it needs to prove itself. So where is the evidence for "god", or other supernatural phenomena?
You said : "...outside the crucible of scientific practice, what constitutes evidence, as distinct from proof, becomes much more subjective. Lack of conclusive evidence is not the same as lack of evidence."
It's the long term accumulation of the lack of evidence that seems significant to me. It's not as if people haven't been looking for evidence, and eventually one is justified in drawing conclusions from the failure to succeed (as with the infamous WMD....)
You said : "...anecdotal evidence is still a form of evidence."
Someone shrewdly said on one of the homeopathy threads that the plural of anecdote is not evidence, and I strongly agree.
You said "...there may simply be some things that science is just incapable of explaining, yet are real nevertheless."
This I also disagree with. There may well be some apparently strange phenomena that we can't *yet* explain (although fewer than some suppose), but no reason to think that we won't eventually work them out; on the other hand, how can things be "real" and yet inexplicable? That, to me, seems contradictory.
I'm afraid I don't read much into your mushroom story, either. Sleep deprivation can also cause hallucinations but I'd never accept that an overtired person had a greater insight into the nature of existence than an alert one. Others here have read much into NDEs which I find irrational. I've kept out of such discussions, and I wouldn't want to comment again on drug-induced "insights" here, as my views are probably more suited to CiF's free-for-all than boltonian's civilised blog. ;-}
Anyhow, just to clarify, my problems in posting previously weren't down to CiF, but to my computer (actually, my wife's, as it's more used to support her jewellery selling website). The odds are that this one has been on the cyber mushrooms, as its version of software reality is distinctly idiosyncratic. I fear the worst.
Biskieboo - glad you picked up on that comment. I'll reply later, but don't want this post to get out of hand.
Hey! I turn my back for five minutes and look what happens - all Hell breaks loose (if you'll forgive me). :-)
steve:
Yes I have plugged the site because there were so many interesting discussions happening that I did not want to lose after they closed. Also, selfishly, I was indisposed (in at least a couple of senses of the word) for most of the time that they were live, so didn't contribute very much.
I hope that we will not import any of the silliness from CiF. Those who enjoy chucking abuse and sarcasm around might not feel so comfortable here. But, on the other hand, I do not want to be po-faced and censorious. The site is meant to be a forum for discussion and learning - sharing ideas as well as communicating opinions. Let's face it there are very few certainties, so there is plenty of space for the development of some interesting concepts.
Also, I want people to feel free to discuss personal experiences, for which there might not be any objective evidence, without fear of ridicule.
As a last resort I have editorial control but I would feel we had failed a little if I have to use it. We might attract a rogue poster and then - well, let's cross that bridge when we get there.
BTW, I have said this before, this is not meant to supplant CiF but to offer something different. Many of the topics, as here, have been inspired by CiF and almost all the contributors have learned about us from there.
Re- new threads. It was suggested a while ago and I completely failed to manipulate the technology, so if anybody has ideas please let me know. I ended up starting a completely new blog, which confused everybody.
Yes it's great to see new contributors and fresh topics for discussion. I hope that others who have not posted for a while will be tempted back.
Olching:
You are very welcome and I look forward to your contributions here.
I am now out of time and I really want to explore some these recent issues. Longsword's idea that truth, as opposed to fact, is objective, accessible and public is something I want to examine. If that is so it must lend itself to the scientific method. Why, then, has it not and why are there so many variations?
Are they all just a bit of some mysterious whole - like Spinoza's pantheism? I noticed you used Leibnitz's word, 'Monad' but not, I think, in his sense of the word as fundamental 'components.' Or did you?
My, rather simplistic, view is that facts are public and truth personal but you have turned this upside down and I am struggling with the concept. I will re-read your posts very carefully and come back with some Qs.
No time just now to comment on everything. At least we are not time limited here - just as well.
boltonian... I agree with steve that you should begin to spin off a new thread. This one is becoming unwieldly. You would do this by simply issuing a new post. You don't have to enter much into it, even only the same words you did with the original. Or you might want to issue each of the questions you put in the original as separate posts. I'm not familiar with blogger, but I imagine it works much the same as my own blog.
And to respond to your last comment... "Longsword's idea that truth, as opposed to fact, is objective, accessible and public is something I want to examine. If that is so it must lend itself to the scientific method."
"Facts" are the democratic and public form of truth representation, it is true. This form (the indicative form) is necessary for the purposes of peer review. But that is precisely necessary for the purpose of reaching a consensus view. Therefore, facts are public and belong to the consensus perception Facts, in that case, are symbolic representations. But, after all, symbolic representations are ways of making present again -- that is, making present a primary reality to which they refer. But as "made things" (as the word "fact" means) they are secondary abstractions from that primary reality, which is truth. Truth cannot be thought, only experienced for that reason. For once we begin to think "about" the truth, we do so in symbolic terms, generative of the facts of the matter. Thinking is always reflection, and reflection is always post hoc. Another term for "primary reality" would be "ground of being", and it is from whence that the plural facts are derived as secondary symbolisations.
So, you see, it is precisely "truth" which is the wholly (or holy) objective reality, while the facts are actually the symbolisations adapted to our biological and mental disposition and predilections (our human organisation, or what Heraclitus called our "ethos" as characterological pre-disposition, ie "character [ethos] is fate".
This primary reality is "objective" only in the sense that it is not dependent upon us for its reality. This "ground of being" is sometimes called the "pre-personal" or "trans-personal," for the reason that it is not dependent upon our perception of it to exist. But that does not mean that it is not dependent upon consciousness. Consciousness is not personal. Mind is the personal aspect of consciousness. But this takes us into some strange territory.
You suggest that, if this primary reality is the real "objective" reality (and facts are but the secondary abstractions from this reality -- as more or less faithful images or reflections of it adapted to interpretation by and through the human form) then truth should be directly accessible by "the" scientific method.
I would say instead by "a" scientific method rather than "the" scientific method. Efforts are even now underway (at the usual slow snail pace of evolution) to expand the horizons of what is understood as "scientific method". Some of this is the fruit of the Buddhist-Science dialogue or inspired by other sources. It is necessitated by the fact that the scientific method has hit an impasse with the quantum level of reality, and can proceed no further in the erstwhile historical effort to complete our consciousness. Likely it is, that in the future there will be no "the" scientific method, but plural methods (practices) in which the unity of experience and experiment will be restored.
I still hold that integral consciousness is possible (which is the aim of the Integral Theory or the Theory of Everything), but not on the basis of current assumptions that inform and direct "the" scientific method. Sheer necessity has forced good, creative scientists to look for ways to expand the horizons of "method" and the continued possibility of consensus. These are often two related but distinct aspects of method -- the truth and the representation of truth.
But that is something all sincere human beings also wrestle with.
'I do think the inner world of consciousness is as real as the chairs, teapots etc. and seperate from it, as opposed to just a brain state.'
I agree with the first part of this statement but I do not know how we can come to any form conclusions about the nature of consciousness. Neither Churchland's view that consciousness is merely a function of the brain nor that it is some form of dualism has been proved, at least to my satisfaction.
You also said something about the approximate nature of language. This has been a bit of a hobbyhorse of mine for some while. Language is not only approximate but we do not know whether what has been transmitted is the same as that received. For example, my concept of the word, 'Antidisestablishmentarianism,' might be different from yours but we blithely bandy the word about with gay abandon as if we had an identical understanding. I make an assumption that you hold the same image in your head as that in mine. We have to do this otherwise simple conversations would take forever but it is a compromise nevertheless and, therefore, language must remain approximate. It is certainly not the precise tool that some would have us believe.
Longsword:
Are you proposing a form of Platonism whereby facts are mere shadows of the truth?
There have been a few references to Buddhism recently. My understanding of Therevada Buddhism is that enlightenment is a very personal journey, comprising both understanding and behaviour. Although support, through discussion and texts, is available, it is essentially a private road.
I know that Schopenhauer was influenced by both Hinduism and Buddhism, neither of whose texts were available in translation to Kant. His view was that reality comprised an undifferentiated, 'Blind will to exist.' We, through our limited brains, create the differentiated world that we perceive.
Another thing that I am sure I have said before is that we create our own truths based on experience and temperament. Schopenhauer, I surmise, could no more have proposed a joyous paradigm for reality than he could have opened the batting for England. He was a curmudgeonly old pessimist. Why then should truth not be personal, rather than objective and public.
You hinted that the scientific method we currently use, based on falsifiability and predictive experimentation, is drawing the the end of its usefulness. I admit that we are in a bit of a hiatus in Physics, not necessarily so in other sciences, such as genetics, but we have been here before. For well over 200 years Newton was the last word in Physics and it was felt to be the end of our scientific learning but it wasn't - Einstein and QM came along.
My guess is that Darwinian evolution will undergo similar metamorphosis shortly - not is disprove it, possibly, but to show that it is not the full story.
I still do not understand that we can ever know what objective reality is, nor whether it even exists. How do you come to the conclusions that:
1) There is such a thing as objective reality; and
2) That it is accessible to us?
Steve said, in a reply to daddyOmarcos, that only when some evidence is presented could one begin to allow for the possibility of its existence (whatever it is).
Spacepenguin has said something to the same effect. If we have no evidence for the possible existence of (pixies was his example)why should we entertain the thought that they might exist?
These seem to me to be sensible starting points. So, beyond the confines of our subjective being, what evidence is there for a universal, objective and accessible truth? And what are these other scientific methods to which you refer?
I would like to get the views of others here, including SaraB and spacepenguin
"Spacepenguin has said something to the same effect. If we have no evidence for the possible existence of (pixies was his example)why should we entertain the thought that they might exist?"
In my example I said "why would you be motivated to believe in pixies if you had never seen one and had never been told about them ?" . My point was that you may intuit a spiritual force or God and come up with rational arguments for their existence , but it is unlikely you would do the same for little creatures with big ears .
I think the motivation for belief is of a different order for the two things . Having said that , theory without data isn't science . It would be a mistake to equate reasonable motivation for belief with the existence of the subject of that belief .
I'm not sure there could ever be scientific proof of objective reality (OR from here on). Nothing can survive total skepticism , even possibly self existence . The weaker claim of scientific evidence for OR is problematic , what form could it possibly take without already taking OR as axiomatic ?
daddy0marcos... "Language is not only approximate but we do not know whether what has been transmitted is the same as that received."
This is my chief field of study -- communications. And I will not spare you my conclusions on the relationship of speech to reality.
Primary conclusion: specifically human life does not alternate between the polarities "subject and object" first and foremost, but between the symbolic and the diabolic. When we take Man just as we find him, without advance prejudices, presumptions or preconditions imposed on his existence, we find first of all that man is homo loquens, the speaking animal.
Second conclusion: symbolic action is both a physical process and not a physical process. It belongs to both mensity (measure, ratio, quantity) and immensity (immeasurable, a-ratio, quality). It has both phonemic and morphemic (semantic, syntactic) elements. In speaking, we affect physical reality directly. Symbolic action (which is speaking) adds something to the world that was not there beforehand -- that is, to the world interpreted as simply the "given" world (as a datum, the world is "gifted"). Speech is also a form of energy, even if only concieved in its most minimal phonemic terms as "sound" alone, and so participates in the entire field of energy we call "cosmos".
It is the failure to comprehend how symbolic action affects and modifies reality that prevents us from making the transmodern leap -- ie, from the limitations of a merely universal reason to a truly cosmic consciousness (ie, "universal" as consciousness of reality as a mere totality, as an aggregate *perspectivally derived* and inventoried system of objects organised into sectoral facts (the ratio), or consciousness as holistic aperception of the whole. da Vinci marks the beginning of the first mode of perception. Picasso (following Nietzsche) marks the breakdown of perspectivally organised perception, and the emergence of a more global or holistic vision -- the revelation of the hidden or occulted aspects of perception and the co-presence of all times in one global whole. Picasso is, in effect, quantum art in which the principle of non-locality -- or translocality -- is anticipated and made visible).
Third conclusion: since you mention the problem of reception and transmission, you highlight the problem of time, as origin and destination. The objective method is not well suited to a positive handling of time (for which reason, Descrates merely and superstitiously dismissed time as "a miracle" demonstrating that "universal reason" and the objective method alone cannot account for the whole, finally). But it is precisely the issue of time that interjects itself into the quantum level where the distinction between subject and object breaks down, and is demonstrated not to have anything other than conventional reality. Here not subject and object, but the older Aristotelian and Medieval polarities of "potens" and "actus" (potential and actual, or wave and particle) force themselves upon us. But these terms "potens" and "actus" which were the fundamental ontological categories of all theological thought (and not subjects and objects), highlight the issue of time over space. Reality is symbolised and organised differently depending upon what aspect of the cosmos is emphasised as "real" -- time (in its aspects of past or future, death and birth, origin and destiny, evolutionary or revolutionary) or space (in its aspect of inner or outer, subject or object, private and public). The objective method can handle only one quarter of our whole experience of reality considered as a cosmos -- a whole.
"Potens" and "actus", as the basic theological categories, pertain to the relationship between the timeless and time, aeternitas and saeculum, or the immortal and the mortal orders, immensity and mensity, immediacy or mediacy, or in our terms truth and the factual. This idiom was simply translated by the Renaissance into visual and perspectival terms as the relationship between the infinite and the finite spaces, and the polarities "potens" and "actus" were translated into the categories "subject and object". All the older theological categories were simply translated into the idiom of Universal Reason, which became the basis for the "true world".
All the dichotomies of the quantum realm are the result of bringing an obsolete or at least deficient method, derived from perspective perception, to a realm where this method of perception does not belong. The real issue of distinction between the Newtonian and the quantum orders, is one between space and time consciousness. For the Newtonian-Cartesian frame of the world, a subject and object or mind body metaphysics was adequate. It is not adequate at the quantum level where the primary tension is between the potens and the actus (or potentiality wave and realised particle).
I have gotten a little off track here, but what the hell, it is merely a temporary detour whose madness will be revealed as method over time.
If one reads the numerous attempts to explain the paradoxes and ambiguities of the quantum realm (especially Bell's Theorem), it is very easy to see from whence these dichotomies and ambiguities arise. It is an attempt to frame quantum reality within the familiar habits of perspective perception and consciousness, to bring in the methods of a da Vinci, instead of the sensibilities of a Picasso.
I have gone this roundabout route to highlight two aspects of the problem of "reception" and "transmission" (which is but fancy terms for listening and speaking). In linguistics, this is sometimes called the synchronic and diachronic factor -- one time or many times. And this pertains to the issue of severance between the symbol and the reality the symbol strives to symbolise or represent. This is an issue not just in the dialogical moment of communication, but especially the historical dimension and the attempt to relate different historical times (such as Modern and Medieval and classical and primordial). And you may note that in a lot of my posts, I attempt to reconnect, by etymological means, the symbol with the reality it attempts to represent, but from which it has been severed over time and has, more or less become a "free-floating image" unanchored in primary experience any longer. It is just this severance between the symbol and its source reality that represents today the triumph of image over substance (captured in the slogan "perception is reality"), "the culture of narcissism," the "closing of the mind", the "vicious downward intellectual spiral," the "war against truth," or "the assault on reason" -- the bubble of perception.
"The echo overtakes the voice" is how it was once wonderfully stated in a Star Wars film. The "fact" as symbolic form, is only an echo, as image of an even more fundamental reality. And if we want to know that reality directly and immediately unmediated by facts, we will have to trace it back through the symbolic forms to the root source of the symbolising activity itself.
The shifting meaning of symbols over time (including "the facts") are an index into successive mutations and transformations of human consciousness and its cosmos -- the flux as "the whole in flowing movement" as Bohm put it. Consciousness is not a personal possession in the way that "mind" is, say. They are not synonymous. Mind may become an object for consciousness. But consciousness may not become an object for mind without distortion and ending in tautology, perplexity, and quandary.
"If we have no evidence for the possible existence of (pixies was his example)why should we entertain the thought that they might exist?"
It depends upon what is meant by "exist". They exist as symbolic forms. And even as symbolic forms they are a presence in our cosmos. And this fact needs explication, not dismissal or explaining away, just as the symbolic form "unicorn" needs to be unfolded in its meaning as symbolic form.
It amazes me continually that people will insist that there is one reality only, and yet dismiss elements of that one reality as having no reality at all. The logic is inconsistent and self-contradictory. Dream, hallucination, mirage, fantasy, falsehood, error also belong to reality, and the existence of these things as also forms of symbolic activity need to be explained as part of our whole reality, not dismissed as unreal. The rationalist loads the dice and fixes the game in advance of the play by his definition (ie, "limitation") of what will be treated as "real" and what will be dismissed as "unreal", whereas obviously anything that occurs in our experience of reality is real.
"And what are these other scientific methods to which you refer?"
Scientia is sentience, knowledge, lucidity. If scientia is our purpose and aim and the meaning of our activity as "method", why restrict ourselves to one method only? To speak of "the" scientific method belongs to the unfortunate habit today of confusing all ends and means. Scientia is the objective aim, not method. And if the method now restricts our possibilities of scientia -- of completing our consciousness in the form of "integral theory", etc -- then the method must be examined for its possible deficiencies and limitations, and as the element that is actually restricting the further unfolding of scientia.
I hope I have made myself understood. We must not confuse ends and means. It leads to absurdity -- the kind of absurdity that states that the universe has no meaning or purpose, yet expects us to find in that statement both meaning and direction.
"then the method must be examined for its possible deficiencies and limitations, and as the element that is actually restricting the further unfolding of scientia."
Let me rephrase that this way, borrowing from Jesus' statement that morals existed to serve man, not man morality. Equivalently, method exists to serve man and his unfolding self-understanding, not man the method.
Again, this belongs to the confusion of ends and means that infects both secular reductionism and religious fundamentalism at the end of history -- the priority of method versus morals. But both have lost sight of meanings and purposes. Method is means not end. Scientia is the end purpose of method. So, too, the decadence of religious fundamentalism is this, morals exist only as means to an end, which end is peace -- the peace of the community. But the peace of the community (Umma, Sangha, Christendom, Israel) is itself only for the purposes of establishing a secure environment for the higher goal of self-overcoming and self-transcendence (the "Greater Jihad" or struggle of Islam). This has been the higher form of religious consciousness in both Christianity and Islam where "crusade" or "jihad" was primarily the issue of self-overcoming and self-transcendence -- that is, the struggle with human narcissism (which is idolatry -- confusion of self with self-image, the distinction made between true self and false self and the former to be realised and the latter -- ego -- made obedient to the true self, rejection of tribal particularism and exceptionalism through the insistence on human unanimity realised in the genius of one supreme godhead (one genius of one genesis), repudiation of all ethnic nationalism or the vanity of ethnic supremacy, etc).
Morals and methods exist for much the same reason -- as means. It's when the means become confused with ends in themselves, leading to tautology, that we have the kind of trouble we are having today.
[Warning: This post as well as being overlong doesn’t really add much to the discussion, so I advise you skip over it. However, having spent far too long on it when I should have been working on my article instead, I can’t bring myself to trash it. Sorry]
Longsword,
[I think you might have confused Boltonian’s last post with one of mine. I read your last couple of posts after writing most of what is in this one, but given that it takes me so long to organise my thoughts into words (a very big problem for someone who relies on writing for a living), I thought I’d add a little to the end rather than revising wholesale what I’ve already written. Otherwise I’ll forever be trying to catch up with this thread and never posting anything]
Thank you for your posts. I’ve been wanting to write something in response earlier, but it takes me time to digest new ideas and I’ve been busy reading more and thinking through what you say and how they fit in with my own ideas. The idea of a “cosmic consciousness” is one I can strongly relate to.
Relating it to the subjects in the Beck thread which I managed to read before it irritatingly disappeared, I have long also felt politics needs to stop being so damned parochial and that we can only deal with the challenges the world faces in the global age if we all start dealing with them holistically, on a planetary scale. However, I struggle to see the mechanism for this to happen without us ripping ourselves to shreds first. This thought scares me.
It’s a shame the thread disappeared, because that was really the place to get into it, rather than here which to get into the nitty gritty, rather than here, which is more a blog about metaphysics.
However, I am intrigued by the following thing you wrote:
‘It is this "uncanny" (as one physicist put it) capacity of the universe to reflect us back to ourselves that even suggests to me the entire purpose and meaning of the cosmos in a way that reconciles science and religion, reason and faith, and overcomes all the internal divisions of the human psyche -- ie, that we are here to learn to create a world, a cosmos - a kindergarten for the gods, as it were. For it is even written in the NT, "Is it not written in your books, that ye are gods?" ’
There is a sense in which I *like* this view, as an antidote to the fatalism it is all too easy to fall into when confronted with the powerlessness most of us feel against the barbarism of the new dark age. To me what you say represents an ideal that I fail to see reflected in the real world.
When I was younger sought from history evidence to support Marx’s notion that it marches inexorably towards utopia. I realise that what you are saying does not amount to the same thing as historical materialism – having a meaning and purpose does not amount to the same as the realization of that purpose – yet the parallels still seem strong to me in that I detect in it an element of wishful thinking.
If I see meaning and purpose in the cosmos, it is in the beauty and order we observe in the universe. Concepts such as good and evil, love and anger, are available to us like points on a compass irrespective of we as individuals choose to believe that they derive from objective Truth or biological processes. I strongly empathise with what you are saying but there is a sense in which ascribing such an anthropocentric meaning to the cosmos seems deeply counter-intuitive to me.
ChooChoo,
‘I'm not entirely clear on your last point(s) though I'm sure this is more to do with me than with you. When you suggest that abstract thought might be, ultimately, "communication to ourselves", do you mean we communicating among ourselves (in which case, I can go along with you) or we, individually, each communicating to him/herself (in which case I have qualms)?’
It is no fault of your own that you didn’t catch my meaning and everything to do with the fact that I stuck it in as something of an afterthought, without properly expanding. The short answer is that I meant the latter, the one you have qualms about.
If I may, I will elaborate in a roundabout way. In a recent post Bolotonian, revisiting a theme from earlier in this thread, suggested that we can never know how a beetle comprehends things, something I would concur with for the very obvious reason that we can never enter the mind of a beetle, a la Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Going back even further in the thread, when I raised the question of whether an ant colony can have a collective consciousness, asked to define what I meant by consciousness I replied, some form self-awareness.
I would now revise this to awareness, without the self, something far more primordial. And it is from this primordial something that self-awareness stems. Venturing into the realm of wild speculation, I would hazard a guess (and it is just a guess) that if we could, for a moment, observe the world through the mind of a beetle we might be surprised to recognise in its world something strangely familiar, stemming from this primordial something from which consciousness stems.
Continuing further with my speculation, I would guess that it is from this primordial awareness that self-awareness stems, and from which in turn our capacity for abstract thought is derived.
It is in the sense that our being – as we recognise it – is derived from the same source as that of a beetle, and so our *subjective interpretation* of abstract thought is a bit like a running commentary in our heads, that I meant “communication with ourselves”. Looked at this way, modal logic and social historiography are indeed “instinctual”, however odd that may seem.
Approached from a different angle, one way of putting it is to say that we have no free will. Alternatively, we could say that we do have free will but that free will is something far more primordial than we imagine and is something that we share with beetles and other animals.
I too have qualms with this and I am not sure if it is what I believe. I really am agnostic on this one.
“The questions are: is there something distinctive insofar as we have this capacity (however much or little we use it); and ought we to cultivate it, does it pertain to our 'nature' to cultivate it?”
[Although this is the middle of this post, I’m actually writing this bit last. I really need to prepare some food, and start doing some work because I’m terrified about what’s going to happen tomorrow when my editor finds out that not only have not done my article but I haven’t even bothered to interview anyone yet because it’s so BLOODY BORING! Consequently, I’m not going to do your questions the justice they deserve]
If I were being consistent with what I wrote above, I would have to say both yes and no to your first question. Yes in that only we are capable of abstract thought, no in that it stems from something more fundamental that we share with other animals.
Very provisionally I would say yes to the first part, and depends to the second part. I think our “nature” reflects our actions rather than the other way round.
Boltonian,
When I say I think consciousness is separate from brain states, I don’t mean as some kind of disconnected “other”, but rather I mean it separate as time is separate from space. I appreciate that this has not been proven scientifically, but as has now been said a few times in the last few posts, you have to start somewhere and this seems entirely like the natural default position to me. Where you lay the burden of proof is entirely subjective, shaped by each individual’s experience and outlook.
I must confess that my knowledge of philosophy of the mind only extends to cross referencing on wikipedia things I read here. Hence, when it comes to critiquing dualism I can only do so on the basis of some poorly understood caricature of Descartes and other dualists who have followed him. However, it does seem to me that the notion of some sort of separate mind is rapidly becoming redundant after the QM revolution. A little while back SpaceP mentioned neutral monism and, if I understood the term correctly, that might also be a good description for my position. [Little postscript: I see that Longsword has made the same point somewhat better than me, that Cartesian-Newtonian dichotomy no longer applies]
The problem some people have in accepting the idea of consciousness as something separate from matter, I would speculate, is analogous the problem others have of conceptualising the Big Bang. The latter imagine that some *thing* existed in a void which at some time before time exploded rather than the expansion of time and space itself, with matter formation a by-product of the process. Likewise I suspect some people look for evidence for consciousness and when they only see it in the form of brain chemical patterns, assume that’s what consciousness must be. But to me consciousness is not a *thing*.
I guess where I might differ from someone like Steve, for example, is that while we might both be able to agree that there is nothing, my subjective understanding of nothing is probably quite different to his.
Steve,
I think there a lot points on which we can agree to disagree, but at the same time I don’t think we're coming from a too dissimilar place. It’s just that we both see reality through the prism of our respective experiences, and mine have been slightly different to yours. By the way, I didn’t offer up the mushroom story as something for people to read anything into. Rather it was just a ramble giving a little background as to why I believe the things I do. I’m probably a bit more inclined to speculate on the metaphysical, but I accept it at speculation.
Longsword again,
I think you’ve addressed the qualms I had at the beginning of my post in your last couple of posts. The last one in particular, as far meaning is concerned. So apologies for the redundant nature of what is this now rather long post, but having spent so long on it I’m somewhat reluctant to chuck it all away.
Anyway, I enjoyed your posts a lot, and learning more about the origins of words has been a real eye-opener. What we can learn from the study of linguistics dwarfs so many more popular disciplines. Something you said in one of your CiF postings that I strongly concur with is that when you learn another language, you realise just how much language shapes people’s perception of reality.
There were a few more observations I wanted to make, but they will just have to wait for another time.
daddy0marcos : "I guess where I might differ from someone like Steve, for example, is that while we might both be able to agree that there is nothing, my subjective understanding of nothing is probably quite different to his."
Longsword, you may of course interject, and I appreciate your detailled contribution. It was certainly interesting, and, to a point, persuasive, but I doubt very much that a pendant exists for every scientific law, as you state. It seems to work with action-reaction (you can of course extend this to Hegelian and Marxist philosophy), but then you assert that Christianity emancipated itself from that cycle. I however see major paradoxes in that claim:
The 'eye for an eye' paradigm was retracted (at least this is the usual claim) through the Jesus narrative and the new testament. If one were to accept that, then one would have to assume that Christianity never had the need to move on, as it were, from the 'eye for an eye' paradigm (the alleged shift takes place before Christianity, i.e. 'within' the bible).
I would claim however that action-reaction was never renounced at all, in fact it has been accentuated by Christianity (even through the Jesus narrative). What Christianity has established is a cycle of action-reaction in relation to what has been defined as a higher being (god). Actions in the here and now will be reciprocated somehow in the afterlife. Or one has to somehow atone for them through prayer and self-castigation. Similarly if one begs for forgiveness, help or anything else, one would hope that such actions would result in something positive (indeed Christian friends often tell me, to my total bewilderment, that they secured university funding, got a job, got through hard times etc., after they (and perhaps the congregation) had prayed for it). I would also assert that the Jesus narrative is an entirely action-reaction driven process: Judas betrays, Jesus is arrested; Peter denies, the cock crows; Jesus talks to Lazarus, Lazarus lives again.
I would describe free will (in this case specifically the act of being able to forgive) as a religiously independent thought process. It is the ability to step beyond the realms of received rules and access and apply self-derived rules. Rather than relying on religious tags and spiritual conscience, self-derived rules (based on a thougt process outside mysticism and spirituality) offer the possibility to really contemplate the value of rules (or ethics or morals).
Gerry71, thank you for your reply. I agree that the tradition probably selects the person (if we substitute tradition with 'one's environment' it probably describes it better), but that's precisely what I struggle with: Knowing it's a construct, knowing that it's so very predetermined, people still remain convinced about the seriousness of it. It's almost as if you are able to deconstruct your faith, but then don't go that extra step to discard it. And the same goes for the last point (i.e. what's the point? Your answer: It offers consolation and provides you with a meaning in life): Again, it seems that you are identifying religion as a constructed crutch, but you still attribute meaning and validity to it. I just find that a very difficult concept to comprehend. I really do. As far as your general take on your personal religion is concerned, I have of course no qualms with it, in fact some of it (your application of the good samaritan story) is quite noble; I just cannot understand why people can't arrive at such conclusions without the help of religion/mysticism/spirituality. But, Gerry71, I also think that not every religious person thinks as you (as far as I can judge from the few exchanges we've had); sadly, I often encounter a far more messianic approach (just in everyday, before I watch the news), which is of course extremely alienating.
daddy0marcos "Something you said in one of your CiF postings that I strongly concur with is that when you learn another language, you realise just how much language shapes people’s perception of reality."
Yes, and while that might seem to lend support to relativism and to the "perception is reality" school of propaganda and perception management, there are still invariant elements in all human languages so far studied that lend support to the conclusion that all human speech is *one* speech -- vox populi, vox Dei has something to it. The analogy I used earlier was in comparison to the refraction of light as it passes through a prism -- one light, many colours.
These invariant elements across grammars I take as the most hopeful prospect for the future, for on the basis of this we can probably articulate a universal history of mankind's experience of the earth by synchronising different cultural-historical experiences, different modalities of reality apprehension, different historical structures and streams of consciousness (tribal, pre-modern, modern, postmodern reconciled in a "transmodern" or integral era). And only then can we speak authentically of a "Global Village" by creating the conditions for unanimity.
But the prospect for the integral era is crucially dependent also upon overcoming the current impasse partially represented by "Planck's Wall", which we've hit at light speed, to speak cryptically. I believe it can be accomplished, but not by relying exclusively on the methods imported from the past.
This prospect pertains to my conviction that the real problem of globalisation is one of time (and therefore of synchronisation) and not essentially of space (therefore, of coordination). The problem of the Planetary Era is that different histories are converging on the present, and we are tasked with making of these one cosmos. That may sound paradoxical, but it is more than amply exemplified in the Iraq War where tribal, pre-modern (religious) and modernist (secular) tendencies are in deep and seemingly intractable conflict with one another. This is the new crucible, and our human survival generally depends upon reconciling these different historical ways of being. "Globalisation" is the process of this convergence. But "globalism" would be the successful integration or synchronisation of these contradictions and apparent irreconcilables.
Unfortunately, the prospects for the near term do not look good for this, and it may well be catastrophic. There are enormous energies and forces at work which have escaped the leash. We are opening the gates of Hell pretty wide. I cannot help but be reminded of William Blake's mythic poem "The Four Zoas". Properly understood, it is prophetic. But, as in the poem, there are also hopeful elements.
(Ironic it is, too -- and perhaps deeply meaningful -- that a recently opened museum of modern science in Britain chose William Blake's caricature of Newton as Narcissus, absorbed in "single vision", as the model for a sculpture to adorn its entrance. Somebody there has a subtle sense for the ironic. It would be too terrible otherwise to think that it was entirely inadvertent and accidental! But I am becoming used to the "end of history" being but a synonymous term for "the end of lucidity" that I wouldn't be surprised).
By the way, the British Muslim intellectual Ziauddin Sardar beat me to the term "transmodernism" for this process of synchronising different histories and distemporaries (the basic idea was originally proposed by the "speech-thinker" Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy). I just finished reading his book "Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim", which I highly recommend for its insights into the present, especially into the disintegrate state of the Muslim Ummah and the ulema (the congress of Muslim scholars).
"The problem some people have in accepting the idea of consciousness as something separate from matter, I would speculate, is analogous the problem others have of conceptualising the Big Bang."
Matter just ain't what it used to be. It's more mysterious than ever. It can hardly be said to exist at all. How can people claim to be "materialists" still when matter has virtually vanished? It has been so thoroughly and completely analysed that it has practically evaporated.
It's a frequent complaint one encounters in reading the literature -- other branches of knowledge have yet to catch up to the implications of the quantum description of reality. Reality just ain't what it used to be. I believe it was Wheeler at Texas A & M who said that reality has become virtually indistinguishable from magic.
The times are out of joint.
"I strongly empathise with what you are saying but there is a sense in which ascribing such an anthropocentric meaning to the cosmos seems deeply counter-intuitive to me."
No need to be anthropocentric, or what's transhumanism for? We need to ask the question that Nietzsche (and Aurobindo) also put -- is it possible to transcend the limitations of the "anthropos" -- the human form (or the "all-too-human" form)? And I don't mean through "cyborgism" either, which is one current interpretation of "transhumanism" (but which I only consider post-humanism and post-biological, and therefore decadent -- contempt for the body as "meat"; loss of all sense of vitality and physiology). To give a succinct answer (rare for me I know): yes.
Boltonian sayeth: "I have asked people what they are reading at the moment, or have read recently."
There is so much for me to focus on that I tend to read books very slowly, here and there; it often takes a very long time now for me to finish even a very short book, even as the quantity of books started but unfinished grows ever larger.
I am in the last chapter of Gwendolyn Leick's Mesopotamia now, even though I've been recommending the book for some time.
I especially enjoyed the previous chapter on Ninevah (each chapter features an ancient city -- there are ten).
Will I next read Quantum Enigma by Rosenblum and Kuttner? Maybe, but I really should read the novel The Secret Magdalene by my friend Ki Longfellow first, now that the big publishing company version has come out. Ki started this long before Dan Brown became rich and famous, eventually self publishing, but lost money on every copy sold. Random House/Crown's purchase seemed a godsend at the time -- it's too bad they took so very long to bring out their version, tweaked and shortened a bit by Ki working with a senior editor, waiting until everyone was Dan Brown'd out.
Meanwhile, summer in Magnolia, the tiny peninsula north of Boston on which I live, always brings visitors.
This week two old friends -- one an amateur medium, the other a professional clairvoyant, visited, and I am still reeling, inwardly, from the visits, beyond having thoroughly enjoyed the pleasant company of two very different ladies, sharing meals, walks by the shore, conversation, and meditation.
I am left with some challenging questions to answer, but I intend to do so, in my own way:
o Was there ever a Count of St. Germain and, if so, what was his nature?
o Are there truly 'crystal arrays' housing unbelievable quantities of information in a distant past but still accessible now by those who were trained to do so long ago? (Are flash memory chips something of a recreation of this ancient technology?)
o What are the full personal implications of an impending decline -- in several senses of the word -- of the U.S. and global climate changes?
o To what extent (if any) is the personality of Elizabeth Tudor wrapped up what might be termed a "queenly archetype?"
o Is "the mark of the scorpion" not just the name of an old movie but also something found on a medieval ring worn by a member of some unknown secret society?
I can find no reason whatsoever to be bored by existence, but it would be nice to have a heckuva lot more time to do a number of things, including catching up on my reading.
Thanks for the clarification - I couldn't find your original quote.
Longsword:
Your penultimate post I think was a response to me rather than dOm.
I am not an expert in communications, which is your subject, so you must forgive my ignorance. It is also late and I am getting a bit tired, so this will be a very incomplete response.
Yes, we can categorise speech as you suggest but we can also divide it otherwise - descriptive and narrative; personal and public; emotional and factual. Categorisation is not a fact, merely a way of presenting things.
How can we take man without prejudices? how can we take anything thus? We are subjective beings and so biased by our own genetic inheritance and experience. We will each view aspects of humanity differently perforce.
Speaking, you say, affects the world. Every single action, thought or utterance affects the world. Every change, wherever and in whatever, will affect the world. This does not, of course, negate determinism. Entanglement is a macro as well as a quantum effect.
You mention reality and our effects thereon, without saying how either we can know what it is as subjective beings, or whether it exists at all. QM has nothing to say about this at all. Interpretations of the experimental data vary and, in many cases, are contradictory. It seems to me that we are no further forward now, in this area, than the days of Bishop Berkeley and David Hume.
Time, as Einstein among others, have suggested might not exist independently of human thought. But, as we are human beings, it is difficult to understand the world without it. Like the wave - particle duality. That almost certainly does not exist, except as a metaphor to aid our understanding. So, I am not sure that your categorisation of potentiality and reality is anything more than a convenience. I don't think we really know what to make of the quantum world because we don't have the language or, possibly, the conceptual apparatus, to describe it.
You say that you would like to re-unite the term with the reality (as if there were a time when language accurately describes reality and was not a metaphor). What does this mean, exactly? You also say that all things are reality, which of course is true in the sense that all things are in a state of flux and impinge one on another.
You make a strong assertion that consciousness is not a personal possession but mind is. You will need to define these terms for me. Are you saying that consciousness is separate from mind, which again separate from the brain? Does consciousness exist independent of our existence? Do you think that mind exists independently of the brain? If so, what are its properties and what evidence can you produce?
You mention the restrictiveness of the scientific method but do not proffer alternatives - could you describe them?
I am not sure that, 'Perception is reality,' is such a bankrupt notion as you suggest. How do we access the objective world - it is something that philosophy and science has wrestled with since Thales was a lad?
I don't think most scientists confuse means with ends. Science is a method (means) and its findings merely staging posts (not ends).
Finally, 'Absurdism' is a perfectly respectable position to hold ( I am not an absurdist, by the way). For where is the evidence that the world has meaning? We impart meaning because it is we (not the world) that requires it.
Forgive me if I have misrepresented your thoughts - much to digest at such a late (for me) hour.
dOm:
Re-consciousness. I am not sure this will ever be solved. Even if we could reconstruct a human brain molecule by molecule how would we know that it was capable of conscious thought? (I think spacepenguin pointed this out some while ago)
Secondly, I think that our concept of matter is wrong, simply a metaphor for our convenience. We make the distinction between mind and matter, in other words. What are thoughts and dreams, for example - they cannot be measured as we would measure matter but they undoubtedly exist?
"How can we take man without prejudices? how can we take anything thus?"
Quite simple. It's called disinterestedness, or simply "justice" (rather than pre-justice). It comes from cultivating a mood of equanimity, which is accepting the given world initially exactly as it presents itself to consciousness. One does not therefore "take" man so much as one allows man to first "present" himself. (my confessio... In secret I use the phrase "the gifted world and its presents" rather than "the given world and its presence" -- every "datum", every "given that..." belongs to a gift of knowledge. Without prejudice means only without expectation. For when you expect nothing from the world as an entitlement, reward, or right, then every datum great or small comes as a surprise, as a present, and as a gift merely for being unexpected. All this is subsumed in the attitude of "disinterestedness". And it is the only proper attitude for any man or woman whose goal is scientia. There is not a great deal of difference between Buddhist mindfulness, Christian attentiveness, or scientific disinterestedness. All express, more generally, a concern with justice).
"Yes, we can categorise speech as you suggest but we can also divide it otherwise - descriptive and narrative; personal and public; emotional and factual. Categorisation is not a fact, merely a way of presenting things."
We must make a distinction here between speech as this performance of categorising, arranging, distributing on the one hand, and the categorising of speech acts into tenses, names, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives, phonemes, morphemes, sememes, or epics, analytics, lyrics, dramatics, etc. For in the latter case, speech becomes the object of attention itself, whereas when we speak we usually don't pay attention to grammatical categories and how we knit these together articulately and coherently to form a meaningful whole. In the one instance, we are in the magic circle of speech and its power. In the second instance, we become aware of speech, and in penetrating the meaning of speech, grammar, etc, we free ourselves from any temptation to confuse word and thing, the symbol and the symbolised. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free" is never truer than when we take speech as an object of meditation and experimentation in its own right, deliberately and intentionally testing its power and its weakness.
This simple example even demonstrates the latent transcendental possibilities of consciousness. When we speak, we are almost wholly unconscious of the field of force which is language. We are in the grips of the power of the written or spoken word. Grammar has a close connection with "grammarye" -- a magic spell. (In Latin, the word for magic spell is "fascinum" -- the binding power, which is related to both "fascination," or course, but also "fascism"). To become conscious of language is to become conscious of the possibilities of speech as the binding power (or what Blake called "the mind-forg'd manacles"). But just as psychoanalytic insight into the unconscious compulsion of the complex frees the mind from compulsion, insight into speech frees the mind from the fetters of a merely grammatical interpretation of fundamental reality. We live in a semantic sea, a matrix field in which we make up our minds or lose our minds. The fascinum of propaganda demonstrates every day that our unconsciousness of this matrix semantic order has dire consequences. We therefore have the choice to become masters of meaning or slaves to it. Only a hair separates the false from the true, as Omar Khayyam put it. And the difference between unconsciousness and consciousness of a process has everything to do with the possibility of human beings acting freely or slavishly. Mastery (or what the Buddha called "skillful" versus "unskillful") is only another word for consciousness. Slavery is only another word for unconsciousness. Consciousness makes the difference between *being* selected as an element of chance and accident, or being a principle of selection and determinant oneself by acting by choice from one's own inner core.
Historically, men eventually revolt against being categorised. And those who do the categorisation will inevitably swing from the lamp-posts.
boltonian... (Didn't want to aggregate all my responses to your post in one long one)
"Speaking, you say, affects the world. Every single action, thought or utterance affects the world. Every change, wherever and in whatever, will affect the world. This does not, of course, negate determinism. Entanglement is a macro as well as a quantum effect."
If everything is connected to everything else, instantaneously, synchronistically, indifferent to distance or interval, then it makes little sense to speak of determinism at all. If we credit Bohm that primary reality is "wholeness in flowing movement" then this very wholeness makes distance and interval irrelevant. Determinism has no place where every cause is simultaneously an effect and every effect is instantaneously a cause. "Determinism" is simply the mind's necessity to sequence things in succession, as if it reads the cosmos as if in a book. As my Sioux friends say, "Mitake Oyasin" -- we are all related. By which "we" is meant all that is -- rocks, trees, humans, animals, plants, mountains, clouds, stars, etc, etc. Same consciousness as Bohm. The issue of "entanglement" ultimately defies any resort to the notion of determinism. Determinism becomes an obsolete "fact" or category of reference. It is transcended and replaced by mutuality.
"You mention reality and our effects thereon, without saying how either we can know what it is as subjective beings, or whether it exists at all. QM has nothing to say about this at all. Interpretations of the experimental data vary and, in many cases, are contradictory. It seems to me that we are no further forward now, in this area, than the days of Bishop Berkeley and David Hume."
Not really sure that I understand the gist of this question, but I'll have a go. We are certainly more ahead of Berkley and Hume. Berkley and Hume merely assumed that in a world divided inexorably between subject and object spaces, one had to be true and the other less so, or outright false. This is not the case today. We face the paradox, as Bohr put it, that the opposite of one great truth is not a falsehood, but quite likely another great truth.
"Time, as Einstein among others, have suggested might not exist independently of human thought."
Einstein is in error. We experience the force of time directly in our mortal bodies, as the transition from birth to death. There is nothing unreal about death. The reason Einstein became confused about time is that he tried to make it a dimension of space -- a "fourth" dimension augmenting the three dimensions of space. Time is not this at all. Time is mortality and the entropic force. Time as Einstein treated it is an abstraction.
"You say that you would like to re-unite the term with the reality (as if there were a time when language accurately describes reality and was not a metaphor)"
Description was never, initially, the motive for the development of speech. It was to call upon the aid of the ancestors or to summon the help of the gods. Magic and myth are not primitive attempts to explain the world, but to summon the powers of earth and sky. Most of words for "things" were originally names of beings. "Tree" was not a description, but a summons -- the name of the being "Tree". "Facts", as I noted earlier, were never considered normal in the sense of being normative for human conduct. Ancient man did not live between the categories "subject" and "object", but between the vocation and the profession -- between call and response, imperative (dramatical) and narrative (epical) orders. These are the poles of time, not space. And the very first imperative order is "Live!" which ancient man experienced in his being as a divine commandment, therefore not as a push from behind (a so-called "drive"), but as a call from the future -- the very meaning of vocation. Until the Modern Era reverse the order of times, God was always considered to be in the future, waiting for Man to catch up and keep his appointment. The relationship of "vocation-profession" or call and response is the relationship of future to past.
Man is drawn towards the future by imperatives issued in the past. Buddha, Christ, Lao-Tze or Mohammed, etc are not men of the past, but of the future because we have not yet caught up with their consciousness. They continue to draw others towards them because they are the future and not the past. It is really the height of post-modernist stupidity to suggest that religion is the result of a "God gene". Religion persists as long as men feel called to catch up with the consciousness of a Buddha, or a Christ, or a Lao-Tze.
The progressive dynamic of the West until today (for it is now exhausted) was not the push from behind, but the sense that men had an appointment with divine destiny not yet kept -- to answer the call and the vocation. But now that the fashion is to declare history meaningless and without purpose, or that we have reached "the end of history", "the end of faith", "the end of democracy" ,etc, etc, it attests to no more than the West has exhausted its reason for being, that its original inspiration is expired, that even its ambitions for freedom, or the integral theory, etc are frustrated, that it has no future since it no longer responds or knows how to respond to the call and the vocation. This is its nihilism. Western man, once the locus of determination inasmuch as he was determined to reach the future to which he felt called, has suddenly, in a grand reversal, resigned himself to being the determined. This resignation, this fatalism, this surrender to necessity, and the exhaustion of imagination, is truly his "end of history".
The West is finished and the Modern Era is over. It now sings its swan song.
"Are you saying that consciousness is separate from mind, which again separate from the brain?"
No... and yes. Every cell in your body is conscious. Why do you restrict this consciousness to your brain alone? Your whole body is an expression of consciousness. The Egyptians held that the heart was the seat of consciousness. The pre-Hellenic Greeks at one time believed that the knees were the seat of consciousness (later it migrated to the blood). Each of these is completely reasonable (and true if you don't accept that consciousness is exclusively expressed through one organ of the body). That the modern man identifies his brain with consciousness is, in historical terms, completely aberrant. In the past, men knew that consciousness was expressed throughout the entire body. And because man historically held that consciousness was expressed throughout the body, he (quite literally) had more "sense" than the modern who willfully isolates his consciousness within Plato's Cave again -- the cavern of his skull.
"You mention the restrictiveness of the scientific method but do not proffer alternatives - could you describe them?"
One should bear in mind Nietzsche's dictum -- "the will to a system is a lack of integrity". If we accept that as a precept, then it is precisely our will to a system that prevents us from reaching the integral theory (otherwise known in history as Logos, Elixir, Holy Grail, Dharma, Tao, Philosopher's Stone, The Word, etc). Really, human beings have always and everywhere been concerned to identify the "one needful thing" and ground of being, the quintessence that would account for the unity and integrity of the cosmos. The task, as I have repeatedly suggested, is to examine these and to integrate them, for each period of human history offers a vital clue to the whole. Human history may be a jig-saw puzzle, but the pieces fit.
"I am not sure that, 'Perception is reality,' is such a bankrupt notion as you suggest. How do we access the objective world - it is something that philosophy and science has wrestled with since Thales was a lad?"
The slogan "perception is reality" omits from reality the function and activity of conception. Yet the conceptual faculty was was the privileged faculty at the beginning of the Modern Era. The slogan "knowledge is power" stands near the beginning of the modern era and emphasises conception. "Perception is reality" represents an historic reversal of this dynamic. What is the relationship between concept and percept then? And how is it that precisely at "the end of history" the concept has disappeared from reality at even the same time when people are announcing "the closing of the Western Mind", "the culture of narcissism", etc? These are all connected. To say that "perception is reality" is to say that perception is truth. Reality is not dependent upon us for its existence.
The faith of the founders of the Modern Era was that true reality could be known through the concept, not the percept. "Perception is reality" dramatically reverses this (like so much else that represents reversal today as object evidence of Heraclitus' enantiodromia). The disappearance of conception from reality may even have a connection with Paul Hawken's "the death of birth". And in fact Fukuyama justified his celebrated "end of history" thesis solely on the basis that we could not imagine a future sigificantly better than the present. One asks, is it possible that we are in the era of Nietzsche's decadent Last Man who can no longer conceive or desire beyond himself and who therefore cannot pass over the bridge to the future?
"I don't think most scientists confuse means with ends. Science is a method (means) and its findings merely staging posts (not ends)."
All means are bridges. All meaning is also means as bridge and arch. The technological society produces means (media) in abundance, but it no longer knows why it does so or to what purpose or end. The creation of means for their own sake becomes tautology, and it is not coincidental that the LSE's John Gray now concludes that really time is cyclic and that progress is an illusion, or that Fukuyama declares the end of history because there is no goal or appointment to keep. It is precisely because means have become ends that history stands still and becomes a circle once again.
At the CiF, the poster known as Simplicius, who described himself as a theoretical physicist, confessed that the guiding imperative of physics today is "shut up and calculate". Very revealing. Any computer can calculate. But it cannot conceive, imagine, nor create.
"Finally, 'Absurdism' is a perfectly respectable position to hold ( I am not an absurdist, by the way). For where is the evidence that the world has meaning? We impart meaning because it is we (not the world) that requires it."
The absurd is the abyss. The definition of absurd is "opposed to reason or truth; irrational; ridiculous". Are you certain you want to call this a "respectable position to hold"? It belongs to nihilism and the anti-biotic (as opposed to the pro-biotic). One may recognise that the present circumstances are absurd without endorsing absurdity.
I reiterate my question. How can anyone say that life, the universe and everything is meaningless and expect that statement to be meaningful? Only someone who no longer feels part of reality, does not include himself or herself in the real world, but stands apart from it at an abstracted distance -- in the mind alone, and the mind fully alienated from the cosmos it merely surveys from afar -- the perspective attitude, in fact.
But perspectivism is breaking down into perplexity, paradox and confusion and self-devouring tautology.
boltonian... "Every change, wherever and in whatever, will affect the world. This does not, of course, negate determinism. Entanglement is a macro as well as a quantum effect."
Oh yes, it occurred to me just as I posted that "deterministic" has actually be superseded by "probablistic".
There is lots here to think about and I would like to get others' views but there are are a couple of issues I would like to comment on.
Whether non-locality supersedes cause and effect or not it has no effect on determinism. Nor does the probabilistic nature of quantum effects; it merely pushes it back. If all entities obey strict laws, whether they are entangled or not, determinism is more likely to be the case than not.
If by conscious we mean self-aware, what evidence do you have for supposing it exists at the cellular rather than the organisational level? Everything we understand about the world is mediated in the brain.
How can we be disinterested as individuals? Science is (supposedly) disinterested but scientists certainly not. Even science is subject to group-think and breakthroughs often need to wait for the next generation to emerge.
Time. The past exists as an approximate, fallible and fluid memory (six historians in a room will all disagree about what really happened last week, never mind hundreds of years ago) in the brain, the future has not happened and the present assumes an instant which is neither past nor present. If things happen instantaneously and it is we that imposes cause and effect what role can time play?
Your hypothesis about the origins of language is one that I have not heard before (although it is not my field of expertise) - do you have supporting evidence?
You sound very pessimistic about where we have got to. I would suggest that there are those in every age who say that earlier generations were wiser than us and it is all downhill from here.
Re-simpliscius' point. Yes but there are also the iconoclasts like Smolin, Laughlin and others who will not do as they are told. 'Twas ever thus. The majority conform and will not rock the boat but there is always a risk-taking minority from where leaps of knowledge emerge.
As I said earlier this sort of argument largely depends on one's temperament rather than evidence. I am optimistic by nature.
You seem to be saying that 'Absurdism' cannot be right because you don't want it to be right. Well, neither do I but that is not the same as refuting it.
'Perception is reality,' does mean the same as 'Perception is truth,' to me. It means that everything comes to us through our senses and is mediated in the brain - our perceptive apparatus gives us our view of the world. It does not mean that we can access reality this way - in fact it means almost the opposite of that.
'But perspectivism is breaking down into perplexity, paradox and confusion and self-devouring tautology.'
I am not sure what you mean here. Do you mean that we no longer accept the certainties of faith-based religions as truths any more? If so, I would agree with you but I do not regard that as a bad thing. We do live in a perplexing and paradoxical world because we know so little about it. Therein lies its endless fascination for me. I do not know what 'Self-devouring tautology means.'
Sorry if that's a bit all over the place but like dOm I have some deadlines approaching. By the way, dOm - I hope your editor was impressed by your copy and perfect sense of timing. :-)
Some excellent stuff here, and there are a few points I wish to raise, but as I'm still hideously behind on my deadlines they may have to wait a couple of days. However, just one pont ...
Biskieboo:
"It saddens me that whenever I mention something really interesting such as the dream that I had, it is totally ignored."
I would like to know a bit more about your dream and also of how different people experience dreams and sleeping.
As a deep sleeper, I normally just black out and very rarely remember my dreams. However, a few times whilst stoned I have gone to bed meditating and got into a state where I slept whilst remaining aware - once even going through REM (I could feel my eyes jumping around) while consciously of the whole thing.
Anyway, it occurs to me that this might be how "light sleepers" frequently experience sleep, or at least stages of the sleep cycle.
Last night I managed to get in this state for the first time while not stoned (though by the REM stage I was properly slumbering). I wanted to try and somehow access my dreams, but remained at the stage of enjoying the pretty patterns.
I know of the concept of "lucid dreaming" - when you know you are dreaming and can control what happens - which I rarely but occasionally experienced even before I heard of it. How much is dreaming an active and how much a passive process?
I regret that I don't have time to enter into all the fascinating discussions that have sprung up. Hope to at some point.
DaddyOMarcos - hope deadline stress has not been too much. (What's your article on?). Thanks for your reply. I don't have time for a wholly adequate or satisfactory response. Some thoughts, though.
On the clarification (i.e. we each communicate to ourselves, there is something irreducibly individual about all of this etc). I am not denying the 'incommunicable' dimensions of our subjective existence. You could try as you like, but there would always be something irreducibly mine about my experience of the world. Sure. But, part of our thinking depends on - perhaps presupposes - others, and I wonder to what extent our thinking, our communication (even to ourselves) necessarily reflects an outside, more 'communal' dimension. There is a sense in which our development depends on others to bring out (and, in some ways, shape) our selves: babies need, usually, their parents to learn, eventually, about their own existence as selves, as well as their parents' (and others') existence as selves, as 'Is' in their own right. Moreover, language - through which we communicate to ourselves among other things - has a radically non-individual dimension. It offers a shared, though not static set of communicative, interpretative tools and schemes. Thus, even when communicating to ourselves (and even if we try to do it like Descartes) I'd speculate that there are always inescapable 'footprints' (if you like) of others.
To go to the beetle example - again, I stress the poverty of my speculative powers on this. There is a plausible (though speculative) possibility of some sort of primordial familiarity insofar as (we assume) a beetle does experience and engage with the world from a, in some parts, irreducibly 'subjective' perspective: to use the word again, perhaps there is something ineffable and incommunicable about it (though this creates more headaches for our thought experiment!). At the same time, there is nothing about a beetle's (or, to revisit a previous example, the insect I christened Sufjan some time back) behaviour that suggests to me that it could quite consider itself an 'I' in the way we (presumably) do.
Perhaps I might agree with you, then, that "it is from this primordial awareness that self-awareness stems". But self-awareness (poorly or not really defined, I admit) while ontologically(?) dependent on this posited primordial awareness, does still seem different from - or to transcend - it in some ways.
What you say on abstract thought, subjective running commentary and instinctual social historiography(!) is v interesting, and I fear I won't do it justice. I agree that it seems plausible, in some ways, to think of this subjective (by which, incidentally, I mean no more than pertaining to us as subjects, as 'Is', rather than the more epistemological sense in which it is often used) running commentary as 'communicating to ourselves'. I don't deny that we do this but - as I tried to argue above - this self-communication does still contain "shadows" of others. I am still a bit unclear on quite what you mean about 'modal logic etc' as 'instinctual'. (Sorry). If you mean something along the lines of it pertains to the kind of beings we seem to be, relates to our self-communication etc, then sure.
I guess the sense in which I meant that 'modal logic' etc seem to me to be distinctly non-instinctual is when one attempts to explain (away) such practices in mechanistic terms (in terms of efficient causation): (i.e. here I mean instinct in the way one says that Sufjan has an 'instinct' to do whatever it is his weird species of insect do - eat smaller ones and reproduce etc). This just doesn't make much sense to me. To give an example: when Saul Kripke raises the possibility of a posteriori necessities (i.e. things that are necessarily true but can only be known after the fact, as it were, incidentally one of the few Kripkean ideas I can honestly say I feel I grasp soundly), can this (his conclusions and also his route to those conclusions as expressed in a paper/book) be understood in terms of instinct (in the sort of sense given above)? I can't quite see how. I would defend charges that I don't have the imagination to work out the complicated chain of cause and effect (as understood in a particular way, i.e. efficient causation). I mean that however long one makes this chain, it doesn't seems to work (or be the whole story) in terms of what Kripke is doing. I hope this is half-clear (even if it may be whole-wrong).
Finally, you wrote, "Yes [there is something distinctive about our capacity for abstract thought] in that only we are capable of abstract thought, no in that it stems from something more fundamental that we share with other animals."
I am not averse to understanding ourselves as animals. But, we do seem to be unique animals, as I said above, in terms of being able to represent reality to ourselves and others. I guess our sharing something fundamental with other animals refers back to your posited primordial awareness point, to which I am partly sympathetic. Yet, overwhelmingly, we appear to be capable to represent the world (to ponder the capacity of other animals to do this) in a way that these other animals do not. We share with them important ontological dependencies on certain things for our very existence. Yet, we do, to my mind, have something rather strange about us: namely, this latent rational capacity which we actualise to varying degrees (and which depends on a certain interpersonal communion - c.f. the child raised by wolves example someone gave above), which (I'll stick my head out) does not seem to be qualitatively shared with other animals. And a large part of this is stems from our language (and capacity as language users), bearing in mind that while other animals clearly have languages and communicative schemes, none of them seem to have, as far as we can tell, representational qualities in the ways ours do.
Hope to continue this discussion, DaddyO, though please do fulfil your more pressing obligations first.
Sorry. zubin (not mehta) = ChooChoo. I guess this propounds the question of what to write for the name next time. I hope I will be forgiven for sticking to ChooChoo, simply because this is how new participants from CiF etc might have come across me.
By the way, have started Paul Davies' Goldilock's Enigma following recommendations here and elsewhere. V interesting hitherto. Though, I fear that I underestimated how little I concentrated in GCSE physics: I am still slightly at a loss (or half in the dark) over space-as-flat etc. I guess that intuitively a layman (or an ignorant one like me) immediately pictures the big bang as a something which 'explodes' outwards as an ever enlarging sphere, while also realising that this seems to be wrong. Is the point that there is no 'bird's-eye', third person view outside the box, as it were, to see the 'shape' of the universe from 'outside'? (And this whole point about space-time being curved?). Any quick clarifications much appreciated.
I would stick with ChooChoo, though, as that is how the world at large knows and loves you. Names are sacred, as the ancients knew, and not lightly to be cast aside like a worn out jockstrap.
Interesting post and, if I get the chance I might butt in later, if I may.
ChooChoo writes: "On the clarification (i.e. we each communicate to ourselves, there is something irreducibly individual about all of this etc). I am not denying the 'incommunicable' dimensions of our subjective existence. You could try as you like, but there would always be something irreducibly mine about my experience of the world."
My understanding is that the physical world you perceive (some would say create) is literally yours alone.
Obviously it shares a great many features of those worlds others create and there must be some means of reaching agreement on the details, the parameters, of shared features.
I suggest this is accomplished by means other than spoken language and largely unconsciously.
"..But, part of our thinking depends on - perhaps presupposes - others, and I wonder to what extent our thinking, our communication (even to ourselves) necessarily reflects an outside, more 'communal' dimension. There is a sense in which our development depends on others to bring out (and, in some ways, shape) our selves: babies need, usually, their parents to learn, eventually, about their own existence as selves, as well as their parents' (and others') existence as selves, as 'Is' in their own right. Moreover, language - through which we communicate to ourselves among other things - has a radically non-individual dimension. It offers a shared, though not static set of communicative, interpretative tools and schemes. Thus, even when communicating to ourselves (and even if we try to do it like Descartes) I'd speculate that there are always inescapable 'footprints' (if you like) of others."
For many years I have accepted the existence of telepathy -- this would seem to be happening nearly continuously and is likely to be the means I write of above but, again, this is largely below or beneath conscious awareness. We can become somewhat consciously aware of it, however, beyond those odd moments when we happen to notice it (often during an intimate relationship; consider, too, the intimacy of a child in the womb, something we have all experienced, of course).
A great many of my friends and associates take this for granted, as I do; I sometimes forget how this is a strange and even impossible notion for others, however.
I don't claim to be a master of conscious telepathy; happening to occasionally notice its existence is quite different.
Testing its validity (as opposed to assuming I am merely "hearing voices") has been much easier to accomplish owing to the rise of the Internet, but I became aware of non-physical communication long before this, in dreams.
An example would be the dreams of a friend, a woman who lived several hundred miles away and was an enthusiast of Freudian psychoanalysis, which includes dream recall.
She would recall a dream in which I provided details of my life for her analysis and include this in a letter to me.
The details were quite accurate, but I had not communicated them to her by any physical means.
It's apparent to me that we are thoroughly connected to all others beneath our conscious minds (and our beliefs in our discreteness) -- that connection is telepathic in nature. (What other word do we have to describe this?)
This kind of unofficial awareness, shared by a great many, suggests to me that we live in what in certain ways is a very primitive civilization, despite its sophistication in material directions, a civilization wherein very basic and natural realities are occluded from our awareness owing to the way we have been trained -- from a very early age -- to focus.
The focus is on what is "outside" and/or "objective" -- the sensory world, while the selves we develop tend to spend so much time thinking -- that is, engaged in conscious mentation (not true for everyone, of course) -- that all kinds of other processes are missed or simply not noticed, including telepathic communication.
(I view the increasing global electronic communications as symbolizing the inner 'network' -- an exteriorization.)
It has long seemed to me that this kind of awareness (and I am not very special in this way; owing to my friendships and long Internet activities I know that a great many share a version of it) turns _almost_ all established religions, philosophies, and scientific understandings on their heads -- makes _almost_ all of them largely useless in terms of achieving any successful overall understanding of the nature of reality.
They are the understandings of a particular kind of limited egoic consciousness (with certain major exceptions found here and there, of course).
As more partake of a different and expanded experience, this must change (and is changing, so far as I can determine).
As I've posted on CiF, "Meditation" is a word that describes an activity -- however poorly and however rife with the assumptions and beliefs of endless traditions -- that can enable an expanded experience wherein such things as telepathy (and much else) become consciously accessible.
The question of where to go with any of this is a large one, one that frequently preoccupies me when I am not engaged in other activities (including working, of course; I am not independently wealthy).
I want to omit responding for the moment to some of the objections you raised in your last post in order to focus on what is, perhaps, the most salient and foundational of them, which is the teaching of "perception is reality". It would seem that we cannot advance our understanding without resolving the relationship between perception and percept as these bear on the determination of fundamental reality (or, as is otherwise said, "the foundations of the world"). For basically, it is a controversy over the meaning of "understanding" itself in the sense that the root meaning of per-ception (cipere) means "to grasp". So, we address what it means to "grasp" before we interrogate "reality" as to its existence or meaning.
(And it might be fun and illuminating to compare the religious imagination's conception of the "foundations of the world" to the secular imagination's understanding of "fundamental reality" at some point. I don't think they are as wide apart as most people think).
The doctrine of "perception is reality" makes the act of perception constitutive of the reality it perceives, and therefore makes the human organisation (the organic apparatus) wholly determinative of the reality it observes. Reality (the "res") is not essentially a system of things or objects here. Rather it is defined as a system of percepts where even "objective" and "object" and "thing" are conditional upon perception. But immediately we are faced with a problem of interpretation and comprehension.
"Per-ception" means "to grasp through", attesting to the primary reliance upon the sensual array (the "doors of perception" in Blake's terms) for grasping. The word therefore establishes, in advance, an assumed determinant relationship between mind (the grasping thing, the res cogitans) and world exclusively mediated by the sensual array, which is invested now with definitive authority for truth, which far from solving perplexing issues of knowledge becomes generative of more of them.
In any event, I am here reminded of a passage from Goethe's Faust which seems apropos to the moment.
Two souls reside, alas, within my breast, And each one from the other would be parted. The one holds fast, in sturdy lust for love, With clutching organs clinging to the world; The other strongly rises from the gloom To lofty fields of ancient heritage."
I will return, perhaps, to this since it is Goethe's judgement that it is precisely perception (where "clinging organs" invokes the act of grasping) that is "the gloom" which requires the penetrating illumination of insight rather than perception. And, of course, there is a great deal of difference between sight and insight where, like Goethe's "two souls" also, "vision" has a double meaning.
"Perception is reality" doesn't have much to say about the existence or non-existence of the perceiver, unless we grant that the perceiver is itself a percept -- a self-image without a self in the act of grasping itself. But then we end up in a kind of house of mirrors that I have referred to as "self-devouring tautology", but which exactly describes the situation Narcissus was in in the myth of Narcissus and Echo which, I hold, is the situation into which a consciousness circumscribed by the sensorium must descend if "perception is reality" is granted.
When we return to the act of "grasping" as the dynamic of mind in its quest for understanding (and as to the meaning of "under-standing", more anon), we find articulated not just "perception", but also inception, exception, reception, transception, conception all of which surely belong to its reality as well. Yet "perception is reality" makes sweeping claims which omit by establishment all these other directions in which mind moves dynamically in order to get "the whole picture" as it were -- by which it attempts to embrace the whole via its particulars. "Ex-" (out, outwards), Re- (backwards), In- (in, inwards), trans- (across, over), con - (all together, with), as well as "per-" (through). There is also "pre-cept" (in the form of belief) which legislates the act of perception in advance and judges the legitimacy or illegitimacy of of percept, just as logic legislates conception and sits in judgement of the truth or falsehood of a concept.
This directionality in the act of mind, in which our consciousness attempts to surround a percept and interrogate it as to its validity and truth, demonstrates in what way consciousness implicitly understands reality as a cosmos comprised of four (and not two) fields of reality -- backwards and forwards in time; inwards and outwards in space. For a something to be real or become realised, it must "take time" in order to "take place" at all. So that in order for any "thing" to become a percept at all, it must first have passed through progressive stages of realisation before it is realised as a "fact", that is, as something really real, occupying time and space.
This phasic process in which things eventuate and become reified as "fact" (the "made" thing), that is that they must take time in order to take place at all, is omitted completely by the doctrine "perception is reality". "Real" are also all the stages leading up to the construction of the percept. Or, as William Blake once put it, "what is now prov'd was once only imagined", which slides into Einstein's judgement that imagination is more important than knowledge, or at least has priority in the order of realisation in which things must first take time in order to take place.
We see, therefore, and quite despite ourselves, that consciousness regardless of our minds or our clarity about the process, holds us to a proper order of realisation, in which it establishes and interrogates any process as to its history and future prospects, as well as its relation to the spaces, its inwardness and outward aspects. In the various articulations of "grasping", consciousness reaches backwards, forwards, inwards, and outwards in order to surround the process as a whole. And it is only in the very last stage of realisation (as a percept, as a "fact", in the indicative form of "it is...") that the process stops and the "thing" now takes its place as a "fact" amongst the system of objects, or the system of percepts as the case may be. The relationship of "potens" to "actus" is only the consciousness that things must take time in order to take place at all.
As to the doctrine "perception is reality", the founders of the Age of Reason would probably be astonished at this outcome and conclusion. For them, it was precisely the percept that had to be arrested, put on trial and tested by a judge and jury as to its truthfulness. The percept had to be tried against the concept, and it was the concept, and not the percept, that was the final authority for the truth and reality of the percept, for the percept was the particular instance, while the concept pertained to the universal.
So why has the teaching of "perception is reality" taken root if not because it is a conclusion completely adapted to the new mediated environment in which the modern mind finds itself ensconced like a fish in water? The "mediated environment", which is the technological society, exists precisely because all means have been transformed into ends in themselves, just as all use values have been translated into exchange values. And just as all ends have disappeared, so has man lost determination himself. For what need has man of determination if he is at the end of history? He relaxes his vigilance. He extinguishes his passion. And having become the spitting image of Nietzsche's Last Man at the "end of history" determination now passes to things outside and external to his life -- the percepts, which things and processes are now seen as intending him as means, agency, function rather than himself being the seat of intention and a volunteer or a founder, or an originator.
The echo overtakes the voice. The founders of the Age of Reason, who largely believed in the possibility of the "infinite perfectibility of man" and "the truth that sets free" (a very Christian impulse) would be aghast at this apparent reversal. And so aghast was Nietzsche, in fact, that he had to restore the Christic impulse to history, the vocation, and the sense of appointment by re-introducing the transhuman (a far better translation of uebermensch than "superman" or even overman) as the continuing narrative of Western man's effort to fulfill the imperative "be thou therefore perfect, even as thy Father in Heaven...". And when Nietzsche responded to the death (ie, "murder" as he put it) of God, it was in affirmative response to that imperative, in answering "if god is dead, then must we not now become God ourselves?" But that is only the continuation of the Christic impulse in time.
But, to return to under-standing, as promised. It is a peculiar word. Just what is it that, when we "know", we stand under or beneath? In German, "verstehen" also draws a relationship of understanding to something above and beyond us. The irony is that the polar counterpart to "understanding" is actually the word "superstition" (super-stare, to "stand over").
I would like others to comment son your various posts before I come back.
I will restrict myself to one observation. I have noticed in many of your posts that you set great store by word analysis and taking them back to their root derivation. Although not my subject I am fascinated by etymology; a philologist friend made some now accepted breakthroughs in the understanding of Uralian languages, which helped to identify previously unknown population movements. But I am not sure that people use words in that way. At least I don't. Words change their meaning quite quickly and sometimes now mean the opposite of what they meant originally.
Also, I cannot know what you mean by a certain word - I can only relate it to my own experiences and by a sub-conscious process of elimination arrive at what I think is the nearest approximation. This is why understanding (however the word is derived) is so very difficult and often not achieved at all.
Bill:
At some fundamental level I think everything, whatever that might be, is part of everything else. whether this explains telepathy, I am not sure. Identical twins often experience it but I am not sure of other research into the matter.
dOm:
Dreams. I have dreams where I wake, whilst still dreaming, and if it is pleasant feel I can continue the dream, as if manipulating it. If it is unpleasant one of two things happens; either I wake myself up or I think I am awake when I am not. The latter is not a nice feeling but it is, thankfully, rare.
I was interrupted before completing my last post, which I'ld like to resume here. But not exactly at the point where I broke off -- the relationship of understanding to "superstition".
The teaching of "perception is reality" necessitates the elimination of any One World hypothesis. Human perception is not at all uniform or homegenous. Any percept has particular and individual aspects which, the early founders of the Age of Reason understood, had to be refined and purified of its conditional, quirky, individualistic aspects by reference to a universal -- the concept.
Not all percepts are the same, nor is the mode of perception universal at all, even amongst human groups. The mode of Western Man's perception of reality is perspectivally conditioned. Since the Renaissance, a regime has been imposed on the act of perception which translates all percepts into perspective terms. Not only did this regimen shift the principal organ of knowing from the ear to the eye (as per Marshall McLuhan and his teacher Harold Innis in The Bias of Communication) but it also shifted consciousness from a focus on time and becoming to a focus on space and being. For us, just as the rules of logic govern the process of reason and specify its propriety or impropriety, so the rules of perspective came to govern and inform the act of perception, with as much moral content as rationalism. When we tell somebody to "keep things in perspective", that is a moral imperative and commandment. But it is useless to tell this to someone who has no knowledge of perspective at all.
Perspective perception is not natural. Spinoza probably could not have taught his "ethica more geometrico" except under the impress of perspectivism. Nor could Galileo have conceived of "ideal space" except perspectivally. And it is of significance that Galileo, before he turned his attention to science, applied to teach the still new discpline of perspectivism at the University of Florence (he didn't get the position).
Grayling, in his article that started all this, commented that the "ratio" that informs rationality is based on a proportionate and measured array of argument and evidence (elements which make for the understanding of "justice" as ad-justing, balance, proportion, measure). That is not the case, really. The "ratio" that informs Modern Man's rationality is based on the ratio of a "holy trinity" of spaces -- length, breadth, depth. This does not come natural to perception, but is learned as is completely observable in the drawings of children and by comparing art forms of different cultures and across different historical epochs.
Albrecht Duerer invented what I consider the archetypal technology of the Modern Era. It was simply frame with a grid array that sectoralised and analysed the whole into particulars -- allotment of space, as it were. Significantly, he called it "lucinda" (meaning "enlightening") meaning that consciousness penetrates into space and takes command of its depth for the first time. (An image of this lucinda is located at http://art3idea.psu.edu/einsof/lusitania/default.html) This sectoralising "grid" which takes the whole and particularises it, became the basic form for the legislation of perception and the true organisation of space, which has shaped how we construct our cities, our relations, our networks, and how we organise people into nation-states, etc. The device was widely copied and used in the early Renaissance for exactly the purpose of training perception in perspective viewing as a road to the mastery of space conceived in three-dimensions.
Not only did perspectivism specify the parameters of proper perception, it also specified what the moral parameters would be for the conduct of human behaviour. "Keep things in perspective", the sanctity of the individual with his "point of view" are scarcely concievable as moral precepts to a people to whom perspective is unknown (the Muslims rejected perspectivism as "competing with God" or as belonging to the father of lies insofar as the representation of the illusion of depth and trompe l'oeil (fooling the eye) upon a two-dimensional surface suggested falsification). Over the last 500 years, our understanding of reality has been couched in terms of the perspectival. Some common complaints about Western Man's "aloofness" actually stems from the entrenched perspective habit of "standing back in order to get the whole picture" now entertained as an habitual moral parameter of conduct.
Our consciousness is structured perspectivally, which makes it damnably difficult for us to understand time except as an analogue to space. Time is measured as space is measured -- seconds, hours, minutes are like atoms and molecules of time. We take "the long view" or "the short view" on the assumption that the logic of perspective applies equally well to time as it does to space. But other peoples do not experience time in this way. And it is my contention that many of the paradoxes and ambiguities of the quantum are the result of trying to apply perspective perception, with its presumption of ideal space organised in three dimensions as the essence of the true ratio, where it is inapplicable.
If da Vinci represents the prototype of the Modern Man, Picasso represents the end of that type as ideal, and as worthy of emulation. da Vinci was held up as the perfect Renaissance man, made in the image of Universal Reason. Picasso abolishes perspective altogether as an unwarranted limitation and restriction on perception. In his art, the whole becomes presence as a whole. Past and future states are both represented as well in the present. The snapshot or photographic effect is eliminated, so that a painting will depict the different moods of light, morning, noon, afternoon, evening just exactly as they were present at the time of painting. This all-at-onceness highlights, more than anything, the shift of attention towards time and timing rather than the proper perspectival treatment of space. It represents consciousness stretching towards the global or holistic.
This was already anticipated in advance by Nietzsche, who credited his "unique" ability to "switch perspectives" between foreground and background effects for the vitality of his thought, but also because he had, as he put it, one foot in the grave and one in life, and philosophised from both.
It is largely because time is again emerging to the forefront again, and insistently so, that perspective consciousness is beginning to break down. It is a method designed for handling space on the basis of the ratio of spaces. It cannot handle time in this manner, as Descartes even confessed. To perception perspectivally organised, time is miracle and mystery, and even the cause of his angst and anxiety. When it comes to space, man arranges, organises, alots, parcels and generally takes command of the spaces of his life. Time he fears, however, as something which he does not have, but which has him, and which will drive him like the Cherubim did Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
But if time is miracle and mystery, and the cause of Modern Man's chief superstitions about reality, it is because his consciousness of time is defective relative to his awareness of space, and his anxieties about time are largely the result of trying to apply the same methods and categories which, by establishment, were intended only for the discovery of space to the conquest of time. Yet, in the Planetary Era, it is time that becomes the most pressing issue as different historical epochs converge on the present.
boltonian... "Words change their meaning quite quickly and sometimes now mean the opposite of what they meant originally."
This shift is not arbitrary, but is usually an index into some important change in our consciousness and approach to the "real", and perhaps even as evidence of the principle of enantiodromia (reversal) in action.
One of my favourite examples of this is "nice". Originally it meant basically ignorant or foolish (ne secire, or not knowing). Today, you are considered a good man if you are "nice". Perhaps that is ominous.
Another is "private", which at various times has meant both to steal (piracy, privateer, privation) and liberate (privatisation, privacy, private). How these are to be understood requires sometimes a sociological sensibility to the context of the times, and how the meanings of these relate to the entire corpus of meanings. Not just as examples of a revaluation of values, per se, but sometimes as a radical restructuring of consciousness. Often entire new constellations of meaning emerge which radically transform the social order over time, such as the Renaissance did when it translated the meaning of the relationship of eternity to time, or immortal and mortal orders, into the relationship of infinity and the finite, or background and foreground states. It was a major shift from the ear as the primary organ of consciousness to the eye as primary organ of consciousness.
With that came some interesting (and entirely unanticipated) consequences. The hierarchy of levels of sacred truth was flattened out into the democracy of the fact. Hierarchies (the archy of the hieros or "sacred") construct a ladder or chain of truth realisation, of elevation where one progresses upwards in terms of greater and greater truth realisation. Sacred truth is not public, but is revealed in progressive stages of realisation upwards through the heirarchy (also in the Laws of Manu and the caste system as originally concieved). Secularism flattens out this hierarchy, and makes the truth public as "fact".
This was really what was behind the confrontation between Galileo and the Church. It was a conflict between "truth" and "fact", with deep ramifications for the social and political order in terms of hierarchy and democracy. And here it was definitely Galileo who was confused about truth and fact and the implications of conflating the two as synonyms. When he left his trial muttering "but it's the truth", he still did not get it. The Church authorities were quite willing to accept his discoveries as "facts", but not as the truth. This is why they didn't look through his telescope. It wasn't from ignorance or bigotry. It was irrelevant to the main issue -- the difference between fact and truth, and the spiritual and political implications of confusing the one with the other. Here again is the issue of ear as organ of knowing and eye as organ of knowing -- "seeing is believing" was quite irrelevant to an aural culture.
By the time of the Late Middle Ages, however, -- the period of terminal decadence -- elevation up the hierarchy was less the progressive realisation of revealed truth than something to be purchased. And many a rich thief and criminal ended his days as pope. Totally corrupt, it was inevitable that it would be swept away.
re dreams, lucid or otherwise, which daddy0marcos & boltonian briefly mentioned....
Not sure how relevant this is, but when writing up my PhD 20+ years ago, I was stuck for some weeks trying to model mathematically a particular biological system. Eventually, one night I dreamt the solution (radically different to the approach I'd been trying previously). I wrote it down the next morning, and all was clear.
All I deduce from this is that the conscious mind keeps working rationally even when we're asleep; which is why I'm so sceptical about trying to over-analyse dreams or other mystical experiences. I see that anecdote as more akin to those screen-saver programs that analyse data whilst your computer is idle....but I expect others will put a different interpretation to it. It couldn't happen today as any vivid dream - good or bad - wakes me with pain, because of a rare and bizarre illness (don't ask).
boltonian : "I forgot to congratulate you on becoming this blog's 'Poet in Residence.' I think the traditional payment is a butt of sack, or is it a sack of butt?"
Butt of sack....108 gallons of cheap sherry....maybe you meant a kick up the butt? I'll try not to overindulge, either with granny's sherry, or the doggerel.... ;-}
BTW, no offence meant for not responding to longsword, olching, bill, or others who have posted interesting stuff recently; longsword's pieces especially have been outside of my area, so I leave them for others better qualified. And I haven't forgotten I owe Biskieboo a reply....but tomorrow this computer gets wiped & reprogrammed....hope this site is still here when I return....
steve... "Eventually, one night I dreamt the solution (radically different to the approach I'd been trying previously). I wrote it down the next morning, and all was clear."
Most of my ideas come from dream. I'm not smart enough to think them up myself.
But your story reminded me of a similar one of my own. In a former life as a software developer, I was frustrated one day by a particularly intractable problem that kept crashing the programme before it could load completely. I took the project home. I tore the code apart, hunted and hunted for the flaw, and finally gave up in complete consternation around 1 in the morning. I started to dream the code (and I often wrote much of the code in dream and simply set it up in the morning)and suddenly I was directed by the dream to look in a directory that did not belong to the project. I woke up about three o'clock, turned on the computer and checked the directory. Sure enough, the project had become split across directories, and was crashing because it was attempting to reference code in two different directories.
But the most deeply transformative dream I had also radically changed my self-understanding and perception of reality, and I tell this dream because it is relevant to the things I write about. I dreamed I was a fish, a northern pike as a matter of fact, and I was this fish completely. My consciousness was fish consciousness (which was quite an interesting experience in itself). In this dream, I took a lure, and I remember vividly the pressure of the lure in my mouth as I was reeled struggling against it towards the surface of the lake. When I, as fish, broke the water I saw a fisherman standing in a boat facing me with rod in hand, and at the exact moment that I, as fish, broke the water I was also the fisherman in the boat. My consciousness and identity was in two forms simultaneously.
The situation was so incongruous that I woke with a start. And to compound the incongruity, I realised at the moment of "surfacing" from the dream that my consciousness and identity had actually been in three forms, the fish, the fisherman, and my normal everyday self who had been in the background observing during the dream, but was startled out of it by the incongruity.
But then the my mind was literally blown and dissolved when I realised that throughout the dream was still another "self", the architect of the dream, who constructed it, performed it, acted in all the roles, including itself as the perplexed "me". This self so vast in potential and awareness that its very immensity escaped comprehension. I was merely another fragment of its total identity and consciousness. The analogy that suggests itself is a fish in the ocean, who easily overlooks the immensity of the ocean because it is wholly immersed in it.
At that moment, though, when I peered into that "greater self's" identity (or it peered into my reality, I don't know which) reality also dissolved into a dream of eternity, and I understood Blake's words, "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is: Infinite."
"The universe in a grain of sand, and eternity in the hour" is not just a quaint bit of fancy. It is our fundamental reality. Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "The Oversoul" isn't a matter of speculation for me, nor is Nietzsche's "self" in his Zarathustra.
Consciousness is able to assume multiple simultaneous forms without losing its overall identity within any of them. That's not just an idea. It's my experience. One consciousness is able to express itself simultaneously in multiple forms or identities. And on the basis of reading of similar experiences by others, and trying to put together the pieces presented in different places, literatures, etc, I extrapolate from my own experience that there is only one "I am" which happens to be everybody's fundamental true name. I do not call this "God". It approximates closer to Emerson's and Nietzsche's overself, but which is not separate from our own being and identity as such. If some people want to call this "soul", well, then, we are all souls and we are such stuff as dreams are made on.
So there you have it. Against the repressive pressure of my better judgement, I have declared myself and made my confession.
Steve - a friend in need and all that. You really do have a gift ("sigmas...borborygmus [which, I confess, I had to look up: my knowledge of synonyms for 'innard farts' is embarassingly limited]). And I vaguely sense that the big bang - in terms of how it is immediately envisaged by a layman like me - is "guff".
Bill - thank you for what was a v interesting post. I guess whether or not, or the sense(s) in which, "the physical world you perceive (some would say create) is literally yours alone" may well be a subject for recurrent debate here. But for the time being, I am more interested in what you go on to say.
To put my cards on the table, I am vaguely (or initially) sceptical about 'telepathy' etc. I should add that this is somewhat coloured by the connections it has in my mind with some books that regularly litter the sofa areas in the bookshop where I work, kindly dumped by customers for self-pitying sods like me to pick up in a huff.
(On a hopefully not overlong sidenote, it always interests me which categories of customers - in terms of the books they're after - are particularly guilty of this: the main culprits, in my experience, are those looking at travel, 'new age', self-help and fashion books. Don't get me started on dog-eared, unbought lifestyle magazines from which the 'freebies' - ranging from flip-flops to handbags - have been extracted, or else poor old Boltonian and his homely thread will truly become hostage to a 50,000 word hijacking).
"I sometimes forget how this is a strange and even impossible notion for others, however."
But, if I'm honest, I can't rule this out, even if I'm not swayed. (I guess this simply describes various people's attitudes to various things). Clearly, communication is not just linguistic (in the way we normally mean). I would be most interested if you could expand on a few things.
First, on our being "thoroughly connected to all others beneath our conscious minds (and our beliefs in our discreteness) -- that connection is telepathic in nature".
Second, you mention how this understanding might possibly turn "_almost_ all established religions, philosophies, and scientific understandings on their heads -- makes _almost_ all of them largely useless in terms of achieving any successful overall understanding of the nature of reality." (This is the bit I probably and ostensibly most strongly disagree with, but would be grateful for your thoughts - what you say about their dealing with "a particular kind of limited egoic consciousness" tantalises - and if you could tell me some of the exceptions you mention, I think I'll get a clearer idea. Do you mean 'egoic' as pertaining to psychological conceptions of the ego?).
One last point: I found most interesting and, if you'll let me get away with the outrageous adjective, pregnant the point you raised on the ineffable and slightly strange 'intimacy' we experience at various times: your examples are of relationships and existence in utero. Both offer some fascinating grounds for inquiry.
A familiar cultural trope - probably not so now - in ideal types for marriage - particularly as exemplified by a long-married, old couple - is a certain unanimity. If you'll allow me the digression, the powerful symbolism of becoming one, of becoming 'one flesh', has at various times been taken as the preeminent sign of a more profound union. Incidentally, there is a fascinating tendency in some cultures to use marriage as an analogy for relation to 'God' - the examples I can think of are in Jewish, Christian and Hindu imagery. Forget the 'God' bit for now - I think the potency of this analogy stems from perceptions of that union, unanimity etc alluded to above; wrt to the relation in utero, I am far less knowledgeable - and my memory of those good old days is pretty poor - but I am vaguely aware of studies of the importance of this period in growth and would conjecture that it is formative in our growth as 'selves'. Sorry for digression.
One final question I'd have is how you understand the importance of our being embodied, er, beings.
I realise that I've asked c.318 questions, so your overall thoughts most welcome (and grateful for any specifics). And my articulations of diagreement, questioning etc reflect both my own admittedly (and bit too) kneejerk reaction(s) in this area as well as genuine curiosity.
ChooChoo - glad to be of service....borborygmus (or a variant thereof) was a favourite word of Burgess in the Enderby novels, which I start rereading tonight. And Burgess' 2 vols of autobiog are fascinating for his take on Catholicism (a bit of a doubter at times, but he couldn't quite shake it off). Well recommended - although as fictional autobiog. PS keep an eye on Ben Marshall's blog on Roger Scruton - been trying all day to post one of my best doggerels there....may show in a day or so....
"The only one that was of any real consequence was of a letter arriving in the post that brought some bad news. It turned up for real 24 hours later. This meant that I had time to get used to the idea that the bad news was coming, news which upset me deeply. I'm grateful for the time that I had to prepare for it, as on waking from the dream I had the feeling that it was going to happen."
I can't really expand greatly on what I wrote because the topic of the letter is of a sensitive nature. But I can say that only days previously to the dream, things seemed to be going very much my way, so the news was unexpected and most unwanted. I was very much wrapped up in what was going on, as I thought I had a lot riding on the outcome at the time. The passage of time has made it easier to deal with, and I think maybe the dream was partly to show me this - that even though in this instance things didn't go the way I would have liked, it was not the end of the world. Sorry if this is a bit obscure. Maybe I *should* write a book.
I had a whole series of lucid dreams when I was a student (and smoking a lot of a dope). In one, I was sure I was awake and walking around my flat. There was just one tiny detail of the flat that was different, from which I then inferred that I was still asleep,and so tried to wake up. I then woke up, only to find that I hadn't and that I was still asleep. This was quite unpleasant, and I really had to struggle to get myself awake.
Please allow me to first discharge a few brief comments before I reply, and before getting into a day rife with annoying deadlines and even more annoying nitpicking tasks require my full concentration (even as I continue to regain my emotional/psychic/mental balance after an extremely intense encounter with a most amazing person, an experience of only a day or so that would, nevertheless, require a small book to fully describe); note, too, that I just deleted this and am reposting in an attempt to improve it:
1. I haven't had nearly enough time to review the many posts here, having only briefly delved into the most recent;
2. I can relate extremely well to Longsword's "confession;"
3. Re: Boltonian's comments on time. I view time as simply one parameter or given of our particular shared physical reality, not at all universal. This would be a meaningless statement if we were not capable of transcending this in a number of ways, including visiting other realities with different givens.
4. Your bookstore isn't by any chance located in London? I missed finding a particular bookstore during my last visit in 2001 -- see the reference found here, in the item provided by Nabet. This is a bit Potteresque, I realize, even so...
5. Although I have at times dug into formal philosophy (including a phase of interaction on The Journal of Consciousness Studies mailing list) and was once greatly intrigued by Phenomenology, my beliefs are strongly colored by three closely interrelated sources:
a.) The Seth material. I would never have touched this, once, as I have a sceptical side, if not for the experience related here. Many later New Age "authorities" borrowed heavily from Jane Robert's Seth, frequently without any attribution. For example, Seth -- not Timothy Leary -- originated the phrase: "You create your own reality" but Seth provided a very interesting context for this; one typically ignored by those who borrowed from him.
b.) My own unusual experiences, beginning in those long ago days when hallucinogenic experimentation was commonplace.
c.) A brief but very powerful flirtation with the teachings of George Gurdjieff in the early 70s.
My comments on telepathy are basically regurgitations of Seth's teachings supplemented by my own experiences (note that Seth strongly encourages validation of his teachings).
ChooChoo: "To put my cards on the table, I am vaguely (or initially) sceptical about 'telepathy' etc.
Me: "I sometimes forget how this is a strange and even impossible notion for others, however."
ChooChoo, Again: "But, if I'm honest, I can't rule this out, even if I'm not swayed. (I guess this simply describes various people's attitudes to various things). Clearly, communication is not just linguistic (in the way we normally mean). I would be most interested if you could expand on a few things.
First, on our being "thoroughly connected to all others beneath our conscious minds (and our beliefs in our discreteness) -- that connection is telepathic in nature".
I would improve on the last phrase -- I'm not happy with it upon rereading it as much more than telepathy is involved; I was focusing on the word and overemphasized it.
All I can do here, really, is try to paint a picture, and this will necessarily be both oversimplified and inadequate (This picture is key to Exercise 5. Regions of Self Focusing Exercise found here.):
There is an overall singular being to which all else belongs.
This all else includes Emerson's "oversoul," and each of us is a physical expression of our own particular oversoul (along with endless other such expressions -- this is where the idea of serial reincarnation comes from but that is quite a distortion, as oversouls exist outside of time).
The most immediate region of our oversoul could be called "inner self" and pertains to our physical personhood -- I imagine that each of an oversoul's many physical expressions is connected with an inner self.
The "location" of inner self, oversoul, and the singularity, in modern terms, is the "unconscious" -- this merges into the "subconscious," of course. What is rarely recognized, however, is that these regions are quite conscious -- our perspective is biased; we have assumed that the conscious self is the primary region of identity.
Physically embodied and focusing on physical reality through our physical senses (there's much more to this but I'm leaving it out so as to keep this simple), we imagine we are separate from all else.
If you choose to explore these other regions of self or identity, however (or your own unconsciousness, depending on the language you choose) it turns out that this is illusion.
Ego has become isolated and to it this is a fearful idea, quite threatening; its 'subconscious' beliefs serve to reinforce this isolation, and these have been with us for millennia.
There's a bit of a barrier to -- not necessarily some "cosmic enlightenment," "grand gnosis," "nirvana," or some other such high falutin' concept -- but to simply becoming conscious of the overall connectedness all & everything is party to.
"Telepathy" is part of this connectedness and includes varying content, much as our external Internet, which includes these posts -- messages -- along with all else.
A fear is that individual identity will somehow dissolve, and some traditions even teach this.
In my own experiences this is not the case, however; we retain our unique individual experience and identity -- never a static unchanging proposition to begin with -- even while experiencing differing degrees of belong to successively larger wholes, regions of self.
"Second, you mention how this understanding might possibly turn "_almost_ all established religions, philosophies, and scientific understandings on their heads -- makes _almost_ all of them largely useless in terms of achieving any successful overall understanding of the nature of reality." (This is the bit I probably and ostensibly most strongly disagree with, but would be grateful for your thoughts - what you say about their dealing with "a particular kind of limited egoic consciousness" tantalises - and if you could tell me some of the exceptions you mention, I think I'll get a clearer idea. Do you mean 'egoic' as pertaining to psychological conceptions of the ego?)."
"Ego" is a charged word, with varying meanings attached to it.
I am using it in a very general sense, as a sense of self identity associated with the physical body and senses.
Without a good sense of the place of ego within larger regions of self, without directly experiencing such regions, religions, philosophies, and sciences will all reflect a particular overall perspective.
Certainly there are many notable exceptions, many individuals who have transcended this overall perspective -- these can be found by peering into history, although they are frequently put into whatever particular box exists in their time and place for such exceptions (certain saints, for example, or even founders of religions).
As you and others here know, certain philosophers definitely tread in transcendent waters, yet their philosophies are often extremely analytical, while the experience of regions of self beyond the ego very quickly enters into wordless realms where intuition is as pronounced -- if not more so -- than intellect.
In other words all of the careful analysis, the conceptualization, and so on, serves to emphasize the intellect at the expense of experience.
This is backwards, as I see it; Sir Henry Rawlinson had to first _find_ the cuneiform inscriptions _before_ he successfully analyzed them.
Further, our science includes a number of foundational assumptions that experience reveals as being anything but (that space, time, and gravity apply to all realities, that a particular type of perception is all there is and is perception alone, and so on).
I need not delve into religion here, save to point out how so very often it tends not just to reinforce the egoic consciousness of its time but to preserve itself as well, generating restrictive structures of belief in which potentially useful symbolism and myth is treated as something else.
"One last point: I found most interesting and, if you'll let me get away with the outrageous adjective, pregnant the point you raised on the ineffable and slightly strange 'intimacy' we experience at various times: your examples are of relationships and existence in utero. Both offer some fascinating grounds for inquiry."
Certainly. I'm not convinced that any variation of contemporary science is at all suited for exploring telepathy, however, particular that which must exist as a primary factor in the womb.
This is a bit of a chicken-and-egg conundrum. Those who create science must partake of the "unconscious" in order to expand their discipline beyond present limitations yet those very limitations prohibit them from doing so; practitioners who explore beyond those are branded much as religion has branded heretics yet consider how science itself came about...
"A familiar cultural trope - probably not so now - in ideal types for marriage - particularly as exemplified by a long-married, old couple - is a certain unanimity. If you'll allow me the digression, the powerful symbolism of becoming one, of becoming 'one flesh', has at various times been taken as the preeminent sign of a more profound union. Incidentally, there is a fascinating tendency in some cultures to use marriage as an analogy for relation to 'God' - the examples I can think of are in Jewish, Christian and Hindu imagery. Forget the 'God' bit for now - I think the potency of this analogy stems from perceptions of that union, unanimity etc alluded to above; wrt to the relation in utero, I am far less knowledgeable - and my memory of those good old days is pretty poor - but I am vaguely aware of studies of the importance of this period in growth and would conjecture that it is formative in our growth as 'selves'. Sorry for digression."
Not a problem.
I confess to having had something a monk-like life although, every once in a long while, I have engaged in an intimate relationship.
(Thus I can only speak of a long-term marriage as an observer.)
During those relationships telepathic experiences became quite pronounced but a conscious awareness of them was only shared with those who did not have thick egoic barriers blocking this -- others were in fact quite frightened by such experiences.
(So called "past lives" -- in my experience -- come to the surface in a most immediate way during intimate relationships. Unfortunately, a great deal of trauma may surface, too. Consider, for example, the wife of a man who lost his head, literally, and was severely traumatized by that. The two come together again, in our time; the man gradually realizes who he is dealing with, in a new form, as subtle, deep, and strong feelings are evoked. The woman, however, harbors a mixture of feelings including the trauma -- not just the positive feelings of the "past" marriage. She blocks everything out, as she must, but this poisons the present relationship, as such feelings still exist, still influence the present, and will continue to until released or resolved).
"One final question I'd have is how you understand the importance of our being embodied, er, beings."
You can probably gather much of this from the above.
I don't accept the dualistic views of Gnostics, Cathars, Bogomils, or others in this regard, don't devalue physical life as though it is nothing compared to some eventual non-material existence.
Both exist now, so long as I live; both are important, else I would not be here.
"I realise that I've asked c.318 questions, so your overall thoughts most welcome (and grateful for any specifics). And my articulations of diagreement, questioning etc reflect both my own admittedly (and bit too) kneejerk reaction(s) in this area as well as genuine curiosity."
Not a problem -- I would make certain unacceptable views (unacceptable for many reasons, including the tinging of all thought considered "New Age" in nature, even when excellent material is lumped together with all else, much as "Liberal" has become tinged such that quite noble sentiment and thought, even ordinary human decency, is lambasted within a larger association).
(I've run out of time to clean this up -- this will have to do, the dead Victorian editor within me notwithstanding.)
From a personal view your last post was a huge improvement in my attempting to understand your reasoning. 'Simple is the best,' as my brother-in-law says.
I now have a much clearer understanding of your position and rationale.
You have beliefs, I have beliefs, we all have our beliefs - they are all based on personal experience. Also, we all employ various levels of scepticism concerning others' views. I don't think Hume was a million miles away, no matter our supposedly superior accumulation of knowledge.
Belief, in my view, must not, however, descend into dogmatism. That way lies ignorance, fanaticism, intolerance and a hatred of truth.
Neither you nor I, nor anybody else here has a monopoly of wisdom. We are all groping around trying to learn something of the world we did not know yesterday.
Bill:
I thoroughly enjoyed your,'Confession' and learned much.
The issue that resonated most for me was that we are all part of one universal 'Whole.' Intuitively, I think that is right but, in that case, we need to explore the concept of ego in a little more depth.
I have no strong opinions about time but I was just putting forward a sceptical viewpoint - a position for debate. Despite the firm views expressed here and elsewhere I do not feel we have bottomed this.
Bill - thank you for your reply. Forgive me for not replying at length just yet. (Judging by your link, it won't be the same bookshop. It certainly is not one of those wonderful, romantic old bookshops. It edges towards - if not exemplifying - the more Starbucks end of the bookshop spectrum, something which one comes to consider a bit more seriously and uncomfortably in the run-up to the new Harry Potter).
Steve - only read (and forgotten) Clockwork Orange. Burgess seems to me to be one of those inescapably 'catholic' authors - whose catholicism is, in some ways, inescapable (perhaps Joyce is a bit like this in some ways, though I can't - and never will - be able to say in terms of Finnegan's Wake). Burgess strikes me - from what I know - as a lot like Graham Greene in this regard. There always seems to me - or perhaps I am hypersensitive if not hallucinating here - that there tend to be some particularly interesting tensions in 'catholic' writers, whether disaffected or devout. I think I've mentioned her before - Flannery O'Connor. Anyone here familiar? To me, her stories (haven't read Wise Blood, though there was a pretty good film version on tv in early hours of Sun morning) are inescapably 'catholic' in a sense (and she was a devout and, indeed, v learned lady). Yet, I can see how someone might read them - enjoy and be struck by them, esp the 'grotesque' characters and (often) arresting denouements - and (understandably) not consider these things. (Interestingly, I believe she always hated the tag 'catholic writer' - as most do - but she also once said that each of her stories has some sort of 'moment' of grace). Not sure if available online, but heartily recommend 'Good Country People' (only 15 pages or so) as an intro to her writing.
On a sidenote: I often argue with a good friend of mine about artists (broadly conceived, though we usually mean writers). We both agree that there is a tendency or a temptation for artists to become self-absorbed (or absorbed in their work). We also note the connection people often make between artists and radical, antinomian lives (by which I don't mean conceptual questioning etc). We disagree on whether this is a necessary part of being an artist (I argue it is not). What do people think?
Boltonian: "The issue that resonated most for me was that we are all part of one universal 'Whole.' Intuitively, I think that is right but, in that case, we need to explore the concept of ego in a little more depth."
I'm in favor of exploring the concept(s) of ego -- while noting that we shall necessarily be engaging the _reality_ of ego while doing so.
On the other hand, it's not very difficult to engage deeper regions of self while typing -- ego is still required for this, of course, but its role shifts a bit.
Boltonian again: "I have no strong opinions about time but I was just putting forward a sceptical viewpoint - a position for debate. Despite the firm views expressed here and elsewhere I do not feel we have bottomed this."
We have most definitely not accomplished this!
As with ego, we can explore concepts of time even while experiencing variations, as we type, in a similar way -- if anyone is interested.
What I am suggesting is to play with mild trance states while typing. This may take some practice for those unfamiliar with it but is not difficult, involving mostly adjusting conscious focus. An intense focus on a topic while writing/typing can easily generate a mild trance condition.
Whether anyone is interested in this or not, I offer Arnold Toynbee's unusual experiences as a young man as a relevant item. Excerpts from _A Study of History_ are found here.
(I would likely enjoy the usual sort of on-line discussion, sans mild trance, if that is the chosen direction -- typing in an altered state can be done at any time.)
Item posted elsewhere as "Buddhist Quote of the Day:"
The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science. Since, however, sense perception only gives information of this external world or of "physical reality" indirectly, we can only grasp the latter by speculative means. It follows from this that our notions of physical reality can never be final. We must always be ready to change these notions - that is to say, the axiomatic basis of physics - in order to do justice to perceived facts in the most perfect way logically. -Einstein
"The issue that resonated most for me was that we are all part of one universal 'Whole.' Intuitively, I think that is right but, in that case, we need to explore the concept of ego in a little more depth."
There has been a tendency in analytical psychology and transpersonal psychology, to differentiate between "Self" and "Ego". This tendency harkens back to the original religious concern with the true self and the false self, and that the "Fall of Man" was essentially a fall of the seat of identity into the false self (the egoic), which we might call the idolatry of self-image as represented in the myth of Narcissus and Echo.
(As an aside, there are a conjunction of terms here in relation to the myth of Narcissus and the undeveloped meaning of narcissism that I find evocative -- fascinum (a magic spell), fascination (an enchantment) and fascism (bonds and the binding power)).
In my experience, there are no real divisions between Self and Ego in terms of identity, yet naming this identity on the one hand "Self" and on the other "Ego" lends the impression that there is such a division. To surmount this, I find it useful to speak in terms of the relation "I" and "me" (or "mine") as equivalent to Self and Ego, or simply to describe Ego as the self-image (or what is termed "false self" in other places) consistent with the myth of Narcissus, who was also absorbed into his self-image (fatally).
Narcissism is the human condition. It should not be restricted to the clinical description given for psychopathology alone.
This distinction between "I" and "me" (or self and ego, or true self and false self) belongs to the insight of Goethe's "two souls", which I quoted in an earlier post. The obsession one finds today with "the me brand" belongs to a thorough-going narcissism.
Ego, also, is definable in a way Self is not. Ego is the historical being, qualified by historical circumstance, conditional upon particular national, climactic, geographical experience, dependent upon the organic nature, the experience and perception of time and space, and identical with what we might generally call "the human form" and all that entails.
My experience of Self, on the other hand, indicates that self is not "human" at all. A "human" consciousness and existence is simply one of the forms self may assume amongst an array of other forms. The classical description of the "polymorph" or the shape-shifter (which still occurs today in shamanistic cultures) in which one may become a tree or rock or insect and experience these forms as one's own for a time, is based upon this fluidity of primary consciousness (and many early cave paintings of this polymorphic potential really do depict men transforming into trees or bears at a time when consciousness was probably more mutable and less reified into "mind" and ego than today).
It was Nietzsche's intuition also into the nature of the "overself" that forms the basis for his own transhumanism as latent possibility and as a human destiny based upon this "overself". The significant passage occurs only once in Zarathustra, but it draws the same distinction as Goethe's "two souls" between a "higher" and a "lower" self. The relevant passage occurs in the section "The Despisers of the Body". I hold, however, that Nietzsche only stood at the threshold of this "self" as an intuition, consequently his experience was distorted somewhat. As proof of that, we see that Nietzsche-Zarathustra is only the *prophet* of the coming of this overself, not the realisation of it himself. Nietzsche did not cross the threshold even though he speaks as one who has had direct experience of a "higher" (or "truer") self. (The passage from "The Despisers of the Body" is available on line for reading).
Emerson's "The Oversoul" (also available on-line) accords closer with my own experience.
It is difficult to discuss "ego" and "self" without introducing misunderstandings. Nonetheless, the distinction does form the core meaning of the instruction Jesus gave to his disciples, that they "be in the world, but not of the world", which is quite subtle and nuanced, I find.
Bill I. I've been to your site and find it a good resource. Like you, it seems, my main interest is time. I have also read "Seth Speaks" and find it quite engaging, noting also that it has influenced some physicists even (Norman Friedman's "The Hidden Domain: Home of the Quantum Wave Function" actually credits the Seth material for new insights into fundamental reality, which is a dangerous thing for an honest science writer to actually do). It has left me a little perplexed. And although Seth describes himself as "an energy personality essence no longer focussed in physical reality", he seems very, very human -- a right jolly old elf whereas my own experience of "self" left the impression of a vast intelligence completely indifferent to moral categories of good or evil, or pleasure or pain, and the all-too-human. It struck me as simply creative energy, conscious of itself as creative activity as its very essence and identity while being infinitely mutable.
Anyway, I've gone on too long again. Longs-word is the name.
Yes, there is a distinctiveness the writing of those brought up in the Catholic, even former catholics are guilt-ridden. It is not just, I think, that RC doctrine centres on sin and redemption - the fallen nature of humanity. It is noticeable that for Catholic friends of mine the church fulfills an enormous range of needs. It is much more dominant in their lives than other churches are to their congregations, in my experience, and this has large consequences both for those who remain Catholic and those that choose to leave.
Re- your last point, wasn't T.S. Eliot a bank clerk at one time? Robert Graves used to advocate that poets should earn their living in as mundane a way as possible (if they could not be a full time poet), so leaving their creativity intact for writing.
Bill:
I would be interested in your typing exercise.
The quote from Einstein confirms to me what a good philosopher he was. I am not sure that we can ever access the real world, or even that such a thing exists.
Boltonian: "Bill: I would be interested in your typing exercise."
(I'm _very gradually_ reading the whole thread, paying particular attention to Bastille Day onwards, amidst much else. Jeeze! What if all of you folks were to gather in ChooChoo's bookstore and engage in conversation? I imagine a video of the proceedings would be fun to watch and listen to... I hope to be able to reply to Longsword later.)
Regarding the "typing exercise:"
This could be boiled down to "allowing," as in allowing deeper regions of self to seep through into your typing, as you type.
I believe anyone can do this, but different approaches are called for by different personalities.
Imagining seems to work very well for some -- they imagine this happening while focusing on some question and writing an answer.
This doesn't work at all for others, however, as the very word "imagining" throws them off at the start.
Others prefer to 'practice' privately before even thinking of posting something written this way, which has been called a number of things in different eras. (It has much in common with 'automatic writing,' for example, or, perhaps, 'free association.')
I've played with this for some years, very annoyed at first as many of my on-line friends took to this instantly when this became something of a fad on the mailing lists of the day.
They produced very unusual essays, some quite poetic, others definitely in the strange department, all worth scrutinizing.
I couldn't seem to get the hang of it, my own conscious mind getting in the way.
My beliefs in my ability to do this very gradually began to open up, particularly after focusing intently on writing just part of a page on my website some years ago.
This _seemed_ to take only a few minutes, but when I was finished, I was amazed to discover that _hours_ had gone by, while the result had a definite tinge of some other self, some other time -- it really didn't "sound" like me at all.
Of course by the time I got to this point most of my friends had already lost interest and moved on to other activities.
A certain playfulness -- even if adopting a very serious tone in the writing itself -- may be quite useful for anyone choosing to try this out.
I am not an academic and do not understand the various nuances of self/ego/false self/overself or any other self.
What I mean by ego is that which goes into making what it feels like to be me. I have feelings, likes, dislikes, tastes, strengths and weaknesses of character etc that are unique. The bundle of things that makes me me is what I mean by ego.
Boltonian - certainly sometimes this distinctiveness can be characterised as "guilt-ridden". One example I can think of is Portrait of the Artist - 'guilt-ridden' is too simplistic, perhaps, but it seems to me to be part of the picture (at least in the characterisation of Stephen until the final part). But the distinctiveness I meant does go beyond this. (A quick disclaimer: much of what I'm about to say may well be applied to non-catholic writers). There are a few tensions which spring to my mind, one of which might revolve around sin and redemption (which you identify). Bear in mind that catholic understandings of both, particularly the former, are not simply a discrete question of doctrine or theology. There is an interesting arc in Brideshead Revisited, for example, or (to pick another Waugh novel) Vile Bodies. Right now, though, I can't quite articulate what I mean by this (ostensibly or for the time being) ineffable distinctiveness (and it is doubtless a subtle one too), so perhaps we can come back to it at some point in the future. V interesting to read what you write on your friends:
"It is noticeable that for Catholic friends of mine the church fulfills an enormous range of needs. It is much more dominant in their lives than other churches are to their congregations, in my experience, and this has large consequences both for those who remain Catholic and those that choose to leave."
To stick my head out (and this is ludicrously generalised), catholic identity seems to be actually rather absorptive. The idea of a privatised (which is not the same thing as personalised or intimate) religion doesn't quite make sense where privatised contains notions of being cut off or bubbled. (There are exceptions). I wonder whether the sense of the 'religious sphere' is less easy (though it may well be accepted on practical grounds). And as you suggest, the 'bigness' of the whole thing is evidenced by people who leave (and also those who become catholic).
On artists etc: you're right about T S Eliot. Am I right in thinking that Rachmaninoff was something of a family man or have I got things hopelessly muddled? Thought not quite an artist, the recently deceased anthropologist Mary Douglas seems to have had a v happy childhood, marriage and family life. These are pretty lame examples, I concede (one v speculative, the other not really relevant...). But the point I'm trying to make is that antinomian, bohemian lives (and rationales underpinning them) are not a necessary part of being a distinguished poet, artist etc. (On a sidenote, there is ticklish bit on the 'Bloomsbury Grope' in Craig Brown's recent 1966 and all that).
To give some examples of these Catholic friends - one is agnostic (his father is quite scathingly critical of the politics and hierarchy of the church); another sceptical who often derided many of the previous Pope's encomium's; a third throws herself into the church (particularly the charitable activities)without thinking too deeply about the metaphysics; and another only attends mass to please his parents. There is only one of all the Catholics I know who takes the dogma and the word of the Pope as the truth.
Just like the rest of us, really. But not so. There is is something tribal, vestigial and permanently marked about them all. They all share something and that is a bond but also a curse.
Interesting what you say about Joyce - the whole of Ulysses revolves around the lapsed Catholic and the Jew living in an almost primitive, fiercely Catholic country. Remember, Joyce never really forgave his countrymen or catholicism for renouncing Parnell.
Re-the bohemian lifestyle of artists. A.E. Houseman was a respectable academic; G.M. Hopkins was a priest (but went through agonies of conscience); Milton was not a noted Hell-raiser; Wordsworth became respectable (even reactionary) in middle age. There were lots of churchmen who were also poets, particularly during the 17th and 18th centuries - Vaughan, Herbert etc. Malcolm Arnold doesn't strike me as a man who lived life on the wild side either.
Not all poets lived like Rochester or died like Keats, Shelley and Byron.
boltonian... "I am not an academic and do not understand the various nuances of self/ego/false self/overself or any other self."
It's not a matter of academics. It's a matter of survival that we work to identify the common and mutual elements in mankind's full experience of the earth -- in arts and sciences, in religion and politics. We will not survive the future if we do not. Without such a universal history as a basis for unanimity, the global era will fail and that will mean the end of our earth.
So it is not a matter of lauding unique elements, but common elements that are the necessary requisite for globalism. If feelings, tastes, sentiments, strengths and weaknesses were unique, a common language would be impossible and common experience unsharable and incommunicable. Humanity would descend into gibberish and babble (and also war of all against all). Language works because these things are not unique, and because they are not unique, we can have peace on the basis of shared experience.
To the extent that ego places itself in a position of uniqueness or speciality, it robs the Planetary Future of its basis for success, which is the requirement of mutuality. Ego is a fiction, a perspective construct that isn't even known in some tribal settings where the totem consciousness trumps and all are only agencies of the tribal genius. Ego (or persona) even appears to be only the unique affectation of Western man, a conceit which he has made into a universal principle of being, especially in the form of "the self-made man". Ego is the fictional character in search of its author, and probably the biggest obstacle to realising the global future at all.
I am afraid that I will just have to disagree with you.
I do not deny commonality. Nor do I share your rather apocalyptic vision if we do not, as a species, do what you suggest we ought to do. It is perhaps a matter of temperament.
Language works because we share sufficient in common thanks to our genetic inheritance and narrow genome, not because we are each of us not unique.
I have no idea what it is to be you, nor you I, but we make assumptions that enable us to rub along together. Sometimes those assumptions are in error and then we have conflict. The benefits, so far, have outweighed the disadvantages many times to one. whether this will continue neither you nor I can say.
I am not sure that your historical reading of an ego-less existence at sometime in the distant past when noble savages roamed the earth is quite correct. Nonetheless, you are, of course, entitled to interpret the data, such as it is, in a way that suits your world view (perhaps Elephantschild can help here).
And no matter how you might wish it were otherwise you cannot escape from your subjective perspective (see Bill's Einstein quote above). If this were not so you would not have a set of views, beliefs and tastes that are peculiar to you, and to you alone.
I am not usually given to sprinkling my posts with quotations but here are a couple:
‘For where is the man that has incontestable evidence of the truth of all that he holds, or of the falsehood of all that he condemns, or can say that he has examined to the bottom his own, or other men’s opinions? The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than to constrain others.’ John Locke.
‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ Shakespeare (Hamlet).
I would steer a middle course on this question of "ego," somewhere between the perspectives stated by Boltonian and Longsword.
The word has -- as we've seen -- different meanings; when tied to "self consciousness" Longword's comments ring true.
Relevant CiF quote of mine:
"Note that the first instance of the private or personal "I" in Western literature is found in the writings of Augustine per Thomas Cahill in _How the Irish Saved Civilization_: 'If we page quickly through world literature from its beginnings to the advent of Augustine, we realize that with Augustine human consciousness takes a quantum leap forward -- and becomes self-consciousness.'"
I prefer to use "ego" as referring to the conscious mind and the physical body and sensory apparatus, with its accompanying _basic_ unique human personality.
"Self consciousness" and the heightened Western version then become almost secondary constructions ("neurotic" per some authors) on top of this more basic version, a version absolutely necessary for survival within physical reality.
(There's also the awesome examination of the many "I's" within self-consciousness found in Gurdjieff's -- and other's -- teachings, wherein the illusion of a stable, consistent "I" is ruthlessly exploded, but that is best left for some other post.)
There's no need to discard the more basic version; it's as natural as our bodies and, again, necessary, although we no longer need hunt or be wary of dangerous wild creatures intent on eating us (in most places, that is).
The heightened version Longsword refers to (please correct me if I misunderstand you) _is_ a problem, however, and this problem connects with my prior descriptions of the ego's sense of isolation and its fears, particularly when multiplied by billions in an increasingly industrialized and interconnected world.
For me, the problem boils down to a disconnect with the deeper regions of self, and therein lies the remedy.
This isn't nearly as clear as I intended but I'm too shot to improve it much.
Also, my own words and beliefs apply to me; although I see a preferred solution -- integrating deeper regions of self with "ego," I don't claim to have fully achieved this.
"Language works because we share sufficient in common thanks to our genetic inheritance and narrow genome, not because we are each of us not unique."
That isn't a statement that is based in evidence (keeping in mind that evidence or ex-video, relies solely on the eye for the authentication, verification, and authority for truth -- a rather limiting perspective which is out of place when dealing with speech). This statement is an inference from evidence, but is not supported by evidence.
Commonality is not a matter of mere equivalency, but is communion in the deepest sense of unanimity (unus animus or "one soul"). A "We" is not made up of plural egos so that one may construct a merely additive formula to the effect of I + I + I + I.... ad infinitum and come up with a "we" as a sum total. "We" is the communal person, the unus animus where two or more become one flesh. Far more than equivalency, it attests to our power of common identity and identification. "We" is not "first person plural" based upon a presumed equivalency of enumerate egos, but overcomes the merely numerate separation of each ego presumably isolated in its own private cave -- his or her own skull.
I consider evolutionary theory, as currently presented, a fraud and a hoax -- little more than a superstitious dogma. It has obviously appropriated a theological language for its justification and authority, and upon this basis has presumed to present itself as an "explain-all" ideology much in the same way the "will of God" served religious orthodoxy. "Genetics" is a blatant expropriation of "Genesis". Dawkins' "selfish gene" a blatant expropriation of the theological language of the "soul". The "principle of selection" also a crass expropriation of what was hitherto known as "the divine vocation" in which Jehovah's "Harken Israel!" made of 12 fractious tribes a unitary "elect" of God by imperative selection -- not by genetic determinism. In fact, the principle of selection is not substantially different in conception than that other modern superstition, the "invisible hand of the free market", or the baseless "chance mutation" which relies on Lady Luck for its efficacy.
Neither are explanations, but attempts to avoid explanation. Evolution is thus invested with an implicit intentionality simply by default for having appropriated a theological idiom. Even the word "determinism" dislocates determination from man to an abstraction allegedly *external* to himself as (capital E) Evolution, which now is the locus of determination and even of intentionality (and you know you are in the presence of a new god when words are elevated to names by capitalisation). Once man had time. Now time has man. Evolution acts freely by virtue of its character of "chance" action and selectivity, while man becomes the fated factor.
It is almost too ridiculous for words to encompass. Moreover, the falsification of the historical record and the deliberate obfuscation of the truth is egregious. Until even recently, there was no separation of science and faith, reason and revelation. Virtually every scientist believed in intelligent design as the basis for the rational understanding of the world. With the new historical revisionism, which one sees everyday posted on CiF, it is portrayed as if science had truly never held such "irrational" views at all, and that religion has been the chief repressive, persecutory, and retardative element keeping reason from advancing, which is utter nonsense. Even many priests have made important contributions to evolutionary theory. The monk Gregor Mendel formulated the first laws of genetics. The Jesuit de Chardin made important contributions to paleontology and evolutionary theory.
That said, I do not object to evolutionary biology. I object to the uses to which this has been put, which go well beyond what is given by evidence and theory. It is not science, but politics and will to power which slides into superstitious confabulation and even primitive magical thinking. Moreover, when it expropriates a theological idiom for its justification, as it most evidently does in the mouths of the least talented of the evolutionary scientists, it shamelessly exploits and lives off, like all arbitrary expropriations, the accumulated spiritual faith and intellectual capital of the past, including the founders of the Age of Reason, and thereby sets itself up as a competing religion.
I have no qualms in stating that a merely reductive neo-Darwinist evolutionary theory is revisionist theology where the "principle of selection" usurps what was formerly understood as the divine vocation and "the will of God," thus setting itself up as a secular religion with its own theology and an oracular priesthood. And it is even fascistic in spirit. The foundations of democracy were laid with the Christian principle of selection that the speech of the people was the one voice of God (vox populi, vox Dei) from which our sanctified "vote" (vox) is derived as witness to a real faith that history was the process of godman-making and that men could be entrusted with selecting their own destiny. The vote empowered man as himself a principle of selection and as an elector fully in the image of God. And even things formerly the reserve of God (like "genius" which was once exclusively the name of the god) is now entrusted to men. Ironic, therefore, that human history should demonstrate itself such *intelligent design* of man being made in God's image.
But this principle of election justified in the vox populi, vox Dei is made irrelevant by both "evolutionism" as mere ideology as well as "the end of history". I call all this, rather, decadence.
The question of whether theere is such a thing ontological randomness, which Whirlstorm and Spacepenguin debated on the Paul Davies CiF thread seems relevant here.
(As a reminder here is the link to the relevant thread: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2111500,00.html
Also the poster andrewthomas100 put in a link to the following blog, where in the comments at the bottom pretty much the same debate went on:
Longsword's arguments speak to me very directly. And I strongly appreciate the case "scientism" mirrors the religious position to elevating certain concepts, like "random chance", to the status of secular deities. But what if God does play dice after all? I don't see the compelling reason for believing in an intelligent designer over Dawkins's god of natural selection (I take the point re speech, but this strikes me as insufficient proof). Just because the latter exhibits fascistic overtones, doesn't mean it isn't true.
Just came accross (via CiF) the following essay by Freeman Dyson:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20370
Don't have time right now to jot down my thoughts on it, but think it is both extremely interesting and also highly relevant to the discussion that has been going on here.
I have some reservations about Dyson's observations and conclusions. But his statement about cultural evolution superseding biological evolution speaks, in some ways, to my interests,
"Since that time, cultural evolution has replaced biological evolution as the main driving force of change. Cultural evolution is not Darwinian. Cultures spread by horizontal transfer of ideas more than by genetic inheritance. Cultural evolution is running a thousand times faster than Darwinian evolution, taking us into a new era of cultural interdependence which we call globalization."
But, as I commented in CiF, if this process is "a thousand times faster" than we are speaking not so much of evolutionary as revolutionary time. And its pretty clear what drives revolutionary time -- speech.
Which is just my point. Speech has mastered evolution, and the driving force impelling the unfolding of human consciousness is less genes now than "memes". Yet speech remains one of the most misunderstood and unexamined parts of our reality.
Only in this sense to I speak of "intelligent design". As I've stated elsewhere, my main area of interest is the history and evolution of consciousness. To that end religion, science, art, politics become objects of study in their own right. And they are all creations of speech. I have no particular interest in scientific or theological controversies or quarrels except as they reveal something about successive mutations in human consciousness.
And right here we do find "intelligent design". It is impossible to understand the unfolding patterns of Western history in particular without reference especially to the New Testament narrative. It has provided the blueprint for the construction of that history (only terminated, perhaps, with Yeats' Second Coming). There is scarcely a single event great or small in our own traditions and history that wasn't the issue of a human struggle to "properly" interpret the Biblical narrative in order to eventuate "the kingdom of heaven on earth". And in all this, science, religion, arts, politics have played a consistent and even complementary role.
In a very real sense, Dyson's observation of how cultural evolution has overtaken and surpassed biological evolution even supports the old Christian principle that vox populi, vox Dei human speech is the voice of God. And if we credit Dyson's remarks, then speech is indeed "supernatural".
My interest is, therefore, to clarify the historical record in this regard. History is not random, but reveals a remarkable continuity and direction from generation to generation, and an implicit unanimity that I also hold can be discovered in other streams of cultural history. This historical continuity has often been deliberately falsified and obscured by both secular reductionism and religious fundamentalism -- even, ironically, in the name of "truth".
One of the things I find appalling about Dyson's article is the attitude to living creatures as akin to toys, which also introduces into species fabrication the economic principles of "creative destruction" and built-in obsolescence. If we are going to hand the power of mass creation to bored housewives and children, (where in future no species other than those of our own fabrication will exist -- a disturbing thought), then we might as well supplement this power by giving them also the power of mass destruction -- to every one a mini-nuke.
Of course, it means the elimination of the wild -- the sixth extinction event. Apparently, the seventh generation event (the seventh day of creation) will be completely our baby. I don't know that human beings can respect such a world, and may end up (ironically) like the immortals in the movie Zardoz, bored, alienated, and craving their own extermination."
My response:
Dyman's use of the toy analogy does abruptly raise some of the worst problems that ethical issues such a future would have to confront. In his defence, he does acknowledge this as an issue, while declining to delve into it.
But what I like about his article is the possibility of transcending the economic principles of economic destruction. The idea of treating living creatures as toys in the same way as how we view toys today - consumerist and disposable - is indeed abhorrant. But I also see the possibility that people confronted with the power of creation and destruction that we yield will somehow be forced to choose, and that this might help to bring about a greater harmony and balance with our environment.
Dyson strikes me as a very modern type -- a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Some of his comments in that article are indeed insightful, but his proposals for action seem disconnected from his insights. He strikes me as an enigmatic and perhaps dichotomous character.
There are some obvious contradictions in that essay which suggests to me that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde don't talk to each other.
Dyson must be aware that we are passing through (if not causing ourselves) the sixth extinction event -- a completely awesome testimony to our nihilism. I have written something about this myself, and about the hopes for a "seventh generation event". Apparently, following Dyson, this 7th Day of Creation is to be our own activity. God retires from the scene for a well-deserved rest, and we take over (or at least, the housewives and the children do).
I don't think this will work very well. The irony here is that we become the cause of evolution and the principle of selection. We assume this role and this power, perhaps even altering and modifying the parameters of evolution itself. We would become the genetic principle ourselves and, in effect, God as God has been hitherto understood -- as the Genius of Genesis. We would become this collectively (or at least, the housewives and children would). But I'm not certain that this is what was meant by the Christian vocation "be thou therefore perfect, even as thy Father in Heaven...".
Dyson's assertion that in future all species would be our "own" [creation] seems contradicted later by his concern that we do not introduce species that would upset the balance of the wild. But, if we wipe the slate blank, it makes little sense to concern ourselves with the barn doors after the horses have escaped, and concern for a wilderness that no longer exists seems a rather belated afterthought.
Which is why I say, modern man starts as Prometheus, but ends as Epimetheus -- or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
That's just one of the peculiar disjunctives in the piece. There seem to be elements of his fantasy that resemble pathology.
Just after posting that last comment, it occurred to me that I might have commented on the relationship between magic and science (or, more specifically, rationalism). Dyson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (or Promethean and Epimethean) tendencies do reflect a longstanding tension in science between reason and magic.
The father of modern science, Francis Bacon, once weighed the relative merits of science or magic (alchemy then) for mankind's mastery of the forces of nature ("forces" being the replacement term for "spirits") and decided that natural philosophy was better adapted to the immediate ends of man's conquest of nature than magic. Newton, avatar of the new human type as embodied Universal Reason, nonetheless practiced magic in secret. And when Goethe published his "Faust", he also provided the fundamental model for the new human type as well -- the man of science tempted by magic -- "Faustian Man" or Magian Man. This sometimes gets cast as the discrimination between "pure science" (scientia) and "applied science" (techne).
(Greek "magike" is synonymous with "techne". Magike forms the root of Indo-Germanic "macht" -- power -- and also our work "make", "majesty", or magus and magi).
Dyson seems to reveal both tendencies.
That science has been tempted by magic relates to the issue of power, of course, summed up in Bacon's "scientia potens est" -- knowledge is power. A very thin line therefore divides science and magic in which the nexus of mutual concern is power and more specifically, the power to "make". The distinction usually drawn between scientia and techne (or magike) is between know-why and know-how.
However, in its most common expression, magical thinking is formulaic in form. The ritual formula and rite must be followed exactly or the spirits will be angry, the deluge will be unleashed, and the cosmos may well fall apart at the seams. This mode of expression actually resembles a lot of rationalism, with its emphasis on a ritual traditional logic as bulwark against the chaos of the irrational (or as Freud once put it to Jung in insisting on his dogmatic sexual theory as a bulwark against the "black tide of mud of the occult". Freud, often described as "neurotic," was actually magical-ritualistic in his thinking, which is translated into the ceremonial techne of psychoanalysis).
Magical thinking (ceremonial and ritualistic in form, precisely formulaic, know-how at the expense of know-why) has been the abiding temptation of science from the beginning when Bacon weighed the relative merits of natural philosophy or magic for acquiring power. "Scientism" (magical thinking) is precisely what results when know-how (magike/techne) is segregated from know-why (scientia).
It seems to me that Dyson is exemplary of this Faustianism, insofar as he fails to connect know-why with know-how, the Promethean and Epimethean, exemplified (as you noted) by his reluctance to delve into the ethical implications of his proposals.
Longsword brings up alchemy in relation to Dyson's piece, mentioning Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton.
I doubt either fathomed alchemy as a symbolic activity (although I have not done any research into their writings with this view in mind).
This other view of alchemy treats its metallurgical activities as secondary to an alchemy of self, an outer to the inner; a kind of disguise and a way of transmitting some very ancient teachings.
This alchemy of self also pertains to a transmutation of base to fine, as you might imagine, and as such can be connected with our brief discussion of ego.
Dyson speaks from that region of self and it is very much a region of words -- speech -- and conscious thought.
Words are surrounded by silence, however; the gaps between words, taken together with the words, constitute a larger reality, one that betrays larger, deeper, and what to us seem as "intuitive" regions of self.
The connecting energies, the tones, of those regions can be felt (this feeling is currently classified, along with much else, within the above "intuitive") in the gaps between the words.
The words are expressions of thought, of course, but observing this expression as close to its origin as possible reveals that thought is the basis for much more in our physical experience.
A brilliant analysis of words, their history, the role they play in changing movements of thought -- belief -- over time, and so on yields an incomplete comprehension.
A larger comprehension deliberately partakes of the silence between words, the experience of deeper regions of self for whom words are often surface manifestations.
Dysons emerge from those deeper regions, seemingly continuously, along with all else.
Nothingness, Emptiness, Void, Chaos -- for a visual culture, Nothingness (Chaos) is the endless Abyss of infinite space; for a tactile culture, it is the endless Ocean of the all-encompassing Womb before the waters above are separated from the waters below; and for an aural culture Nothingness and the Great Emptiness is Eternal Silence.
Oh yes, just occurred to me also to add the seething energy of formless possibility known as "the quantum vacuum" to the above representations of the Great Emptiness. It is strongly reminiscent of what the medievals (following Artistotle also) described as the domain of "potens" (as opposed to actus).
None of these are actually "Nothingness" strictly speaking, but rather a state or condition of formless pre-existence. As the Buddhist koan puts it, "show me your face before you were born".
It's a cold primeval womb, Emptiness, a dead vacuum Unsullied even by a background hiss. It's the void you cannot touch, And there isn't very much To see inside your personal abyss.
Doubt all you hear and see. Science? It's just heresy! Close your eyes and you, too, can be blind. You're left cold by natural law? Think there should be something more? Perhaps there is - but only in your mind....
boltonian - actually, I felt the poem was disappointing. I'd tried for three days to get it to work, deleted the first two (and probably should have deleted that one). The only decent thing was the title (as Bill noticed)....trouble was, longsword had come up with some beautifully evocative (if perhaps bleak) words & phrases, which cried out to be used; and I wasn't knowledgeable enough to deal with the issues in a substantive way. I hope others are, though.
I won't pretend that I completely understand longsword's last couple of posts. My gut reaction is that there's something there I profoundly disagree with, but I'd be daft to waffle from a position of ignorance. As I said, maybe someone else will open it out by agreeing or disagreeing. Sorry longsword!
PS for anyone remotely interested, one recent verse I am pleased with can be found here (about 20 posts in): http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/07/you_review_harry_potter_and_th.html
....but don't bother if you're allergic to Harry Potter....
My predisposition leans neither towards bleakness nor morbidity. I am a disciple of the visionary poet William Blake. But...
Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos! is restor'd; Light dies before thy uncreating word: Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall And Universal Darkness buries All. (-Alexander Pope).
I am feeling, today, the very Earth lurch on its axis, groan in its revolutions, and hesitate in its orbit at "the end of history" (and there is more pure nihilism and decadence expressed in Fukuyama's triumphantly optimistic summation of human history than even in Pope's bleak vision).
Whence comes this conclusion? (for it is a conclusion literally). Since it was published, I have had my nose to the ground to track its spoor. He is right. But for all the wrong reasons.
Well, Steve your poem is not at all that bad, there is a lot I like about it; it is certainly at the very least promising. If it is missing something, I think it might be in the rhythmic flow: have you over condensed it from something longer?
By the way have you ever looked at BF Skinner's wonderful lecture 'On Having a Poem'. Someone gave the link on CiF (I think it might have been RalphMagus, who from a recent thread appears to be treated as an undesirable by the moderators - not sure exactly why, he does express extraordinary anti-feminist views, but there must be more)
http://www.bfskinner.org/audio.asp
I am totally with ou in regard to the recent contributions here, I have looked in with some sense of incredulity and a feeling that I have nothing to offer within the parameters of the discussion. I share your feeling of profound disagreement, but not really understanding the contributions. I get the feeling that it is all irredeemably subjective and (I am guesing) very much influenced by existentialism (not something I know much about).
Longsword mentions Plank's wall, I would like to propose something that might be called Heidegger's wall! Unfortunately for me, in this regard words cannot express.... (a poem does a better job at this sort of thing).
Sometime ago Boltonian wrote about the approximate nature of language. This is something that does worry me, particularly since as I have argued before that communication is our validation of external, objective reality.
Thank you for your contributions - they have finally prompted me into action.
Part of the reason I have been quiet is because I have been thinking a lot, particularly about Longsword's posts. Also, I have not had the time to do the subject justice.
I have been uneasy about the general thrust of Longsword's posts for some while and knew that I disagreed with what bits I thought I understood but, like others, I was not sure why.
This is what I think now.
Longsword:
You write as if you have incontrovertible evidence of the truth and use a mass of erudition as your justification, including a blizzard of selective quotes and fairly obscure (to me) language.
However, when I strip all this away your position seems to be one of conflating your own spiritual or intellectual experience as somehow coinciding with objective truth.
When I posted very early in this exchange that facts were public and truth subjective you suggested that I had it the wrong way round. But everything you have said since then tends to support my original thought.
An alarm bell rang for me in your recent post saying that you were a disciple of Blake. Whilst a visionary to some, he was also considered insane by many scholars - as was Nietzsche, whom you also quote extensively (not that the two things are necessarily incompatible).
What concerns me is the word, 'Disciple.' I am a disciple of nobody, nor would I wish to become one. That term implies hero worship, a surrendering of one's critical faculties and, ultimately, fanaticism.
I try to guard against the wish becoming father to the thought.
Another area of your argument I have difficulty with is your extensive reliance on the derivation of words. I am tempted to ask, 'So what?' Interested as I am in Etymology I cannot see how this approach adds weight to your position, except by way of demonstrating your capacious repository of knowledge.
Despite your protestations I would say that, 'Bleak,' is the 'mot juste' to describe the general tenor of your posts here.
Finally, and purely a stylistic point; I find a tendency in your contributions for employing dramatic, even apocalyptic, language, as if you are declaiming from your soap box at Speakers Corner, and prophesying that, 'The End of the World is Nigh.' Why?
I know you do not approve of the maxim that perception is reality but for me this sums up my perception of your position, whether this is the impression you meant to convey to me is another matter entirely.
MartinRBD:
This is an example of what I mean by the approximate nature of language. I have not expressed, in this post, precisely what I mean. I have come as close as I am able but it does not tell the full story. It is an approximation. What you receive when you read this is also likely to be altered to resonate with your own experiences and knowledge, therefore it will move slightly further away from my intention, and so on. And, eventually, 'Send three and fourpence we're going to a dance.'
Also, you use the word, 'Communication.' Language is one small (but very important) tool in our communications box.
Yes, I chose the word 'communication' to be inclusive of all forms. I am interested in how the Arts use several modes of communication which seem to operate at different levels.
However with respect to the approximate nature of language, it is not the 'Chinese whispers' aspect that really worries me as this is simply a problem of transcription; issues of translation are more interesting, but what concerns me most is whether manipulation of language (Orwellian if you like) can fundamentally distort what we agree to be reality. At a simple level this seems impossible, a cat can never be a dog, but when indiscriminate killing becomes collateral damage for example has there been a fundamental change to the relationship of a society (because language is a group activity) to reality?
As an unconscious, organic development to language, this is not so much of a problem as I think there would be self correcting factors at work (since the nature of objective reality is that it cannot be distorted). The problem that worries me is whether a deliberate campaign of language manipulation can, in some specific ways, effectively remove our capacity to perceive reality.
It would be comforting to think that an often unspoken objective of Science and other academic disciplines is to provide what is in effect a 'clean' language, that is, so far as it is possible, free of manipulative influence.
Martin - you're spot on with the doggerel, the rhythm is totally up the creek (and doubtless there are other flaws I haven't even seen....) It wasn't condensed, although I did feel that I was trying to pack a fortnight's worth of clothes into a small suitcase....
I *really* don't want to hijack boltonian's "metaphysics" blog, and turn it into poets' corner. But you may be amused to know that I often start these things with a set POV, and yet the rhymes and rhythms will dictate that the final offering says exactly the opposite. Maybe the devil has all the best rhymes and rhythms, as well as tunes....
Unfortunately, I can't access your audio link to Skinner, as although we've resurrected our computer, it's now totally mute! No sounds whatsoever! But I'll try to search for text, as it would interest me. Thanks.
I'm not against bleakness. I have a fairly pessimistic view of the future of the world, but on political and scientific grounds, not metaphysical. (Although I admit theists will presumably find it easier to be optimistic than atheists!) I don't see a bad future as inevitable, though, which is where *my* bleakness would differ from the existentialists. There's a bit of hope left in my (literary, not metaphysical) soul yet. When longsword says of Fukuyama "He is right. But for all the wrong reasons", I suspect I may end up agreeing with him....a bit, anyway.
I'm going to stick with my view that perception *is* reality - or at least, the best approximation of it I can get - perception is all I have to go on. Communicating that perception will, I agree, fuzz it up a little, and your interpretation blurs it some more. But it's the best we can do. And, since we're even more encumbered online by these little dialogue boxes, I'm puzzled as to what more we can use than language? Maybe, boltonian, you could expand on your final sentence.
Steve: the Skinner lecture really does need the audio (it is a delightful performance). You could save it to an MP3 player (or even covert the file on to a standard CD).
Not sure what POV stands for.
What do you mean by perception 'is' reality? Surely not as this easily opens the way to the idea that there are only perceptions (that is perhaps no reality). I suspect you want to use the common sense view that perception gives us a truthful picture of reality. My pint is that language and other forms of communication validate external reality because in our communications, neither of us owns the language and the language contains words or signs that point towards reality (material and abstract). If we took these words to point at different things then we would cease to be able to comunicate (as in the POV example!)
As for the concept of language; some take language to be restricted to words, grammatically organised in written or spoken form. However symbolism, the use of images, body gesture and facial expression, sound organised as music etc all can play a part in communication and play a part in how we respond. These would all be included in a wider interpretation of the idea of language/ communication.
Not sure about pessimism/ optimism: I just hope it won't turn out to be as bad as I think it will be!
Yes, language can be manipulated to distort our perception of reality. Our view of reality comes to us partly through language. The Classical Greeks, for example, did not have a word for blue (as I understand it), so the concept cannot have existed.
Martin, why do you think that our perceptions bear a close resemblance to reality, simply because we are able to communicate? All life forms communicate in one way or another but would have a very different view of the world from us. Why are we so special?
Mathematics was for long thought of as the language best able to describe the objective world but that is now being disputed in certain scientific circles.
I am not sure there is an objective world out there and, if there is, that we are able to access it. My guess, and it is not much more than that, is that if it exists it resembles nothing like our perception of it.
Steve:
Martin has summed up what I meant - we communicate in all sorts of ways: body language; tone of voice; frequency of communication; who initiates the dialogue etc. There has been lots of research into the the proportion of communication methods we use most and for what purpose. I seem to remember one study suggesting that more than 90% of all face to face communication was non-lingual(maybe even non-verbal).
I am fairly optimistic about the medium term future because I think that we are too robust a species to die out altogether just yet. We will continue to evolve and suffer occasional setbacks, some of our own making. What is for sure is that our fate will be decided by something that we cannot foretell. Neither climate change nor a war of resources nor disease will do for us as a species.
Have no evidence one way or t'other and one's POV (point of view) depends largely on temperament. Although largely a sceptical empiricist by philosophical leaning, I am also an optimist in most things.
Martin, boltonian - b's explained POV for me (point of view). Which, as M said, illustrates the problem. You think you have a handle on all these web abbreviations, but I'm constantly coming across new ones & having to work them out (or putting my own idiosyncratic interpretation on them....)
I figured you'd (both) be thinking of body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, etc as other components of communication. But they won't fit in this dialogue box! It's so easy to offend (or mislead) when you can't accompany a comment with a wry smile or a raised eyebrow....just for future reference, please assume that I wouldn't deliberately offend here - I'll save that for CiF, where offence is *occasionally* intended....
My fairly bald conviction that "perception is reality" is really just a follow-on from my line from our previous disagreement, that "you have to start somewhere." I wouldn't know where to start to get a handle on "reality" if it isn't through perception....it certainly wouldn't come from anyone else's view, as that would just be *their* perception, filtered through a couple of layers of fuzzy communication! I would go further and say that it would be a cop out to say that there is *no* ultimate reality. The idea of multiple individual realities doesn't work for me; but I recognise that that argument won't keep the philosophers happy.
I'm sure my reality is your reality - London's in the same place for all of us, and plants are green here as there....history happened, and our only differences are that we saw different bits of it. But the overall picture isn't infinitely variable. It's bounded, and maybe we're just arguing about exactly how tightly it's bounded.
As regards optimism/pessimism :
"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true." Cabell
On the other hand:
"An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience." Marquis
(Marquis also said "Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo." - so I guess he was a pessimist....must try that line on OvidYeats on the Arts Blog.)
I certainly do not think we are SO special, nor did i say that "our perceptions bear a close resemblance to reality, simply because we are able to communicate"
This all relates to dualism, solpsism and the private language argument that we debated a while back.
I did suggest that Steve might have meant that he thought our perceptions give a truthful picture of reality when he said that in his view "perception *is* reality - or at least, the best approximation of it I can get"
By 'truthful', I did not mean 'a good resemblance' and in any case the common sense view that Steve seemed to be echoing is not how I would usually put the argument. However I do tend to think that our perceptions are truthful in the sense that they represent genuine data.
I have just noticed that Steve has been adding something that concurs with this point.
Hello Steve! Yes I too baulk at the suggestion that there is no objective reality. Once you have established that solipsism doesn't really work, at least not in any discussable sense (as argued before), you have to accept an external and therefore objective reality. I do not see the point in multiple realities, but I do recognise that even if we did have perfect knowledge of some aspect of external reality we could never be fully sure of this.
Steve makes the interesting comment "But the overall picture isn't infinitely variable. It's bounded, and maybe we're just arguing about exactly how tightly it's bounded."
I do agree and some time in the future I would like to explore the consequences of this for value judgements: how tightly bounded are they? Is it as sure as grass is green that Thomas Hardy is a better poet than William McGonagell or even that Shakespeare is a better dramatist than Thomas Kyd?
"However, when I strip all this away your position seems to be one of conflating your own spiritual or intellectual experience as somehow coinciding with objective truth."
What is "objective"? What does it mean to "cast off", to "thrust away"? A moral imperative is hidden in this sanitising word. In essence, "objective" is a demand that we be honest and truthful with the elements of experience. Are we?
I do not ask questions like "what is the relationship between word and thing" which is tautological. "Thing" is a word. I don't ask about the relationship of language to reality. I ask instead, what is the relationship of language to consciousness? I ask, do the rules of grammar inform the act of perception in the same way that the rules of logic inform the act of conception? Seems rather elementary. For if (as an initial basis for reflection) "perception is reality", and consequently constitutive of reality, then the rules governing the constitutive act of perception should be of the outmost scientific interest, wouldn't you say?
But that is not to ask what is the relationship of language to the system of objects we call "reality". It is to ask, what is the relationship of language to consciousness? Instead of asking what is the relationship of the word to the thing (the "res" of reality), what is the relationship of word (or name) to the percept.
But then, logic and mathematics are only special instances of language as well. (And there is a tendency amongst intellectuals, especially, to assume that the only valid or truth-speaking speech must assume the indicative form alone -- the "pointing" or factive form. Apparently, imperatives, optatives, and narratives have no validity). Or, analytic speech is real, but lyric, epic, dramatic speech belongs to the fictive.
"An alarm bell rang for me in your recent post saying that you were a disciple of Blake. Whilst a visionary to some, he was also considered insane by many scholars - as was Nietzsche, whom you also quote extensively (not that the two things are necessarily incompatible)."
Gosh, somebody had best inform the benighted trustees of the British Library, which just stationed a sculpture of Newton by based on Blake's caricature of Newton-as-Narcissus caught in single vision in its piazza. I would like to think that people still have a sense of the ironies of history, and that the selection of Blake's caricature of Newton wasn't inadvertent and from ignorance. That would be too terrifying. I'ld like to think, instead, that some people are waking up from "single vision".
As to my confession of "discipleship" -- I wouldn't get too caught up in that. It only means assuming a discipline. Some years ago, I decided to take Blake's fourfold vision seriously, just to see how far it could carry one. I was dissatisfied with all monisms and dualisms anyway, seeing them as defective. They had stretched themselves so to accommodate their own contradictions that they had, in any event, become unreal cartoon caricatures. I have disciplined my mind to the logic of the quadrilateral instead. And in retrospect, I can see that it was not Blake who was mad, but his critics. Ditto for Nietzsche whose break with perspective consciousness anticipated Picasso. And, naturally, people still in thrall to entrenched perspectivism and "the point of view" (POV) would find Nietzsche and Picasso lunatic -- or at least incomprehensible.
"What concerns me is the word, 'Disciple.' I am a disciple of nobody, nor would I wish to become one. That term implies hero worship, a surrendering of one's critical faculties and, ultimately, fanaticism."
There are many forms of fanaticism, because fantastic people fancy many different idols in many a different fanum. We call this "value pluralism".
"Another area of your argument I have difficulty with is your extensive reliance on the derivation of words. I am tempted to ask, 'So what?' Interested as I am in Etymology I cannot see how this approach adds weight to your position, except by way of demonstrating your capacious repository of knowledge."
My position is that the symbolic function in man has become divorced from his true reality. The symbolic and semantic environments have become self-referential, the "mind-forg'd manacles" of "the Dark Satanic Mill" as Blake described mind in the throes of a self-devouring tautology where symbols have lost intimate contact with the reality they were designed to symbolise over many generations. and have come to refer to nothing but themselves. Image trumps reality. The word "symbolise" itself means "to bring together" -- to integrate, in other words. The word "integrate" also means "to heal", "to mend", "to make whole". The contrary to symbolic is *diabolic*. The decay of the symbolic function leads to the diabolic predicament, or what else are people saying who write about "the closing of the American Mind" (Bloom), "the closing of the Western Mind" (Freeman), "the vicious downward intellectual spiral" into Dark Age (Jacobs), "the culture of narcissism" (Lasch), "assault on reason" (Gore), "war against truth" (Roberts), and god-knows-who-else-these-days? In fact, it is exactly the kind of decadence and nihilism that "the madman in the marketplace" Friedrich Nietzsche predicted as our unavoidable fate well over a century ago, and sought out ways to outrun this fate.
Hi, just dropped in to say I'm far too busy reading the last Harry Potter book to post on anything sensibly. Also ( - Steve - ) my prayer was answered in a most unexpected way so I'm rather busy on that front too ;)
Biskieboo - glad you're having fun. Don't forget the old Chinese saying, though, about being careful what you wish (pray) for.... ;-}
Just a brief comment on boltonian's 1-7 possible variants on the perception/reality relationship (with the proviso that a few weren't clear in meaning to me; but I recognise you were trying to be brief).
Some of the options would lead to the situation where even discussing reality with another person would be pointless, as one could never understand, let alone verify, the other's POV. Here I would place 1,2,3,5 & 7. Borderline, and maybe harsh, in a few cases, but I'm sure there would be insuperable communication problems between individuals in those cases. I think I'm more of a 6 than a 4, although I'm a little unclear on what you meant by the "beyond" in 4 : "...indirectly through our ability to communicate beyond ourselves." Just to emphasize, much of my argument comes from the point that, were any of the other options to be true, it would be difficult to have a meaningful conversation about it. (Of course, the fact that we disagree about these things might be a point in favour of one of these options....)
Anyway, I recognize that I'm in a minority here (possibly a minority of one). But arguing for a different reality than we perceive - or could ever perceive - just seems unnecessary.
You (b) said "London might exist but I can never know if your perception of it is similar to mine." But on every objective comparison, we would agree. No-one could make a case for *their* London having Buckingham Palace inside Bethnal Green tube station, for example. So I would strongly disagree with you on this: it would be straightforward to find enough points of agreement to confirm that our perceptions of London were essentially identical. That's not to say that the first image in your mind when you hear the word "London" would be the same as mine, but I'm sure the overall "Londonness" is the same for us both.
Thanks for the kind words about the doggerel. I don't know if any of you browse the book blogs at the Grauniad, but there are better attempts there; including quite a crude one today on the "spoetry" (sic) blog. They're often fun blogs.
MacGonagall is, when all's said and done, *fun*, and often more readable than the "good" poets....
Biskieboo - I read about the death moggie on teletext yesterday. Weird. I wonder whether they've considered the possibility that he might be the cause rather than a predictor? And did you notice the splendid name of the doctor? Dosa the doser....
If the cat had been seen curling up on the old folks' faces, then I would agree that we should be looking at the cat as a suspect. It seems that it hasn't been caught out - yet. I had a cat that was run over and killed a few years ago. About a week later when I was in that not-quite-awake-but-not-still-asleep state in the morning I felt my cat jump up on to the bed and heard it purring. But I couldn't have done, because it was dead. Spooky.
Point 4 was saying that the fact that we communicate publicly is indirect evidence of objective reality.
Point 6 seems to me to be the least likely of all. Why should our perception of reality coincide with how things really are?
Re-London. It is not a question of Buckingham Palace not being in Bethnal Green but understanding what you perceive and and how I see them are roughly the same. We make assumptions because we are genetically alike but we also know that perceptions are derived from a huge range of factors, including genetic make-up.
We can test this quite easily by attending the same event and then being asked by a third party to describe it the following day. We will disagree about all sorts of things - the colour of the decor; the size of the venue; number of players etc. And yet 12 hours earlier we were supposedly experiencing the same thing. This is assuming that we mean the same thing by the words we use; and we also know that people use language differently. When we come to describe qualitative experience then we really are at sea and we will differ quite widely. But it is we that categorise some things as objective and others as subjective - not that they are these things in themselves.
Even if we compare things at the time of the experience we will disagree over certain things because our brains works in slightly different ways and our modes of expression vary.
How much different would perceptions vary (assuming we could communicate) between, say, a cat and a human being? So, whose version of reality is correct?
We know that our brains create complete pictures from scant evidence for lots of survival reasons but why should that picture accurately and faithfully reflect reality? I doubt our perceptive equipment developed as it has for this purpose.
Biskieboo:
Also read the cat story - interesting. If next door's cat gets too friendly I will start to worry.
Hi boltonian : "We can test this quite easily by attending the same event and then being asked by a third party to describe it the following day. We will disagree about all sorts of things - the colour of the decor; the size of the venue; number of players etc. And yet 12 hours earlier we were supposedly experiencing the same thing."
There is, though, an objectively correct answer to the questions about venue size, decor, number of players. And even if we answered incorrectly, it wouldn't mean that it was beyond our wit to get the right answers.
Similarly with the London thing; we might not agree on whether we had a nice day out (no objective answer there) but that's not part of Londonness. We might misremember aspects of our day out, but that's not the same as being unable to perceive what really happened. Getting things wrong doesn't mean we couldn't have got them right - Martin or Biskieboo might have been with us, and one of them might have a photographic memory....
I agree that when it comes down to picking one of your options from 1-7, in the end it's personal preference or gut feeling. So I can't *prove* 6 - nevertheless, I don't think your London or venue examples *disprove* it, either. I'm just a WYSIWYG kinda guy....
Ahead of any speculation about the nature (or not) of reality lies a stark polarity. A fixed or objective material reality either exists or it does not. Any gloss on this necessarily polarises to one side or the other.
Any proposition that denies the existence of material reality leads to a form of solipsism in which the (non material) individual is his or her own creator, or the individual is a solipsistic fragment or figment of another creator (e.g. Bishop Berkeley's God). However sophisticated the construction it amounts to the same thing. The solipsitic creator is his or her own self-validating, tautological yardstick. In a solipsistic world, the objects and concepts towards which the words and phrases (signs) of language point are as arbitrary as the words themselves; when all is self-referential there can be no meaning. This is an expression of the private language argument.
Does this disprove solipsism? No, strictly speaking I find that I am an agnostic on this point! Nevertheless as I address my thoughts in a public language, I find that the language and the act of communication is in effect an assertion of the existence of a material reality. However we discuss the notion of solipsism, the act of discussion presupposes, that it is not true, so it does not make sense to discuss it as a possibility.
How we perceive, what our attitude is towards and whether we could entirely know material reality are separate questions. Nevertheless, in general, apart from specific conditions such as blue-green colour blindness, Biology/genetics gives us every reason to assume that our fundamental perceptions are not different from anyone else's. Our attitude to our perceptions can however be coloured by experience (the contribution of the external environment).
Our experiences do not take place in a vacuum but rather in a social context, so the conditioning of our perceptions is a shared, group phenomenon. Nevertheless it does not seem right to state that (as a poet) "Hardy is superior to McGonagall) because we say he is according to the rules we set ourselves", as this seems to imply that there may be a set of circumstances in which the opposite could be true. (Steve, the 'fun' of McGonagall arises from the sense of incredulity that anything that aspired to be poetry could be so bad)
"History, however, eventually sorts it out", more than this it leaves an overall impression of standards for value judgements that are independent of individual responses. Thus an assertion that, for instance, 'Shakespeare is rubbish' becomes more of a value judgement on the individual voice than a judgement on Shakespeare's position as a writer.
The follow up questions are how does history sort it out? And what are the implications for what determines quality in the Arts? Why is it not possible to write another Shakespeare play, a 42nd Mozart symphony etc?
That is enough for the moment, but on the cat question, ever since our cat died I get accused of snoring at night - how spooky is that?!
Sorry, I had not read the latest posts by Boltonian and Steve when I wrote that last contribution, which is why I have not commented directly, however Steve's what you see is what you get is not necessarily in contradiction to Boltonian's what you see is just a part of what there is.
Nevertheless Steve does have to admit that whilst you can see the sun move across the sky this is not really what is happening (what you get). The perception in itself is not a deception, but it just leads to the wrong conclusion. To me this emphasises how careful Scientists need to be in distinguishing observation from interpretation. I suspect Steve would defend his position in terms of pure observation striped of any interpretation. Boltonian meanwhile is thinking of the full story of material reality (the thing in itself) of which even if we did have total knowledge, I do not think we could ever know that we had total knowledge.
"Ahead of any speculation about the nature (or not) of reality lies a stark polarity. A fixed or objective material reality either exists or it does not. Any gloss on this necessarily polarises to one side or the other."
There is, however, a third position that has been taken historically, that both are true.
Before it descended, along with everything else, into the general decadence of Christendom and the Church in the period we call the Late Medieval, Scholasticism based its thinking about the nature of the real upon the paradoxical formula "it is and it is not". This was its point of departure for reasoning about the world.
And if we hope to understand anything about ourselves, via the history and evolution of human consciousness to the present day, we must have the capacity to empathise with the consciousness of all former humanity by experimentally adopting their consciousness. That is the only valid meaning of "empathy" at all. It is certainly not to be confused with "pity".
The scholastics acknowledged that "nothing comes from nothing" is a law of nature. At the same time they accepted the authority of scripture that "God created the world from nothing," ex nihilo via "the Word that was from the beginning" -- fiat lux.
This forced the scholastics to make a distinction between the natural order and the supernatural order -- Nature and Genesis, world and spirit. In the natural order, nothing comes from nothing and birth precedes death in the order of time in which the father is always first in the biological order. Nature is the realm of birth (as the word "Nature" means -- the realm of natality and mortality).
(And Paul Hawken's characterisation of our contemporary nihilism in *The Ecology of Commerce* as "the death of birth" echos Carolyn Merchant's "The Death of Nature" for that reason).
In the supernatural order described by Genesis, however, death precedes birth (doctrine of resurrection). The tomb is the womb and here it is the child that is father to the man.
"It is and it is not" made the distinction between Nature and Genesis as the paradoxical aspects of one reality as a continuing dialogue between Cosmos and Chaos in terms of the basic ontological categories of "actus" (actuality) and "potens" (potentiality) which is not one wit different in conception than the paradox of the particle and the wave in quantum physics.
The scholastics saw the world as paradoxical, but not contradictory. And the vitality of early scholastic thought was predicated on this polarity between Nature and Genesis, saeculum and aeternitas, mortal and immortal, just as electricity is generated by the present of positive and negative poles. Decadence emerged when this polarity of vital thought was reduced to an "either/or" logic rather than a "both/and" logic.
The subtelties of scholastic thought aren't actually much different than what one finds in Buddhism, too. "It is and it is not" could well be mistaken for Buddhist. It is also found in Heraclitus, the philosopher of Becoming, who took on Parmenides, the philosopher of Being. Goethe, Nietzsche, Blake, et alia are in the lineage of Heraclitus. Most of our mainstream rationalists are in the lineage of Parmenides. The split between the Logos and the Mythos begins with Parmenides and Heraclitus, and is reflected in the split between Nature and Genesis in scholastism, only to be duplicated in the split between Mind and Body (res cogitans and res extensa in Descartes).
Indeed, one might also say that the very brief periods of lucidity and intellectual vitality in human history (like the Renaissance) have been at times when the paradoxical character of our full reality was sustained in consciousness like the generative poles of an electrical current.
We mustn't forget, either, that the founder of modern genetics was a Christian monk, who saw no contraction at all between his reason and his faith. That distinction between reason and faith (Nature and Genesis, natural and supernatural orders of time) is a Late Modern one (the Renaissance priest and poet John Donne made no such absolute distinction in his poetry). Rather, this "either/or" logic is witness to the decadence of the Modern Era, just as late scholasticism forgot its own foundations in the paradox of "it is and it is not" and descended into dogma.
Regarding the nature of reality: It's too bad Jane Robert's Seth lacks the perceived weight of any number of famed philosophers but hardly surprising, considering how all of his books were channelled. That process, an art more than a science, remains in ill repute in most places, despite any number of 'famous' instances.
If this were not so, more here might have read The Nature of Personal Reality, among other books by the same author.
I offer a small Seth section here but note that although I acknowledge Seth as a major influence I do not consider myself a "disciple" of Seth; that very concept is antithetical to his teachings (although if I were to deploy Longsword's definition I would be forced to restate this).
Seth's "POV" is entirely relevant to the subjective/objective discussion while distinct from most of the accepted philosophical stances in that he offers exercises for purposes of validation.
I'll restate a very short version then leave this alone:
o Everyone creates their own unique physical continua (this means that there are as many versions of London as people within it at any moment);
o This is accomplished by a transduction of energies utilizing the brain, the rest of the nervous system, the senses, and other more mysterious organs (Seth doesn't delve into these, for the most part; many Eastern teachings do);
o Coordination of these endless individual physical realities is accomplished by what could be called "telepathy," mostly unconscious; and
o There are certain "root assumptions" within any physical system. In our system these include linear time, space, and gravity but our system is definitely but one of a great many. (I've actually visited other systems but have absolutely no way of proving this to anyone, while the tales of how I did so would require book length treatment).
There's a lot more, but I became somewhat "Sethed-out" years ago.
Initially, I was a solitary Seth reader, but some years after my introductory experience (related here), I encountered an early Internet Seth list comprised of an overlap of those with early adopter "Geekish" tendencies and enthusiasm for the Seth material.
I interacted in that (and subsequent on-line environments) for years but eventually reached my limit, after exhausting what were, for me, its many possibilities, not the least of which included folks teaching each other what could be called do-it-yourself on-line mediumship, a fascinating activity.
Seth's teachings have certain features in common with Neo-Berkeley-ism, the "Perennial Philosophy," and even David Bohm's physics (see the other Norman Friedman book Longsword didn't mention: Bridging Science and Spirit) but is definitely not academic in spirit or nature.
Seth is more of a discarnate Socrates.
On another somewhat related topic, did anyone notice the news item regarding the lights seen above Stratford-on-Avon?
(How could anyone ignore The Bard when discussing words and language?)
I found the timing of this interesting, considering my posting of the words: The Elizabethan Revival here and elsewhere and the refocusing I've been doing on that period and what might be termed "The Elizabethan Oversoul" behind it. (Was this an instance of acausal vertical linkage?)
Needless to say, I have a strong personal connection to that situation.
WYSIWYG cannot be right otherwise David Copperfield, Derren Brown and countless children's party entertainers would be out of business. It is very easy to fool one's senses.
Also, because our perceptions depend to a large degree on our experience there must be zillions of things out there that we have not perceived and, maybe, are incapable of perceiving. I am thinking immediately of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Also, although we are able to detect the effects of gravity we have yet to 'Perceive' what it is.
Re- London and last night's event. Yes, we might have been with someone who has a photographic memory but we would still need to take their view on trust because neither you nor I will have had the same experience. We are making a big assumption that there is an objective reality and some people have access to it. It might be a reasonable assumption in some cases but it is an assumption nonetheless.
Martin:
I don't know how you can be sure that our experiences are similar. All one can do, I think, is relate others' accounts to one's own experience and observations. It is from this that we can draw conclusions. How often do you hear in conversation things like, ' I don't understand him,' or, 'I cannot understand how she could have done such a thing.' ETc.
Re-artistic standards. We decide what they are through some very complex social interactions. By and large what pleases those who have most influence in these matters becomes good art. The more people that are in on the decision-making the more the regression to the norm, so that is how history sorts out one from another. There is no objective standard. Some people, for example, cannot stand Shakespeare. I do not like Wagner, much to the bafflement of some of my friends. Is Wagner a superior composer of opera than, say, Verdi? Not in my book but my opinion is probably a minority view among the cognoscenti.
Bill:
Completely agree with your suggestion that there are as many Londons as there are people who have visited the place. In fact, I would argue that it is wider than that because even people who have never been there have heard of it and will have formed impressions.
I can't comment on telepathy because I know nothing about the subject.
Boltonian writes: "Completely agree with your suggestion that there are as many Londons as there are people who have visited the place. In fact, I would argue that it is wider than that because even people who have never been there have heard of it and will have formed impressions."
Dear Boltonian:
Note that a distinction is often made between primary and secondary constructions.
The Londons being created right this moment by all who are physically present within its boundaries (these Londons are all primary constructions) are not the same as those being created within the minds of others not physically present.
Your primary reality, then, is restricted by the limits of your physical perception (but note that this includes stars and galaxies billions of light years away, as you can see those).
Although such an understanding can be experimentally (and personally, or "subjectively") verified, dealing with "objective reality" is much more difficult than many might suppose.
This doesn't mean there is no such thing, however, as many ardent New Agers assume.
Boltonian: you question "I don't know how you can be sure that our experiences are similar." This is not exactly what I was saying when I wrote "Biology/genetics gives us every reason to assume that our fundamental perceptions are not different from anyone else's."
What I mean is that the basic apparatus, the proteins and the genes that code for them etc are the same and work in the same way, connecting to the central nervous system in the same way. Threfore we should not propose theoretical differences that ignore this knowledge. Of course someone might be short sighted, hard of hearing etc so that there may well be some differences in the information received, but we cannot sensibly propose that the internal perception of green and sweet for one person, might register the same as red and sour for someone else. How perceptions relate to our history of life experience can easily give rise to wide differences so that the same perception can be pleasant for one person but disagreeable to another.
To account for a liking or a dislike of salt, for example, does not require any assumption that the mechanism of registering saltiness is in any way different in the two cases.
Longsword: dualism creates enormous problems, especially with regard to interactions, but basically one of existence or non-existence has to take priority.
The history of dualism may be interesting, but it does not constitute an argument. in any case it is fairly apparent that in medievil scholasticism the spiritual world had primacy over the material world. Incidentally, I don't think your analogies with Physics help your point of view.
I think we are violently agreeing here - my emphasis is slightly more sceptical than yours. I think I put it something like this in an earlier post:
'Because were are genetically almost indistinguishable we must assume that our experiences bear some resemblance from one person to another; but it is an assumption nonetheless.'
Agree about dualism. I cannot find any evidence that it has much validity other than, 'What else can it be?' sort of arguments. It is a bit like ID - because Darwinian evolution is not a perfect or complete theory therefore the world must have been designed. One does not follow from the other. We have very few answers but that does not mean we should just make something up that cannot (at this moment) be disproved and call it the truth.
If I could impolitely join in some v interesting discussions.
Wrt scholasticism and 'dualism', I must tentatively and slightly nervously - yikes - disagree with MartinRDB and Boltonian - or at least suggest a few complicating things worth bearing in mind.
While I understand why (v broadly speaking) scholastic attempts to describe and discern things might be described as 'dualistic', I also think it can be v unhelpful. In this kind of context, 'dualism' recalls (to my mind) most strongly some sort of Cartesian take: i.e. (I think this would be a fair term) substance dualism.
The scholastic form of 'dualism' was v different. I am no philosopher let alone some sort of Gilson when it comes to doing the history of philosophy (esp for this period), but thinkers like Aquinas et al were surely not substance dualists. Rather, their (inherited - but not passively) categories - for instance, form and matter - seem to address different aspects of being (rather than different kinds of being in themselves, as in the Cartesian mind and body). Indeed, it is the interaction between, say, form and matter which is necessary for a singular thing to be. I think Longsword touches on this when speaking about act/potentiality and the shift to late scholasticism/early modern thought:
"Decadence emerged when this polarity of vital thought was reduced to an "either/or" logic rather than a "both/and" logic."
(In contemporary philosophy of mind, neo-thomists - for want of a better designation - do not easily fall into either the materialist or dualist categories, as those 'schools' - with vital differences within as well as between them - have been conventionally developed).
I hope I have not been too vague. Medieval philosophers were - as MartinRDB rightly points out - concerned with the 'spiritual' (though a caveat might be that this is not exactly the same thing as what might be taken as 'spiritual' today: I don't use this as a category that is intimately entwined with, say, the 'mystical').
The 'spiritual' is an equivocal term: undoubtedly devout thinkers like Aquinas were, in terms of praxis, very much interested in the 'spiritual'. (There's a story that after some sort of spiritual experience, Aquinas thereafter was disinclined to write another word - to be fair, he'd already written quite a few). But, at a more conceptual (or more specifically - and hopefully a, for once, relevant use of one of my fave words - ontological) level, I'm not wholly convinced that medieval thinkers gave primacy to the spiritual over the material: their metaphysics is much more holistic than that (and bearing in mind the caveat on 'spiritual').
Incidentally, I find Boltonian's ID comparison most unfair! (I disagree that the comparison reveals much - obviously not sociologically nor conceptually, but it's a moot point).
Just to mark out some of the 'buoys' in this discussion: do we agree (or not) that if there is no 'objective reality' (i.e. some sort of real existence of things regardless of our perceiving them to be in existence), then we don't have much scope for conceiving of other beings - specifically, other humans - as 'objectively' existing in their own right?
1) There are no private conversations here and discussion is welcomed.
2)Disagreement is not only tolerated but encouraged. How would we learn anything otherwise?
3) Dualism. I admit to thinking of Cartesian dualism - what I know of the Scholastics comes to me via Russell. It is not a school I know too much about.
4) You have disagreed rather than refuted my comparison with ID. What I meant to imply was that dualism has about the same level of evidence. It is not an exact analogy, merely an illustration.
5) If you have a spiritual experience and try to describe it to me and I have experienced nothing like what you describe how can I relate to it? I will draw certain (provisional) conclusions, because we (I speak for myself) are comfortable with endings and explanations but not with loose ends and mystery.
Just a brief message of support for Biskieboo, who got some pretty nasty and uncalled for comments on the CiF Oscar thread from you-know-who.... ;-} There are ways of disagreeing without being that objectionable....
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Thanks for dropping in. I hope you find the time to post a comment soon.
All:
I didn't hear the original 'In Our Time' programme on R4 with Melvyn Bragg but I subscribe to his newsletter. Here is a snippet, which might be of interest - does Grayling ever do any teaching, I wonder?
'There was much discussion about the meaning of atheism in the 18th century. Did it actually carry the same meaning as today? Alexander Broadie (I think) said that it did not get its modern meaning until the 19th century. Though Hume was accused of being an atheist, it meant that he was a non-deist which is not what an atheist is today.
Hume’s supposed atheism is undermined – Broadie suggested – by his willingness to apply for professorships at Glasgow and Edinburgh.
In Scotland anybody who got a chair had to lead the students in prayer, I think, every morning. Hume was clearly prepared to do this.
A C Grayling offered the suggestion that perhaps Hume was prepared to stand up against this. But this doesn’t seem to be the case. Broadie pointed out that many of Hume’s “pals” were members of the Church and he tried very hard to get the chair at Glasgow (which Professor Broadie now occupies and was once held by Adam Smith). Hume was turned down for a man called Jeremy Chow who, it was cruelly commented in the room, has never been heard of since.
It seems that though Hume was the outstanding candidate, members of the committee, who were also members of the Kirk, ganged up against him. Francis Hutcheson, an influential professor at the university, said of him: “Hume lacks warmth in the course of virtue”.'
Hume is just about my favourite philosopher.
Must dash just now - hope to catch up later. Enjoy the weekend.
Hi folks.
I've finally managed to get hold of a copy of "The God Delusion" from the library, though it is on cassette not in book form, which has advantages and disadvantages. I can listen to it whilst doing something boring like the ironing. But I have to put up with Dawkin's voice which really begins to grate after a while. I had to laugh when at the start he read out the blurb which must be on the cover of the book, describing his own work as "a brilliantly argued, fascinating polemic" - you'd think he might have got someone else to read that bit. His wife reads some bits which does help to break it up a bit.
I'm not overly impressed so far. I'm only a bit into it, but so far there's been a lot of argument over just who is/was or isnt/wasn't an atheist which is a tad boring. It also seems mainly focussed on Christianity so far, but like I said, only a part of the way in so far. It might improve, but there's been no atheist conversion looming.
I'm not really up to speed to join in with some of the more technical discussions going on here. I'll chip in now and again if I can. I do check in to read regularly.
I'd like to read more of people's unexplained experiences. I think those that have never had any find it very difficult to believe that they occur. This can make it easier for them to dismiss everything that happens as being fully explainanble by science/logic/reasoning.
Bye for now.
A couple of very quick responses.
Steve:
It is not as bleak as that. My point is that we must behave in a way that pre-supposes a certain degree of free will but that does not mean that it exists in reality. If you tried to live your life irresponsibly using determinism as an excuse you would fail. This, I surmise, is because your adult behaviour is governed by things you cannot control. Therefore you have no option but to behave as the responsible, civilised, considerate, well-mannered human being that you are. You cannot deny your genetic inheritance, your childhood experiences nor the things that happen to you in the world, all of which go towards making you as you are.
Biskieboo:
Good to hear from you. I have not read TGD either. I know that I should and will do one day but I have so much outstanding reading matter that it will have to wait. Also, I have an idea how it ends :-). I would be very interested in your views when you have finished listening to it.
[Formerly 'PassingStarship' on CiF (shortened for ease of reference!) - a moniker meant to indicate being on a voyage of discovery, exploring human behaviour from a purely external point of view - ultimately impossible of course.]
I was very interested in daddy0marcos's point (10 June) that "people will react quicker to flying paint than a flying fist". I'd suggest this could be because the neural circuitry that deals with social activity, including the intentions of other people is slower than that which deals with non-social threats. It would be interesting to know whether there have been any studies of autistics in this respect: I would expect them to react faster to the flying fist than non-autistic people.
Back to free will: what do the contributors to this thread think about the idea that it is a
necessary illusion because without it we would all be wondering what we were going to do next?! To put it another way, if you don't think that "you" are in control, then life becomes pretty terrifying. This is not hypothetical: for people with certain forms of brain damage it is a reality.
For some thoughts which could help with the disussion of free will, determinism, and behaving "well" (Steve on 22 June), I'd recommend:
http://www.naturalism.org/strawson_interview.htm
and other articles on that site.
Biskieboo - I don't know what you'll make of The God Delusion, but I find the weakest part of the book is the idea of the "moral Zeitgeist". Richard Dawkins admits to not having the
scientific background to justify his ideas in this area, yet he ploughs on without systematically
addressing the question of where moral values come from, and indeed of their relationship to notions of free will and responsibility.
Apologies for the unintended line breaks in my previous post!
Yo, starship
Read your linked Strawson interview; and thumbed through some other pages from that site. Must say, I find Strawson's view amazingly bleak....and can't help but feel there's a circularity at the core of his reasoning.
Either way, I'm sure I *chose* to follow the link - and could have chosen not to - even if my reaction to it may have been preordained ;-)
Hi, steve - I'm not sure what it means to say that you or I have free will to choose, but it is meaningful to discuss why these choices are made. Presumably they're not random...
When steve wrote "I'm sure I *chose* to follow the link - and could have chosen not to", what do the words "could have" mean? Are we talking about parallel universes? If so, what brings them into existence? Or, if there is only one universe, are we saying that it is (at least partially) determined by human "free will"? If that were so, wouldn't it be like the creationists' claims for the origin of the universe, a claim that a mysterious creative force (whether human or divine) plays a role in the way things turn out?
These well-known problems with the idea of free will, the problem of observation within a closed system, of subjectivity versus objectivity, make me doubt that the "free will" issue can be resolved. From a practical point of view it's better to ask what drives human choices and human behaviour.
Just a quick response before going out for the day.
Free will is a very elusive concept. We are sure we all have choices, which is what our moral code is based on, but when you examine exactly how much choice you really have it is difficult to pin down. It does not really fit with cause and effect.
For example, Steve - you said you had a free choice to access the link recommended by Starship or not. When you examine the causes of that action I am not sure you did.
It was a recommendation from someone you respect; it was relevant to this topic; you are here because the topic interests you; you are interested because...and so on and so on. How much real choice did you have? I read it for the same reasons (incidentally, v. interesting and thanks Starship - I will read again before passing comment).
For me the only reason that I would not have read it last night was lack of time - and that would have been caused by other things, so the actual choice is illusory.
So, we live our lives believing that two contradictory concepts are true (causation and free will).
BTW the parallel worlds idea that you introduced, Starship, is fascinating and one I would like to discuss at some time.
I'm not big on the parallel universes thing - fascinating though it would be (to me, anyway) to see what happened to the other "me"s who made different choices....somewhere there's one of me posting on a CiF as "idealisticsteve"....
Incidentally, boltonian, although you're right that starship is one of a small number of people whose views do cause me to think a bit before replying, that in itself isn't enough to make me click on recommended links. In fact, I probably only go to around 10% of those suggested, since most are too polarised to be useful. Of course, this proves nothing with respect to the question, FW or no FW. Starship's right in that the question can't be definitively answered, as we only run the experiment once, PUs notwithstanding. But it shouldn't stop us thinking about it, as it's fundamental in the true sense of the word.
I asked my wife about the determinism/FW thing, since she studied philosophy at uni. She said two related things I thought were interesting: firstly, aren't we a bit overtooled intellectually if there's no FW? And secondly, what's the point in us being self aware if we don't have FW?
(It was amusing that, having asked her the q on the journey to Tesco, she kept returning to it whilst we were in the store; I just wonder what other shoppers made of two middle aged scruffs arguing about determinism in the biscuit aisle....)
Self awareness is obviously a very personal thing, but discounting freewill does not diminish the importance of the sense (or illusion) of freewill.
I am sorry that I do not understand the "overtooled intellectually" point.
Is it something to do with when I stand in the biscuit isle, it seems to take an age for my lack of freewill and my illusion thereof to sort out what to do?
I was interested in the Strawson interview (I don't follow up that many links and had expected Père Strawson); I wonder what you made of the knock down argument. Is it flawed? Is the premiss OK? Although I have seen a similar argument (less economically presented) before I had always reached the conclusion from other perspectives.
Steve (or steve's wife) said: "what's the point in us being self aware if we don't have FW". Not having studied philosophy I may be missing something elementary here, but it seems to me that awareness of the "self" in your head and of other "selves" in other heads is critical to coping with the social environment. The problems that autistics have show that this awareness is not universal or inevitable. The idea of FW is then related to an awareness of responsibility - that is of being answerable to your community. That knowledge influences our behaviour, and creates the feeling of what Strawson calls "deep moral responsibility". The illusion is vital to social living and cannot be shaken off, any more than an optical illusion, such as the one at http://web.mit.edu/persci/people/adelson/checkershadow_illusion.html. Without this optical illusion, we couldn't safely run through forests because we wouldn't be able to interpret the shadows of trees correctly. Similarly, perhaps, we could not function properly in the social environment without the illusion of free will.
Just butting in on the free will question after skimming through the link. It seems to me that free will is not the same as having free open choices. Some options are closed to us from birth (I'm never going to be a great high jumper due to my being a bit of a short arse) and some close off as we go through life due to the choices that we do make.
Free will seems to me to be the fact that we have a range of options in any given situation, and we choose between these limited options. We may be more likely (for many reasons) to go for one option more than the others, but there is a choice.
The major shifts that occur in people's moral behaviour can be seen at the point where they break a subconcious pattern of choice making. Say, for instance, when someone who would normally do something they know is wrong if they know they will get away with their behaviour, then chooses conciously not to take that particular option any more. Having then made the decision in that particular situation they may then see other situations where an option that they would not normally take then becomes easier for them to take a more "moral" option. The more they take the "moral" option, the harder it then becomes to backtrack to the old not-so-good behaviour, although of course the option always exists.
I know what I'm trying to say here, but not sure I've put it across so others will!
Boltonian : I don't know a great deal about Mahayana Buddhism as opposed to other forms. Does Therevada include the concept of "clear light of great bliss" ?
Starship : I followed your links too. My approach is always to try and retain different perspectives as possibilities.
Steve : I've decided to avoid the biscuit aisles in Sainsbury of late; if it wasn't for the bread and Old Speckled Hen, I'd do all the shopping in the local co-op.
I started reading GEB from the beginning again in bed yesterday morning and was feeling quite pleased with myself for having read about 30 pages and understood everything when I nodded off. I then had a dream in which I was awakened by the sound of a bug landing near by. I tried to get a closer look, but couldn't seem to focus properly. I tentatively identified it as a moth, when it flew off and when I located its new position, I still couldn't focus on it. I wondered if I had the wrong glasses on and then realised I was dreaming and woke up.
I've also discovered a bug in my memory : for at least 13 years I've been under the impression that Alan Alda starred as the mad scientist in the movie "Bug", but the other day I found out it was Bradford Dillman. It was a rather silly B movie, but it made a lasting impression on me in its portrayal of the way in which scientific curiosity and the lure of academic kudos can override morality and common sense. I just have to think "bug" and I see Hawkeye Alan Alda.
elephantschild : Racine, Moliere, Balzac, Hugo, Sartre, Camus. Of these only Racine was always alien to me; the set book was Phaedra. The chap just across the aisle from me in the exam had an epileptic fit. OK, I'd wasted too many free periods playing bridge, but I think I'd have done better with a bit of time added on.
biskieboo : I understand and was trying to make a similar point earlier in the thread when I mentioned programming the unconscious.
spacepenguin : OK, I think I've got there now. I originally thought your last post was a change of tack from interactionist dualism, but I accept you're keeping that option open. If my mystical experience concerns what is traditionally thought of as the metaphysical soul, then it should be capable of scientific examination even with current technology. I can also relate to NDE descriptions, so it would be interesting to know if this state of consciousness shows up as hyperactivity or lack of activity in the brain. I'm agnostic as to the significance of the experience and other experiences related to it.
Lots to think about. These are in no particular order.
pttp:
'Does Therevada include the concept of "clear light of great bliss" ?'
I will need to ask my wife. The main thrust of Therevada Buddhism, in my understanding, is striving to live as closely as possible to Gautama's precepts. This means, of course that one must proceed through numerous lives and the eightfold path - and only monks (through the elimination of desire, which is the cause of suffering)will become Boddhisatva and, ultimately, achieve full enlightenment as a buddha. This being the final step before Nirvana, or complete nothingness.
One can see here a number of reasons why it has not swept the world as a belief system. Firstly, it is a hard road to tread, secondly it takes many lifetimes to achieve enlightenment, thirdly most of us do not wish to eliminate desire (we will take the suffering as a sort of Faustian pact), fourthly the concept of Nirvana is not nearly so attractive as Heaven.
As I understand it Mahayana is an attempt to revise and update these precepts, partly in an attempt to make Buddhism more relevant to more people. In other words what the Buddha would have taught had he been alive today.
starship/ Martin:
Having read the article twice I cannot find any logical flaws in it (but then I am not a logician). I too was expecting the famous father of the, now, famous son. The late P.F. taught a good friend of mine at Oxford in the 1970s, who speaks very highly of him (my friend of Strawson that is).
Steve:
I tend to avoid biscuit aisles, in fact I avoid supermarkets altogether - my wife does that bit and I buy all the fresh stuff locally.
I am not sure how self-awareness relates to free will. If we take a hypothetical journey though our evolution it might go something like this:
Our (homo)direct ancestor might have been an ape that had found a niche living near water and living on fish (see the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis by Elaine Morgan). Bi-pedalism would confer an advantage in that is easier to catch fish when standing upright than on all fours. There are lots of disadvantages too: a smaller pelvis leading to less developed and therefore more vulnerable offspring, for example. So, the advantage must have been substantial. One consequence of this is that the centre of gravity shifts to run more vertically through the head to the feet. This means that a heavier brain can be carried. A large brain, therefore, might have been a by product of bi-pedalism. A larger brain also conferred advantages, so it began to grow until it is now at about the maximum size we can carry without becoming unbalanced. Another side effect of bi-pedalism is that the larynx can drop down into a larger space in the throat, allowing the possibility of a far larger range of sounds to be made and, therefore, the raw material for language. The penalty is that the lungs and the digestive system use the same tube, so choking to death becomes a possibility. Again, the benefits of a large larynx must have conferred a substantial benefit. This might be because we had developed such a large brain that allowed us to develop sophisticated social skills from which we derived benefits over those that did not (Neanderthals?). Self-awareness might have been a by product of this and, as language developed, it became more and more of an advantage. Why? Because it enabled one to empathise - to put oneself into another's shoes and thus predict behaviours and language became one of the tools for eliciting more information. Thus societies that had language and self-awareness would have the wherewithal to dominate its neighbours, much as we do now with nature. We are really a problem-solving creature and for that self-awareness is very useful.
Self-awareness has also helped us to survive as a species because we can imagine what it must be like to be in somebody else's position. Matt Ridley, in the 'Origins of Virtue' makes much of this ability using the prisoner's dilemma as an illustration. 'Always defect' (the winning strategy with two people) and 'Tit for tat' would have destroyed us as a species but what he calls 'Generous' allows us to survive. He defines generous as allowing one mistake. 'If you hurt me once I will not retaliate because I will assume that you have made a mistake but if you do it again I will kill you.' For this to be the case empathy is needed and for that self-awareness must be a requirement.
The concept of free will allowing the development of a sophisticated moral code could then be built on this and so more complex and more successful societies can exist.
None of this pre-supposes that free will actually exists independently of our belief that it does. Survival of the species depends upon an agreed morality, which in turn rests on a belief that we have choices. For that we need a large brain.
If my hypothesis stands up then we are not 'over tooled' at all - we need all that brain power to survive at the species level.
Biskieboo:
You have put your finger on what I think is the nub of it. Not whether free will exists but how far we believe it does. The more we learn about genetics, for example, the less freedom we seems to have. If this carries on too quickly we might 'prove' that the world is determined before we have developed the intellectual mechanisms for dealing with it. Perhaps free will is so hard wired into our psyche that we will continue to act against the evidence. I am not so sure. More conflicts have been fought over clashes of values, at least in historical times, rather than a battle for resources. And this is happening right now.
pttp :
I am leaning more towards neutral monism lately . My problem with dualism is it seems too neat and too anthropocentric . It has more explanatory power than materialist monism , but it still doesn't seem a satisfying explanation .
My point about a metaphysical soul giving us free will is that it would permit no further investigation . There would be an essence of 'you' responding to dilemmas without mechanism (if your soul is actually processing information then the brain state problem for free will becomes the soul state problem) . Such a thing would just have to be taken as read . It is somewhat analogous to quantum entanglement , we have no mechanism at present for instantaneous effect at a distance , it simply happens and that's that .
Oh dear....I seem to have copped some flack for setting my original anecdote in the biscuit aisle - which, in reality, is a location rarely visited by me. I just thought it sounded better, for reasons of both scansion and social contrast (it wouldn't have had the same impact had I set it in "the organic tofu aisle" - such philosophical conversations are practically de rigeur there....) But, to prosaically fess up, our conversation actually took place as I spent five minutes trying to find a usable garlic bulb in amongst all the shrivelled dross that wouldn't even make a vampire flinch....meantime, I'm off to compose some more doggerel....next time there's a juicy atheism thread on CiF, I plan on having something precomposed, rather than making it up on the spot. Suggestions for subjects welcome.
Apologies for not addressing the FW comments yet, but my brain isn't up to it yet. In the words of Colin Dexter, as put into the mouth of Morse, I'm seriously underbeered....
SpaceP:
I know you used to lean towards some sort of dualism - does materialist monism mean that you think consciousness is a function of the brain and, if so, that we might one day (soon?) replicate it?
boltonian :
Basically neutral monism , as opposed to materialistic monism , states that there is only one kind of thing that exists but it can have mental as well as material aspects . I suppose , in a sense , it is a rephrasing of dualism for practical purposes , but I prefer the idea that ultimate reality is simple and unified rather than dualistic . This is a personal preference though .
I don't know if consciousness can be replicated . An interesting idea , by David Chalmers , is that everything that appears to make a decision of some kind is conscious in some way . People , toasters and thermostats have different levels of consciousness , but they all have it .
I'm not sure I am convinced , but it's an interesting thought .
SpaceP:
Many thanks.
I had heard of this concept, particularly regarding thermostats. I think I have also read somewhere that quantum particles might have a degree of consciousness but it seems to me that it is not much more than conjecture - whatever is not ruled out by the laws of nature, as we understand them, can be ruled in if one has a book to sell.
I still have a soft spot for idealism - particularly the empirical idealism of Bishop Berkeley. Perhaps we have not travelled very far along the metaphysical road since what is probably the hey day of modern philosophy from the late 17th century until the end of the 18th - from Locke to Kant, taking in Hume, Leibnitz, Spinoza and Berkeley.
I can't help thinking that things started to go downhill from Hegel onwards.
Boltonian:
Thanks. I am fully recovered from the op (on my hip - a problem possibly connected with the fact that I have spent quite a lot of my working life crouching in damp holes in the ground). The garden is now more or less under control, though looking a bit soggy at the moment.
Have you seen the article on the behaviour of jays and other members of the crow family in the latest issue of New Scientist? Experimental studies suggest that these birds, when hiding caches of food, adopt strategies designed to outwit potential thieves, but only if a)they themselves are accustomed to raiding the caches of other birds and b)they have been observed by other birds when hiding the cache. Which suggests that they are capable of simulating another's point of view and have developed a social intelligence, if not a 'theory of mind'.
pttp (and Biskieboo):
The experiences I referred to were of altered states of perception. The first was when I was very young - not more than ten or eleven years old. I was running across a field near my home,looking at a lone stunted pine tree on the field bank ahead of me, and suddenly felt that I had to stop. It seemed as if a filter had been removed from my senses; everything seemed more vivid and 'real', and somehow charged with significance (numinous?). At the same time I experienced an almost trance-like feeling of calm and an enormous sense of joy. It probably lasted only a few minutes before one of my brothers or friends called to me. I had a second, very similar experience at the age of sixteen, walking on Marloes beach in Pembrokeshire. These experiences were, in my judgement, qualitatively different from the heightened response one sometimes has to works of art, for example, and although I have occasionally sensed a kind of echo of them, they have never been repeated. As to what triggered them, I have no idea. As far as I am aware, I suffer from no neural abnormality. Hick quotes several first hand accounts of what sound like similar, or even more intense 'spontaneous' experiences.
As I have mentioned before, I have done some reading on the subject, though not in any great depth, but as far as I can gather there is as yet no consensus on the neurological basis of such experiences, and of course it would scarcely be possible to study the kind I had under controlled conditions. Newburg and d'Aquili have conducted studies on Tibetan monks and Franciscan nuns, monitoring their brains during meditation and prayer and observed the same kind of neural correlates in both: increased activity in the frontal lobe and a suppression of activity in the amygdala. There is also a decrease in activity in the posterior superior parietal lobe, which is concerned with spacial orientation and the sense of self. What is different, of course, is the subjective interpretation which the Buddhist monks and the nuns respectively put on their experiences.
Some (but by no means all) sufferers from temporal lobe epilepsy experience hallucinations, sometimes of a religious nature, and it has been shown that electrical stimulation of the outer layers of the temporal lobe of these subjects can reproduce the same effect, but it is not clear that their experience is comparable to that of meditators. And from what I can gather, the results have been less consistent when the same was tried with 'normal' subjects.
According to James Austin (Zen and the Brain), the experience of LSD users is only occasionally congruent with Zen type mystical experience. A study by Masters and Houston showed only about 3% of subjects met the criteria for 'unitary consciousness' and these were mostly older people who had experience of meditation or similar practices, or who had a long standing interest in integral levels of consciousness.
I agree with you that such experiences, however generated, were probably fundamental in the formation of religious beliefs, along with a more generalised sense of awe in the face of natural forces and the natural world as a whole, and have certainly been the inspiration for many of the prophets of revealed religions. Whether they have been a catylist in the evolution of consciousness, I am not so sure. They must certainly have influenced ideas about the nature of consciousness, but I would have thought that a fairly highly developed level of consciousness was a prerequisite for such experiences in the first place. What do you think?
E:
Sounds an interesting career choice!
I have decided that I will subscribe to NS, which has been referred to here on several occasions. I usually buy it before long train journeys, of which there have been few lately.
Hello Boltonian
Ive not looked in for a while so its great to see things have kicked off again.
Ill try to say something worth saying when Ive got something to say (its a lot easier knocking off posts on CiF)and Il need to read whats been going on
Best wishes
Hi Lester:
Welcome. I have just scrolled through the Paul Davies thread - v.interesting. Not had time to comment yet.
SpaceP:
Enjoyed your debate with W. Must re-read it when I am in less of a hurry.
Thoroughly enjoyed endlesslydad's mauling of WML (again).
Keep posting all.
Dashing to the pub for a discussion on politics, sport and all things trivial. Catch up later.
boltonian :
W is quite thought provoking , though I am getting a sense of 'green ink' about them .
Agree with you about endlessdyad and WML . It is odd to see someone who so regularly appeals to authority in the form of this entity called "Science" (and frequently gets it hopelessly wrong) be so sure he is right and the vast majority of Biblical scholars and near east historians are wrong .
Electro-magnetic stimulation of the temporal lobes might be a safe way of inducing altered states.
Michael Shermer Out of Body Experiment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCVzz96zKA0
Boltonian & SpacePenguin - I wholeheartedly agree with you peeps on the recent CiF thread. I don't like to kick a man when he's down (and not here to defend himself), but EndlessDyad's points were largely - to my mind - inadequately addressed. WML is certainly not an ignoramus - e.g. he would argue about Josephus with some knowledge about the various points of contention (and the arguments on Josephus are hardly clear one way or another) - but I fear that the principles informing his approach, if developed, would entail the collapse of ancient history departments. I am inclined to side with my erstwhile Greco-Roman/early christian professors on this one. EndlessDyad's knowledge and arguments - and biblical criticism is not his special subject - impressed me. If I can add one point (& I don't have WML in mind) blanket assertions wrt mithraism is something of a bugbear. It's not like there's nothing of interest to be said here, but serious Mithraic scholarship is far too often overshadowed by more popular (because shocking books) which operate more at a Da Vinci Code level of analysis.
I must also echo Boltonian in my enjoyment of the W-SpPe discussion, though, like him, I feel I must go back and re-read.
Wrt free will - some v interesting ideas here. A few thoughts... I wonder to what extent free will might be discussed more in relation to rationality. Another interesting discussion might be the connections between philosophical notions of free will (and hence freedom) and socio-political ideas of freedom.
pttp:
Thanks for the link. Interesting concept.
ChooChoo:
I think that WML's knowledge is very superficial. He takes a dogmatic stance and simply ignores evidence that others present which contradicts his (simplistic) world view. When he feels that he has found a weakness he simply homes in on that, without addressing its importance in the discussion. Josephus, for example, is not that important a source but he elevates it in order to knock it down. The rest is charmless bluster. Also, Wikipedia seems to be his sole source. He has not answered any of endlessdyad's main points in exactly the same way that he will not answer spacepenguin's or my points in any discussion. He regards CiF as a competitive sport. I do not think he has any interest in learning, other than as a tool for exercising his ego. This is why I stopped engaging with him some time ago.
RE- the SpaceP - W debate I would love to re-read it but the entire thread seems to have disappeared. I left a reply to Steve and came back 24 hours later to find it gone. If anybody can tell me where to find it I would be grateful.
Your suggestion sounds good. I understand a bit about the philosophical concept of free will but I would be interested to know how the socio-political notion differs. Are you referring to Bentham, JS Mill and the Utilitarian ideas of 'The greatest good for the greatest number,' or dialectics of Marx, for example. Both of which ideologies, in my view, are seriously flawed.
Would you like to kick off the discussion for us?
boltonian - Paul Davies' thread is still available if you look for him under "contributors", and take it from there....often, this is the only way to find past CiF threads, for some reason....
Steve:
Many thanks.
Just read the bit from where I left off. Hey WML humbly accepting that he might be wrong. Wow! Worth reading for that alone. Bill I's satire a nice touch too - and completely without malice.
I think part of the problem with the historical Jesus debate is that the Christ issue (understandably) gets in the way of objective investigation. So, people take sides, not on the available evidence, but how they view the religious message.
I'm still trying really hard to get through The God Delusion. My energy levels are low at the moment so I'm taking it easy. The main barrier with TGD is that when I lie down to listen to it, the droning of Mr and Mrs Dawkins very quickly lulls me into a stupor. Before I know it I'm dozing away and missing huge chunks.
Since last time I have learnt that life on earth was a very very very unlikely thing to happen, but it did. Also that the conditions that exist for life to occur is also very very very unlikely, but that they are indeed in existence. However, God himself is very very very unlikely to exist, and so he doesn't (???).
Dawkins just doesn't seem to "get" anything that isn't to do with strictly academic, scientific, hypothesis - experiment - results - conclusion knowledge. It's like he has a blind spot when it comes to human spirituality. For example he cannot accept that there is any evolutionary advantage gained from religion. At all. He doesn't even want go anywhere near that avenue of thought. He instead decides that "religion" must simply be a by-product of something else that evolved. This strikes me as highly presumptive and very blinkered.
Also, like Grayling, he is *so* on the old "Christianity is so stoopid" trip. And there is still hardly anything on other religions. The tone gets so sneery at times it makes me want to tell him to cheer up and get a life.
Anyhow, I will persevere with it.
I'll update again if I manage to stay wawake.
boltonian : "I think part of the problem with the historical Jesus debate is that the Christ issue (understandably) gets in the way of objective investigation. So, people take sides, not on the available evidence, but how they view the religious message."
Inevitable, though. Given my starting position, it won't be a great surprise that I'm fairly dubious about the historicity of Jesus; but I'm no historian, and have no desire to read the background on that issue. So I have to join you in The Agnostic Arms....
It's an interesting situation, because although I'm coming from a similar place to WML, I'm less impressed by his debating style than that of endlessdyad. And yet, WML may be right. How do we decide between two opposing camps - having a polite and fair mien doesn't necessarily mean you're right....and, frankly, none of us is going to learn all the background material necessary to make considered judgement of the primary sources.
So, how do you know who to trust? This is applicable not just to the WML/ed argument, but to many points of contention, on CiF and elsewhere. Gut feeling? Style? Whatever fits with your preconceptions? It's tricky....but I'd be interested to hear how others approach this dilemma....
Careful, Biskieboo....I'm sure you've heard of subliminal imprinting....fall asleep to Dawkins' dulcet tones and you might wake up an atheist/agnostic zombie, like the rest of us....
;-}
Biskieboo:
Keep plugging away. You have more determination than me - I haven't even read the first word yet. I think I know what he will say, though. I have less patience with Grayling than Dawkins - I find ACG very shallow, at least in this area.
Steve:
All we can do is to sift the available evidence and say which scenario is the more likely but be sufficiently open minded to change one's view if either new evidence emerges or compelling arguments are put forward.
My view, at the moment, is that Vermes, Sanders, Endlessdyad et al present a more coherent picture than the tendentious sources WML quotes. I have no particular interest in whether this is so or not and if the evidence (in my view) pointed the other way then I would shift my position accordingly. My interest lies in what were the causes of the phenomenon called Christianity.
Hi guys. Sorry for not posting in ages. Been reading with much enjoyment though, here and on the Davies thread which was excellent. I've been meaning to post but taking ages to digest everything. Been reading up on Quantum Mechanics and it's blowing my mind.
Really really excellent article I've been looking at: http://higgo.com/quantum/fourreasons.htm
Re the whole Jesus stuff. Hanging up on the one question his existence does seem pretty meaningless in light of QM. It's just as feasible to argue that neither did nor didn't exist as it is to accept either one position. Mucho weirdness.
Biskieboo:
Thanks for the Dawkins review. Very funny and convinced me not to bother reading the book. Thank you for the time you've saved me (in this universe).
marcusB:
Hi and welcome.
QM is rather mind blowing. Bohr once said something to the effect that, 'Whoever is not shocked by QM has not understood it.' What it has led to is the reconnection of science with philosophy because its implications are capable of so many interpretations: Copenhagen; many worlds, multiverse, and others.
Steve mentioned the 'Agnostic Arms,' well, our patron is Heisenberg. His uncertainty principle rather sums up our views about life.
Re-Jesus. I do not think it matters one iota to non-Christians whether he really existed or not, at least from the metaphysical perspective. I happen to think that his existence is more likely than not but I accept that one can read the same evidence and come to a different conclusion. And, if that period of history or the origins of Christianity are of no interest, then the question is irrelevant.
There is a general point here about philosophical leanings and historical perspective. The older I get the more I think that these things are largely a matter of temperament - one tends to lean towards ideas that are comfortable. This is partly why the more committed (I won't use the term 'Militant') atheists are often the ones who most strongly dispute the existence of the historical Jesus.
This tribalism is now becoming prevalent in science, particularly theoretical physics. Smolin's latest tome, 'The Problem with Physics,' discusses it at length. Wherever there is a lack of proof (and let's face it that is most places) the gap will be filled with conjecture. But, the problem is, that you and I will reach very different conclusions from the same (scant) evidence.
This is fine if we both accept that we are discussing a conjecture but it becomes a problem when I elevate mine to the status of truth. There can only be one truth and therefore you must be wrong. Recipe for conflict.
This is why I find Grayling so simplistic because it is not religion that is at fault but human nature. And those very things in our nature that creates conflict are the ones that have made us a successful species.
pttp:
Judging by what I have gathered from my reading, Persinger's findings may have been somewhat over-hyped. Around 80% of his subjects reported having experienced something, but in the majority of cases this seems to have been no more than a vague sense of a presence or of being watched. A group in the University of Uppsala, who experimented with the same techniques under double blind conditions, found that there was no significant difference between those subjected to tms and the control group(Persinger claimed that they were doing it wrong).
see
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041206/pf/041206-10_pf.html
***********************
wrt the historicity of Jesus: insofar as I am qualified to judge (I am not a specialist in the field, although I have done a fair amount of reading on the subject and have some training in historical method - and I use primary and secondary historical documents in tandem with archaeological research) the evidence adduced by endlessdyad and the authorities he cites carries far more weight than the arguments of the Jesus mythologists, who all too often seem to resort to special pleading. Given that the sources, however problematic from a historian's p o v, indicate that the movement which became Christianity originated as a Jewish sect centred in Jerusalem, and that the gospels associate Jesus with the messianic prophesies, it seems highly unlikely that Jesus was not a real person. St Paul evidently believed that he was (e.g. Romans 1, 3-4)and claimed to have met James, brother of Jesus, and Cephas/Peter (and the argument, repeated by WML, that 'brother of the Lord' was just a generic term, equivalent perhaps to 'brother in Christ' does not really hold water) To suggest otherwise implies that, within two or three decades of Jesus' supposed death, a group in Jerusalem had colluded in the construction of a deliberate fiction - which seems inherently unlikely given the context, and would in any case have been somewhat risky, since there would still have been people around in the Jewish community who might be supposed to have known or heard of such a person.
While it is true that the NT sources were not intended primarily as biography or historical records in the modern sense, modern scholars, using techniques of form analysis in the context of a wider understanding of 1st century Jewish society and beliefs, seem to think that it is possible to tease out some historical information - to a greater extent, at least, than was thought, say, 50 years ago.
E:
Thanks.
Do you know much about dynastic Egyptian chronology? If so, I have a few questions for you about David Rohl's revised chronology. I found his book on the subject ('A Test of Time')fascinating. He had me convinced but it is not my subject so that would not be difficult.
Hi Boltonian and Elephantschild,
daddy0marcos here. That was me posting earlier as MarcusB, but I accidently posted under another handle. No for some reason I've got into an almighty muddle trying to remember passwords and what handle is associated with which email account, so posting anonymously until I can sort it out.
Completely agree with you E wrt Jesus. Obviously supposing that he both did and didn't exist is merely conjecture, as is any position one takes. But if we confine ourselves to the Newtonian realm, then the evidence does seem to suggest that he was real - if for no other reason than that it is the simplest solution.
By the way, thanks to everyone who made interesting comments on the ant colony and other questions I raised in my last post. Been meaning to write something for ages on the topic, but just end up reading and reading.
boltonian - the Agnostics' Arms (patron Heisenberg) would, I guess, have a quiz machine with a (well worn) "don't know" button; it would also incorporate the QM lounge, where one could sup a pint of Maxwell's Demon beer (half of which is boiling; the other half ice cold). Bohm's pinball machine still baffles most punters. Heisenberg's fruit machine sometimes rewards a win with chunky coins, sometimes with a beam of energy. Over in the corner, Einstein is trying to play dice with a elderly bearded guy, who seems rather reluctant. Not sure who the guy surrounded by the pretty girls and drumming his fingers on the table is, but he has a reputation for demanding *very* cold beer (he reckons it pours better) and doodling strange hieroglyphics on the beermats. Like every establishment, there is a pub bohr, although Pauli has been excluded on principle. There used to be a pub cat, but no-one seems sure what happened to it. Strange thing, though; it was completely different when I came in yesterday....
Steve:
A bit more history about the Agnostics' Arms.
One of the regulars (with his own chair) is old Dirac. He was said said to have hated too much spin and so came up with, what he called, half-integer spin and bowled first change for the Agnostics' Arms XI, captained by Einstein. This was reputed to be the inspiration behind Shane Warne's 'Wrong 'un,' which he picked up whilst watching old footage of the 1927 Test Match in Solvay.
Dirac, by the way, was a great friend of that curmudgeonly opening batsman, Schrodinger (the Boycott of his day). It was Schrodinger's cat (not missing just playing dead sometimes) that you mentioned.
Dirac eventually fell out with the selectors over the cancelling of infinities in the QM fixture, which he felt was tantamount to gamesmanship.
Marcusb/anonymous/DaddyOmarcos:
I had sort of guessed your id but did not like to seem presumptuous.
Your ant posts were very interesting and I would like to know more (as I am sure would others) what you are reading and what you have learned so far.
I am half way through lots of things but will try to post a synopsis when I ever finish any of them.
E : I agree the God helmet doesn't normally produce what I would term mystical experiences. I'm going to experiment with something similar, though.
I find it disappointing that so little similar research has been done in such a potentially interesting area. Obviously, there is still a stigma attached to similar studies using drugs.
Rick Strassman's DMT studies (The Spirit Molecule) are quite intriguing. His theory is that a release of endogenous DMT induces NDEs.
Talking of NDEs, Has anybody read, 'What Happens When We Die,' by Dr Sam Parnia?
It is an account of a series of experiments into NDEs. If you have read it, what did you think? If not I can give a brief synopsis.
Will post a bit more on freedom/free will in a while.
Just v quickly wrt historicity question (and totally taking on board the whole point that it doesn't broach the metaphysical etc questions), one more point a Jesus mythologist might want to consider - esp since some of the arguments used for the position are arguments from silence - it is interesting that there is no surviving evidence (to my knowledge) of anyone in the 1st/early 2nd c alleging that Jesus did not exist, that he was deliberately/deceptively concocted...
B : Please post your NDE synopsis.
C : I think the consensus position on this blog is that historicity of Jesus is subordinate to other considerations, i.e. underlying validity of ethical/moral/metaphysical teachings embodied.
Even Dawkins acknowledges the advanced ethical thinking inherent in Sermon on the Mount. Even I acknowledge the mystical truth of the last shall be first.
ChooChoo : "...it is interesting that there is no surviving evidence (to my knowledge) of anyone in the 1st/early 2nd c alleging that Jesus did not exist, that he was deliberately/deceptively concocted..."
Bit of a red herring, surely? Was there much to refute at that point? Would anyone have bothered making this kind of argument *before* christianity had looked like a long-lived phenomenon? (apart from a putative 2nd c WML....)
Steve - first off, the argumemt is not a smack down argument - it is just a consideration (and one which I don't remember being addressed by mythologists).
On there being much to refute - well, it is a question worth asking - is there any evidence of anyone reporting or hinting at any sort of controversy about his existence being fabricated ex nihilo. We can assume - surely - if the mythologist position holds, there would have been some people around in the first half of the 1stc who, when they saw this emergent and rather weird bunch of jews talking about salvation and circumcision in relation to this bloke Jesus, ask - well hold on - who the hell was that? I remember Pilate and the Baptist and Caiaphas (or whoever). I note that the argument from silence is not a knockdown argument. (But, curiously, it is one used by the mythologists - so it is not excluded in kind by them). But, all in all, these are, perhaps, moot points.
I remembered having a book on my bookshelf that was to do with NDE - I've just been to look and found "Life after Life" by Raymond A. Moody. First published in 1975, it's a study of more than 100 people who have experienced clinical "death" and survived. I can't remember if I've read it or not - I'll have a leaf through later. I also just found a copy of "Just Six Numbers" by Martin Rees that I forgot I had - I know I haven't read it but it's now on my list.
Continued with TGD this afternoon, which, sure enough, sent me to sleep within a few minutes, so I had to rewind and start again. It's now moved on to morality, and seems to do a pretty lightweight job of it. Dawkins acknowledges that absolute morality tends to come only from religion, but then goes on to argue that absolute morality isn't the best sort anyway. He's far more into consequentialism. He then goes on to argue that religious people aren't any more moral than the non-religious, but I wasn't convinced by the examples he gave. And even if it were true, it might just mean the religious folk would be even *less* moral if they *weren't* religious. Then there was a whole series of very bizarre moral dilemmas that research has apparently shown we all - religious or not - answer the same on. A lot of them involved very fat people being used to stop speeding trains (I'm not lying). No studies were quoted that were to do with asking people about things like abortion or euthanasia, which would probably have shown up a difference of opinion. There then followed a re-hashing of every "how horrid is the old testament" moaning that you've ever heard in your life. Nothing new there. Can't wait for him to get to the New Testament bits, which are obviously far more relevant to Christian behaviour.
I think he might struggle a bit to find anything to rail against there.
I will post a synopsis of the Parnia book in the next day or so. I have taken the first step and removed it from the shelf.
Re- Jesus. Vermes' view is that Jesus was a charismatic (in the true sense of the word), eschatological preacher from the rural backwoods of Galilee. There were lots of them around, all expecting the imminent arrival of God's kingdom. There had always been such people, as there are nowadays, but they would tend to become more prevalent (and relevant) during times of oppression. The number of prophets linked to the time of the Babylonian exile is an example. Of course it might be just coincidence that their writings have survived and been handed down whilst others have perished. It could be, though, a proxy for how seriously they were taken at the time.
Why was Jesus different from all the others, who have not been the inspiration for a global religion? Well, firstly he had a message that resonated with sufficient numbers of people. If he spoke directly to the people he would have been more popular than the Jerusalem hierarchy, who had largely sold out to Rome (the chief priest was actually appointed by the Governor of Judea - Pilate).
He had a determined following - Galileans were notoriously strong-willed and hot tempered, and looked down on as country bumpkins by the Jerusalem elite.
He was convincing and sincere - a good orator and highly knowledgeable on the laws and scriptures.
He made a big splash in the crowded Temple during the highly-charged Passover celebrations. Pilate was a brutal governor, who tended to execute people first and ask questions later - he was later removed from office by the Emperor Tiberius for this over-zealous approach. Pilate was looking to make an example of somebody to forestall a full blown riot.
His execution caused outrage amongst his followers and, possibly, others who were around at the time. His death became a symbol of Roman oppression and was later used during and following the Jewish revolt (66-70 AD) by the Gospel writers as an attempt to preserve the identity of the Jews during this time of great stress. It is then that the Christ mythology began.
Paul knew of the man during his lifetime, although they never met, and later realised that Jesus was right about his eschatological message but but was out with his timing - hence (the probably accurate) cry of Jesus in his death throes - 'My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?'
You will need to read the books, I am afraid, to see whether you agree with his arguments and conclusions.
Most other scholars of the period I have read tend to take this line and the disagreements are relatively minor.
Dawkins' view of the Sermon on the Mount (Mark's sermon on the plain) is interesting. Nietzsche thought that this moral position, which lies at the heart of Christianity, was a big, fat lie. None of it has come to pass and it is nothing more than, 'Jam tomorrow.' Of course it has been used down the ages to keep the dispossessed from becoming a mob - rulers have always been terrified of the mob.
I have never been convinced, even by Kant, that absolute morality exists. Who decides what it is? Are our values at this time and in this place superior to everybody else's from other eras and locations. It is this moral superiority, in my view, that has caused so much conflict in our history.
The Jihadists who planted the recent car bombs are convinced that their morals are superior to yours and mine, whilst we denounce them as evil (therefore completely devoid of morals).
If you have heard this one before please let me know.
NDE summary part 1:
I find that I will probably need to read the book again to make sure that I am reporting the findings accurately. This is just a quick outline.
The study was carried out at Southampton University Hospital over a number of years from 1987.
The first stage was agreeing a measurement system, which seems to be a refinement of the Ring and Greyson scales - I will explain later. Also, an agreed definition for what 'Near death' meant. Strangely, this had never been articulated in previous studies.
The second stage was to examine possible causes and three were examined: 'The dying brain (lack of oxygen, carbon dioxide, or some such, creating hallucinations),' 'Psychology (a sub-conscious defence mechanism)', and 'Transcendental experience (that the soul really does float above the body).'
The next stage was to carry out the experiment and report the findings. My memory of the book is that the study, rather disappointingly, ran out of funds before it was completed but that there were some useful emerging data before this happened.
I will carry on reading and post the next exciting episode in the next day or so.
I have finished skipping through the Parnia book, which was easy because most of it comprises unsubstantiated anecdote. Here are the main bits:
- The study was never completed.
- the sample size was only 60, of which 4 (6%)remembered a NDE.
- Other research was quoted,including Greyson's study of 1,500 cases in the States. There about 10% remembered experiencing NDE. The most any study has unearthed from a reasonable sample size is 23%.
- Lack of oxygen/carbon dioxide to the brain is unlikely to be the cause.
- Religious beliefs varied from atheism, through scepticism and mild belief to strong faith. NDEs did not favour one group over another, although interpretation did. For example, a Christian claimed to have seen Jesus.
- The rest of the book was taken up with discussing the mind/brain conundrum and what role quantum mechanics and brain-made chemicals such as endorphins might play. No firm, or even provisional, conclusions. At the end Parnia seemed to be in a rush to finish the book and start his new job in the States.
He and others have set up a charitable organisation to carry on the research. It doesn't seem to add much to the book but try it for yourselves: www.horizon-research.co.uk
All a bit disappointing.
I forgot one thing.
Out of body experiences were too vague and scarce to draw any conclusions. This was the whole purpose of the experiment at Southampton - to ascertain whether out of body experiences are illusions or genuine.
boltonian :
Try this :
http://www.iands.org/research/
important_studies/
dr._pim_van_lommel_m.d._
continuity_of_consciousness.html
(you'll have to paste the link back together )
van Lommel published a prospective study into NDE's in the Lancet . It was a controversial but well executed study as I remember . The link doesn't go to that paper , but it might be interesting reading nonetheless .
SpaceP:
Many thanks.
Boltonian
re David Rohl: My field is, broadly, British archaeology, so my knowledge of ancient Egyptian and middle eastern chronology is fairly superficial. Nor have I read Rohl's book, although I did see the TV series in which he presented his theories a while back, and i have read various summaries and discussions of them.
It seems that the revised chronology which he proposes has not been accepted by the majority of Egyptologists, for various reasons. For some of the arguments pro and con see:
http://www.bga.nl/en/discussion/
Egyptian dynastic chronology, based on King lists and records of regnal years, with records of astronomical observations providing a few supposedly fixed points and the gaps filled in by dead reckoning, has, give or take a few fairly minor adjustments, been established for about a century, so it is perhaps understandable that people are reluctant to reconsider some of the basic assumptions. The arguments concerning the adjustments to the chronology of the Third Intermediate Period and the 21st and 22nd Dynasties seem to be equally balanced on either side: the main problem seems to be the knock-on effect the 'new' chronology would have on the Hittite, Assyrian and Babylonian chronologies which are interlinked with the Egyptian, and on interpretation of the archaeology of the near east. For example: there is surviving diplomatic correspondence between Ramesses II (19th Dynasty) and a Hittite king Hattusislis, one of whose daughters he married, and a letter from Hattusilis to an Assyrian king named Tukulti-nunurta, in which he refers to correspondence between his nephew Mursillis II and another king named Salmanesser. There were several Assyrian kings with these names, and the identification in this case is of crucial importance.
According to Rohl's chronology, the dates for Ramesses II are 932-866 BCE (conventional dates 1279-1239 BCE). The Assyrian system of dating was by reference to senior officials who each held office for one year and whose names were recorded in the so-called limmi lists. These lists are complete from 911 BCE onwards, so for that period the dates are regarded as secure. The lists before that date are fragmentary, leaving some room for adjustment. Rohl and his supporters argue that the Assyrian kings with whom Hatusillis and Mursillis II corresponded were Tukulti-ninurta II (890-882) and Salmanesser III (858-821), but the internal evidence of the letters excavated in the archive excavated at Assur indicates that they were in fact Salmanesser I (c.1273-1244) and his son Tukulti-nunurta I (c.1243-1207), which would mean that the conventional dates for Ramesses II are correct.
One other effect of Rohl's chronology and his identification of Ramesses II as the Shishak of the Bible, rather than Shoshenq I, is to bring forward the date of the Late Bronze Age/Iron Age transition in the region, This would place David, Solomon and Rehoboam in the Late Bronze Age, and the archaeologists are not happy with this at all, since the biblical account had Saul and David fighting the Philistines, and the artefacts identified as typical of the Philistines occur only in Iron Age contexts. This is not necessarily an insuperable problem in itself, since the material culture of the earliest Philistines might have been indistinguishable from that of the Canaanites already established in the region, but there also appears to be documentary evidence. An Egyptian official who was in Byblos in the 23rd year of a Pharaoh identified as Ramesses XI (1075 BCE according to conventional dating; c.807 BCE according to Rohl's chronology), reported that the city of Dor was then occupied by the Tjeker (Sea Peoples) - the predecessors of the Philistines. But Dor was captured by David from the Phoenicians who occupied it after the Tjeker, and David's dates, based on biblical chronology, which is accepted by Rohl and essential to his argument, are 1011-971 BCE.
As things stand, it looks as if either the whole methodology of dating from king lists and limmi lists is seriously flawed, or Rohl is on very shaky ground. A good series of C14 dates or, better still, dates established by dendrochronology might resolve the matter, but I get the impression that Egyptologists, Assyriologists and others working in the region have not done much in this line as yet.
The Agnostics' Arms sound fun, just so long as they don't serve lager brewed in Copenhagen!
Here's a few snippets from the Raymond Moody book:
- no two experiences were precisely identical
- they share common elements from the list below, though not all accounts have all the elements
- feelings of peace and quiet, "buzzing" noise, dark tunnel, out of body experience, meeting others, the being of light, the life review, the border or limit, coming back
- the being of light was interpreted as Christ by most Christians, and as an angel by two Jewish subjects, and as simply a "being of light" by others
- those whose NDE was due to a suicide attempt had unpleasant experiences
Moody admits he has no cross-cultural cases and acknowledges that his study is not scientific because the group of people interviewed was not a random sample of human beings.
E:
Many thanks. It seems that the chronology is unresolved as yet. I note the objections to Rohl's revised chronology but what of his objections to the standard version, I wonder, such as the etymological derivation of Shishak, which he states is nothing to do with Shoshenk and much more likely to be Ramesses II; and the fact that nothing was going on in early Iron Age Palestine but lots was happening in the Late Bronze Age and thus much more likely to be the time of David and Solomon. His book (well worth a read) tries to expose the standard chronology as being based on flimsy evidence and early so-called 'Anchors' that have never been seriously challenged.
Biskieboo:
Thanks for the reference. It seems, from what I can gather, that there is very little sound research into this phenomenon. I remember reading something by Robert Graves 30 years ago stating that the very last moment of the brain's life will determine our fate because that thought will, perforce, last forever. So, if one has an easy conscience it will be a pleasant future; the alternative might be quite so pleasant. I cannot remember what evidence he produced to support this view.
Oh yes, I nearly forgot - only real ale in the Arms. How real is real, though? We cannot, of course, be certain but Heisenberg (our patron) prefers it to lager.
Boltonian
I picked up a copy of A Test of Time yesterday morning, although I haven't yet had time to do more than dip into it to check one or two points. I have, however, been looking a bit more into the question of the dating of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age on biblical sites, and the results of recent excavations seem to undermine Rohl's hypothesis pretty conclusively.
In particular, Dr Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University is directing extensive excavations at Megiddo, the site of the Late Bronze Age palace which Rohl associates with Solomon. The palace and the treasures which it contained were originally discovered during excavation conducted between 1925 and 1939 by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Twenty major levels (strata) of occupation were identified on the site, the palace being in Stratum VII, counting from the topmost (i.e. latest) level. The end of this phase was marked by the burning of the palace and an associated structure identified as a temple, and was divided by a layer of debris from Stratum VI above it. Stratum VI contained the first iron tools and was assigned to the Early Iron Age (I.A. 1), although the pottery and other material from it was little different from that in Stratum VII, suggesting cultural continuity. Whereas the earlier excavations concentrated on the major, important buildings, Finkelstein and his associates have also been examining outlying areas, and have established that, although the Late Bronze Age structures appear everywhere to have been temporarily abandoned and left in ruins, the burning did not extend over the whole city. In the overlying Stratum VI the buildings, some of which were substantial, followed the same layout and covered the same area (i.e. there was no reduction in the size of the city.) This city was destroyed in a major conflagration, and Stratum VI is separated from the later Strata V and IV by a deep layer of burnt rubble. Strata V and IV, which contain the remains of imposing buildings, including the complex generally known as the Stables (although the function is debatable - they could have been palace store rooms) are the levels which have, until recently, been assigned to the Solomonic and immediately post Solomonic periods.
In assigning the palace of Stratum VII to the Solomonic period and dating it prior to Ramesses II Rohl appears to have overlooked two important bits of evidence. One is the plinth of a statue of Ramesses III which the excavators claimed was associated with the palace, and a miniature pen holder marked with the cartouche of Ramesses III which was in one of the caches of treasure in the palace. Pre-war excavation methods were crude by modern standards and, if the statue plinth was not firmly in situ (I don't know the stratigraphic details) it is conceivable that it might have been, for example, in a later pit dug into the palace layers but not observed by the excavators, but the evidence of the pen holder with the cartouche seems conclusive. Ramesses III lived about 30 years after Ramesses II and, in Rohl's chronology, about 60 years after the date at which Shishak attacked Megiddo, so Rohl's identification of Ramesses II as Shishak seems to be ruled out. A series of carbon samples from the recent excavations of Stratum VII have been sent for dating, and the results are pending.
A large number of samples from Strata VI and V/IV have also been dated. Samples from timbers can give a result significantly older than the date of deposition, especially if the sample is from heartwood, but when the results from numerous samples of charred grain from the two levels, calibrated at 1 sigma, were analysed statistically, those from Stratum VI provided a date within the range 1025-925 BCE, and those from Stratum VA/IVB dates within the range 900-805 BCE Dates from the equivalent levels of other sites at Hazor, Resh Zayr, Rehov, Dor and Aphek were within a similar range, between 890-790 BCE. Depending on how the dates are calibrated, a chronology older by around 70-100 years is possible, but the younger chronology is statistically the more probable,
On this basis, it is Stratum VI at Megiddo which equates with the biblical dates for Solomon, placing him in the period designated Iron Age I, rather than Iron Age II as thought previously. The destruction level capping Stratum VI could then be identified, at least tentatively, as the result of the attack by Shishak c.926 BCE.
I note that Rohl discounts the evidence of C14 dates entirely, on the grounds that dates for the New Kingdom came out about 300 years too early and he regards the dendrochronology used to construct the calibration curve as unreliable, but his arguments suggest that he does not fully understand the techniques in question. From what I can gather, the suspect dates were from only a few isolated samples which may have been excavated many years previously, some possibly from large timbers and others possibly not stratigraphically secure. Dates from samples from the Old and Middle Kingdoms, obtained under more strictly controlled conditions and assayed by modern, high precision techniques, have tended to be broadly consistent with the conventional dating.
E:
Many thanks.
As you say, it looks like curtains for Rohl's hypothesis.
What do you say to his etymological point about Shishak and Ramesses? Also, do the revised dates that you have suggested tie in with Shoshenk as the likely destroyer of Megiddo?
I look forward to your review of the book.
BTW, what is your specialist period? I studied Neolithic Britain to a fairly superficial degree many years ago. I am less secure on the Celtic period and know almost nothing about Roman Britain.
I picked up the story again from early Anglo-Saxon times.
Boltonian - some v interesting issues on the Paul Vallely(?) CiF thread. Perhaps this is a better forum to reflect upon them.
I am particularly interested in two things raised by you among others. First, is how we are to understand human communication/language. As I said on the thread, there are undoubtedly interesting affinities with the communicative schemes of other animals. For instance - I speculate but it seems plausible - when we see someone we know and say hello/hi/how you doing etc, it's not so much the propositional content of these phrases as their use to signal, say, a welcoming recognition. Perhaps bonobos and whichever animals do similar kinds of things. At the same time - and our ignorance of communicative schemes, particularly of complex marine creatures like dolphins notwithstanding - our ability to formulate abstract thought seems quite particular. I am inclined to say that it is a difference of kind rather than degree. For instance, we can speak and think (and act) in terms of conditionals, or counter factuals etc. Wonder what the word on the (boltonianblogspot) street is.
Second, wrt our ability to interpret and engage with the words and actions of others. I agree - as I said - that our experiences as subjects are incommunicable. At the same time, however, I am not convinced that we are wholly incapable of reasonably understanding others, with differing degrees of accuracy, of course. I wonder - again I speculate - the communal nature of our language(s) sits uneasily alongside a presentation of humans as atomised islands. (I wonder, on a sidenote, how we are to understand Descartes' most famous passages when we bear in mind how public, non-individual language is).
As a final little bit of food for thought. It's interesting that medieval (scholastic) philosophers had no qualms about writing of humans as animals: people like Aquinas could do so without flinching. (Of course, there is that old image of man being between animals and the angels. More importantly, the idea of the imago Dei is - whatever one thinks of the Deus bit - undoubtedly fascinating).
And apologies for using "I wonder" so many times. At best, I'd like to think that it reflects an inquiring nature etc. More likely, however, it was just plain irritating.
Hi ChooChoo:
very interesting - both the Grayson and the Vallely threads.
I hadn't picked up your literary tic until you mentioned it.
I will need to think about this and get back. I am sure others will have a view.
I wonder (it's catching)if Mujokan and Longsword would be interested in putting in their two penn'orth here?
ChooChoo - Though I haven't posted on it, I've enjoyed your discussions on the Vallely thread immensely.
An interesting article in the current issue of New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19526111.700-why-we-are-all-creatures-of-habit.html
Basically it argues that we are far less rational and consciously in control of our actions and more like other animals in our decision making than we think. The conditionals and counter-factuals - at least where it influences behaviour - come after the decision has been made to act in a particular way.
Clearly everything we see around us is how it is because of humans' capacity in abstract thought and how this has impacted on our historical trajectory as a species. I wonder though. When we attribute awareness - self or otherwise - as a key component of consciousness, how many people are aware of this trajectory that has shaped what it currently means to be human?
Re-reading that last paragraph I'm worried that it may sound awfully arrogant, and I honestly don't mean it to be. I guess what I'm trying to say, in a round about way, is that if abstract thought is indeed a difference in kind of communication rather than degrees - I am open to the idea but unconvinced; perhaps it is more a form of communication to ourselves? - then maybe we overestimate its importance a defining characteristic of our species.
Boltonian - Sorry for not responding earlier to your question of what I've been reading. I enjoyed Paul Davies' article on CiF and also in New Scientist so much that I am currently reading the Goldilocks Enigma. I shall let you know what I thoughts the further in I get, but so far I'm enjoying it.
SpaceP's link to van Lommel's NDE study was also fascinating and induced me to start thinking about them a bit more seriously. Previously I had associated NDEs predominantly with oxygen deprivations to the brain, but clearly this now seems like an insufficient explanation given people's experiences of them.
I did an archive search in New Scientist on the subject and found this piece: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19225731.300-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel.html, about a study attributing NDEs to "REM intrusion" and linking it with narcolepsy. It struck me as a somewhat contrived explanation, and it seems the study is methodologically far from ideal.
It seems to me that if nothing else, NDEs a new model for consciousness is needed less mechanistic than the prevailing bioligical one. Don't ask me what I mean by that, suffice to say I really need to follow up SaraB's recommendation of reading up about Pribham's work.
Just saw ACG's second thread in two days over at CiF. Find it amusing that someone who crouches his criticism of religion in such hyperbole, undermining whatever salient points he might have, can be so sensitive to criticism.
Think I'll stay well clear of that one. One thing though that occurred to me today about those who would put religion and science in opposition to each other: I grew up an atheist and had no great interest in science, but as soon as I started becoming more "spiritual" (still don't like using the word), so my interest in science grew also. Go figure that one out.
daddyOmarcos:
Hi
Thanks for the link - I will read it and get back to you.
The Goldilocks Enigma is very good, not least for its readability and some of the speculative stuff.
Well, TGD had to go back to the library with the last tape unlistened to due to lack of time. I didn't fancy paying another £1.80 to hear the last chapter, especially as the paperback is only £3.99 on Amazon.
There was, eventually, some discussion of Islamic belief. No doubt thrown in to try to balance the anti-Christian flavour of the book.
I don't find Dawkins' view that moderate religious beliefs encourage fundamentalist ones at all convincing. I understand entirely his worries about American Christian fundamentalism, but I really do not appreciate being tarred with the same brush as my own views are so disimilar.
He brings things into the debate that practically every sane person on the planet (religious or not) would agree was wrong, and then holds up his hands and says "well, that's what religion does!". The stangest example of this was a long discussion of a case where a child was taken from his Jewish parents by Catholics and subsequently brought up as a Catholic because a Catholic servant girl had secretly baptised him when he was ill, fearing he would go to hell otherwise. This did not happen any time recently, I hasten to add. Now, call me mad, but would Dawkins really find anyone who today would say "Yes, that was exactly the right thing to have done!"? I very much doubt it. I don't know why some people insist on living in the past. The past is in the past, we can't change it, all we can do is learn from it and act in the present.
By the way, the whole of the New Testament was dismissed in the blink of an eye by the explanantion (?) that whenever Jesus spoke about "thy neighbour", what he actually meant was "only your Jewish neighbour". Dawkins clearly wasn't paying attention to the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Next book - Just Six Numbers.
Biskieboo:
Hi.
Sorry you didn't make it to the end of TGD but you have given me sufficient info to relegate it to the must read later (much later) category :-).
I will be very interested in your next venture. I have read a couple of Rees's books and I find them well written and thought provoking - not that I always agree with his conclusions.
I'm assuming that it's a-ok to give running recommendations (or, if appropriate denunciations) of recently read books...If not, apologies for what follows.
Thanks, first off, for recommendations of Goldilock's Enigma - will borrow it from my place of work when next in. (Biskieboo - with you on TGD - I must admit to finding it a bit tiresome (and thus it lies unfinished), and as I've said many a time on CiF - though more diplomatically - the chapters on ethics and trad arguments elicit responses that border on the physically painful and make good headway into the land of the mentally disheartening).
Recently read a book called Scientism:Science, Ethics and Religion by Mikael Stenmark (it's published by the hideously overpricing Ashgate, so it's strictly borrowing material). Relatively interesting (and critical) discussion of various claims (epistemological, anthropological, ethical, and - my fave - metaphysical) made by scientists like Wilson, Dawkins, Ruse etc. Good read, though it's a shame that he doesn't look at philosophers who propose similar ideas (there is an interesting website by someone called - pseudonymously, I assume - Bede, whose author is, ultimately, in diametric opposition to Dennett, but clearly and rightly admires his interesting ideas).
Another recent fave are the short stories penned by the "Hillbilly Thomist" (Flannery O'Connor) - heartily recommend, esp if you are partial to the 'groteque' denouement. For some reason - not sure if people will agree - my brief forays into works by writers from the American South have all been most rewarding. From the same stable, Walker Percy's The Moviegoer is a little gem of a book.
Finally, am plodding through a book called Footbridge to the Other, on the philosophical anthropology of Karol Wotyla (who would go on to become John Paul II). It's interesting - and possibly relevant to the issues raised here and on CiF - though allow me a bit more long-windedness in giving a background. Basically, Wotyla was a philosopher. He learned at the so-called 'Lublin school', which was heavily influenced by the inception of phenomenology at the turn of the century. (The reason I have started it is to get more of the flavour of phenomenology). The Lublin group (incl Wotyla) at the same time were metaphysical realists. So the book shows an interesting concern with both accepting both, for want of a better word, the substantiality of persons alongside a sensitivity to our incommunicable subjectivity. There is lots of interesting stuff on (and risking sounding satirical when I'm not trying to be) I's and Thou's.
The reason it may be of particular interest is the emphasis laid by Wotyla - and he was not unusual in this - on how we come to understand ourselves better or more fully in the other when the other is recognised as another 'I' with her own incommunicability.
One problem I have with phenomenology - a problem in me as opposed to the methodology developed by Husserl et al - is that it often feels like trying to understand something when one is pressed up right next to it. At the same time, I have inklings - after rereading following initial incomprehension - that there is much of interest.
Ok, have gone on for way too long. Finally, I hope this does not seem a bit pompous - it's not like I have read the above just in the last day or two.
PS - apologies for giving you the 'I wonder'. I'll strike the bugger I caught it off in the first place if ever I lay hands on him...
Forgot to add - recently reread bits of Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue - a brilliant, provocative book.
Hi ChooChoo:
This is good - synopses, learning points, recommendations and 'Avoid at all costs' - very useful.
I will do mine soon but just now I am off to my sickbed - I came down with something last night.
I have not visited CiF today so if I owe somebody a response please accept my apologies.
I hope bitbutter comes to join us - I would like to carry on our discussion from CiF.
Boltonian - hope you get well soon. (I was only joking about giving you the 'I wonder' bug...)
Daddy0Marcos - v interesting thoughts. (Unfortunately, the N-S article requires subscription, but I think I get the gist from the opening and your summary). I dare say a large part of what we do is instinctual. I guess we both agree or admit to a certain poverty of knowledge in this area and, while remaining open, I edge more towards difference in kind and you to difference in degree in terms of human communicative/interpretative schemes.
"The conditionals and counter-factuals - at least where it influences behaviour - come after the decision has been made to act in a particular way."
Again, perhaps it's often true that we engage in such conditionals etc after the fact. (This is not always true, I would argue). But, there is a possible tension here: does complex reflective thought - on conditionals, for example, with a view to practical reasoning - occur distinct from 'behaviour'? Or isn't this as much human 'behaviour' as anything else? It's the fact of engaging in conditionals etc which I find interesting in this regard: to separate this out from 'behaviour' (and positing - not unreasonably - that 'behaviour' is instinctual) risks overlooking the abstract thought itself - is this instinctual? (Is modal logic or social historiography etc 'instinctual'?)
It is difficult, to my mind, to account for this in terms of reaction to environment (=cause by environmental factors?) insofar as an important propellant in such action (and it is action even if most of it is silent and mental) is what is (perceived and argued to be) true; this does not readily or obviously translate into efficient causation.
Your paragraph certainly did not come across as arrogant. (This will sound like treacle, but I can't imagine you writing a paragraph that really did). I wholeheartedly agree with your implication - if this is what you're getting at - that most people are not "aware of this trajectory that has shaped what it currently means to be human".
I'm not entirely clear on your last point(s) though I'm sure this is more to do with me than with you. When you suggest that abstract thought might be, ultimately, "communication to ourselves", do you mean we communicating among ourselves (in which case, I can go along with you) or we, individually, each communicating to him/herself (in which case I have qualms)?
There is another imp q you raise which is that even if we agree upon a difference in kind type argument, do "we overestimate its importance a defining characteristic of our species"?
Not sure, but I can come up with some fumblings about this. Assuming for a minute that there is this difference in kind (when it comes to capacities for thought etc), I think the hackneyed notion of man being between the angels and beasts may be of some (limited) use. This is not to deny our animality. Aristotle, for example, in his theory of souls, argues that humans have a 'rational soul' which embraces the capacities of other animals (which have 'sensitive souls') while also entailing more. (We need not get too bogged down in particulars on this - and I hope the word 'soul' does not scare anyone off. We tend to think - perhaps post-Descartes? - of 'soul' as a distinct, reified 'thing', while for Aristotle/Aquinas et al, the soul is the 'form' of the body, it is not a reified thing but rather like a principle of organisation).
In sum, we have these capacities (again - forgive me for speculating while assuming for an answer to the question above) but won't use it all of the time. The questions are: is there something distinctive insofar as we have this capacity (however much or little we use it); and ought we to cultivate it, does it pertain to our 'nature' to cultivate it?
Please forgive the question-begging in the name of (clumsy) inquiry.
On a tangent - though one that may be of some interest - I remember being told about Maximilian Kolbe by a friend some time back and being struck. (The wikipedia entry gives a decent enough summary - go down to the Auschwitz bit).
In sum, the thing I am interested in is his giving up of his own life for a stranger.
To summarise: at Auschwitz, there was some sort of rule that if a prisoner escapes, ten will be killed. A prisoner had 'escaped' (but, ironically, was later found dead in a latrine). Ten men were selected. One of them instinctively started crying out something about his wife and children. So, Kolbe stepped forward and volunteered himself instead. (There are accounts of his cheerful death by execution after starvation hadn't killed him after a week or two, which may be of interest). In what must have been the horror, the petty (but totally understandable) selfishnesses that accounts of
Auschwitz (or for that matter the Gulag Archipelago) provide, this act stands out. And as far as I can see, it does reflect - almost ineffably - something distinctive about human animals (as, of course, the very existence of these camps also do).
Boltonian
Hope that by the time you come to read this you will be feeling better.
Now to interrupt an interesting discussion by referring back to the questions you posed earlier.
In the matter of the etymology of Shishak/Ramesses I am not qualified to judge. Rohl's argument looks plausible, but if the chronology based on the regnal years of the kings in the biblical narrative can be relied upon, his identification of Ramasses II as Shishak cannot possibly be correct. In the stratigraphic sequence at Megiddo, the destruction of the palace in Stratum VII provides a terminus ante quem for Ramesses III, and the C14 dates suggest that the destruction of the succeeding phase of occupation in the city (Stratum VI) took place some time in the mid to late 10th century BCE (the samples used being grain presumed to have been charred in the destruction). It will be interesting to see the C14 dates for Stratum VII when they are published, but they could well support the conventional dates for Ramesses III (1183-1152 BCE), assuming that the statue plinth and the model pen case bearing his cartouche date from some time before the destruction of the palace with which they are associated, and that Stratum VI represents a span of 100-150 years. This still does not mean, of course, that the identification of Shishak with Shoshenq I is necessarily correct, although it looks the most likely option. The dating of Shoshenq I is based on the date for Shishak according to the biblical chronology but, failing that, the evidence for the dates for the 22nd Dynasty to which he belonged is somewhat shaky.
The question remains as to how much trust can be placed in the historical narrative in the books of Judges, Kings and Chronicles, and the chronology which is derived from that narrative. Finkelstein discusses this in 'The Bible Unearthed:Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts' by Israel Finkelstein & Neil Silberman (paperback edition Touchstone Books, New York, 2002 ISBN 0684869136). I have not read it (yet), but there is a fairly lengthy synopsis in Wikipedia, and another at http://www.theosophical.org.uk/Biblunsd.htm.
He argues that although David and Solomon almost certainly existed (a 9th century BCE inscription from Tel Dan refers to 'the House of David'), there never was a united monarchy or a Solomonic 'golden age', and that until its destruction in the 8th century BCE, the northern kingdom of Israel was far richer, more powerful and populous than the kindom of Judah. In his view, anachronisms in the biblical narrative point to it having been constructed in the 7th century BCE as a kind of political and religious manifesto, drawing no doubt on various historical and folk traditions. It exaggerated and 'spun' the importance of the kingdom of Judah and its royal dynasty in order to enhance their status and to justify a claim to the lands of Israel once the northern kingdom had ceased to exist.
The chronology may nevertheless be reasonably reliable, since it is quite probable that king lists and regnal years were preserved in oral or written form. Independent evidence exists for the dating of at least two kings of Israel in the Assyrian record - Ahab who died in the battle of Qarqar 853 BCE, and Jehu, who is depicted on the Black Obelisk of Salmanesser III, together with a record of the tribute he brought to that king c.841 BCE.
You asked also what is my specialist period. As far as possible I have always tried to avoid becoming too narrow a specialist, although to some extent it is inevitable, I suppose. Instead my focus has tended to shift from time to time over quite a wide area (symptom of a butterfly mind, perhaps?). My first degree was in British and European prehistory (U of Edinburgh), and for my doctoral thesis I researched aspects of Late Neolithic/Bronze Age domestic sites in Britain. At the same time, though, I was spending my summers working as a supervisor on the excavation of the Saxon Old Minster in Winchester. After that I spent a good many years in jobs which required me to specialise in Neolithic and Bronze Age prehistory, with regular 'busman's holidays' assisting in the excavation of a Saxon/Viking site at Repton. Then I got a job as what can best be described as a 'specialist generalist' (i.e. I was required to have a working knowledge of everything from the Neolithic period onwards, up to and including Cold War nuclear installations - although I could never summon up much enthusiasm for the military sites). In the process I became particularly interested in the archaeology of late medieval and post-medieval gardens, medieval settlement sites, and landscape archaeology in general, and my most recent project has been to research one medieval township, using the archaeological remains (mainly earthworks) and an unusually complete and detailed late 15th century survey, together with other documentary sources, to reconstruct a map of the medieval village and its field system, and to analyse changes in the pattern of tenure from the 14th century to the mid 17th century.
Correction: the link I gave should have been http://www.theosophical.org.uk/Biblunsbd.htm
@ daddy0marcos & boltonian : apologies for not replying to your good points yesterday. My computer got a demon, and although it has been to the exorcist today, it's still not right....it's returning for further holy software treatment tomorrow....is it only us heathens who get smitten in this way?
Anyhow, *if* this post succeeds (and please can someone post & say if they can read it) I'll try with a substantive reply later. If not, I'll beg boltonian's indulgence to post a fuller reply on his blog in a few days....you have no idea how frustrating it is to (at last!) see a decent pair of atheism/theism threads, and be excommunicated....the next button I click could be the last for this atheist ex machina....here goes....click
PS I tried to post the above on Vallely's CiF thread, but no go....I'm trying now on boltonian's blog....if *this* succeeds, maybe one of you can post on Vallely's & Grayling's on CiF and apologise for my absence....ego, I know, but hey....
Funny, it worked here, but not on CiF. Apologies, boltonian, for using you as a test site. Now, give 'em hell from me over there....will return substantively when exorcised....
Dear all
Thank you for your best wishes. I am feeling much better this morning but I am now miles behind with everything, so I will need to comment bit by bit, if that's ok.
Steve:
No problem about using this as a test - I hope you are up and running again on CiF. I will not be able to post anything there for a day or two and the interesting threads will have closed by then.
If anybody there wishes to carry on here please invite them. I am thinking in particular of CommanderKeen and bitbutter.
ChooChoo:
I am aware that I owe you a response from CiF as well as here. I wonder if you could paste the relevant post on consciousness from the Vallely thread here.
daddyOmarcos:
I do not see spiritual feelings as opposite to science. What you witness on CiF is tribalism. Also, the format tends to encourage gross over simplification of complex concepts. Will expand later.
E:
Many thanks for your exposition of Rohl's thesis. I think I will buy the Finkelstein book - it sounds interesting.
You have had a very interesting career by the sound of it. I think, if you don't mind, that I will pick your brains from time to time - many of those periods are of interest to me. One subject I keep meaning to research is the plague villages of England, of which, I imagine, you know lots.
To those involved in the Godel discussion on CiF:
I was fascinated but didn't understand much of it. Could one of you try to explain to a non-mathematician Godel's main thesis in this area.
boltonian -
Glad you're feeling better. You're right about the tribalism. Have enjoyed longsword's posts on CiF a lot and hope he joins us here. Would like to know more about the Lakota Sioux.
ChooChoo -
Lots of very intersting stuff to get stuck into in your post. I will try and post a reply soon, but for the last few days have been procrastinating over an article I am supposed to be writing to the point I am now in mortal terror that my editor is about to smash through the window and start shaking me by my neck until I come up with it.
Hello Boltonian,
I'm always late! I've always enjoyed your posts on Cif so first of all, thanks for creating this blog; Looks like it is THE blog-club for the cream of CiF metaphysics enthusiasts to discuss.
Click*add*to*favorites*
I'll be back and hope to be able to contribute to some extent.
Best Regards,
PlasticGypsies:
Welcome aboard. The feeling is mutual and I look forward to your contributions.
Yes, I think we have some pretty hefty brainpower here but more importantly we can discuss issues at some length and without the feeling of having to defend a particular position.
BTW you don't just need to join in an existing discussion - if anything grabs your fancy from CiF, or anywhere else, just post something and somebody will respond, even it's me asking idiot questions.
daddyOmarcos:
Thanks and I completely agree with you about longsword. When you next bump into him please invite him over.
Current reading. I am miles behind as usual. I was plodding along quite nicely with Taleb's 'Black Swan,' Karen Armstrong's, 'The Great Transformation,' and dipping in and out of Stephen Jay Gould's 'Richness of Life,' when somebody on CiF recommended 'A Different Universe,' by the theoretical physicist Robert Laughlin. I have abandoned everything else in favour of this one.
I will give a view when I have finished it but the general thesis is anti-reductionist. He believes that what we see is the result of nature's emergent organisation and a reductionist approach will completely miss the wood and not give us even a very accurate description of the tree.
Has anybody read it? Spacepenguin, perhaps?
The next one on the list (unless I get diverted again) is a collection of selected Existentialist writings.
E: it has occurred to me that you must know Julian Richards of TV's 'Meet the Ancestors' fame. I think he specialises in British pre-history in his day job.
Hi Boltonian,
Thanks for the reply!
I just wanted to ask if anyone here have read "In search of the Miraculous" by P.D. Ouspensky. Book which I am currently reading. I have to say, so far I find this book fascinating and addictive. A very interesting take on cosmology and consciousness. I'd be happy to discuss some of the content with fellow posters.
Have a great day,
Boltonian
You are welcome to pick my brain, such as it is. And yes, I know Julian Richards - he was a colleague of mine for a short period a few years back (very good at producing videos for presentations, so maybe he already had his eye on a career in TV). Haven't had any contact with him since, though.
By 'plague villages' I presume you mean deserted medieval villages although, with the possible exception of a very few small hamlets which were completely depopulated as a result of the Black Death, the plague was not the primary cause of their abandonment or even a major factor. The real reasons were complex, but mainly economic, and go back much further than the 14th century. The final blow for many, especially in eastern England, was a shift from agriculture to the more profitable sheep farming. This is not to say that the Black Death did not have important social consequences, because the resulting labour shortage placed the feudal landlords at a disadvantage in relation to their tenants, thus enabling a greater degree of social mobility and hastening the decline of the system of feudal tenure.
I have ordered the Finkelstein book, which I am told should arrive by the beginning of next week. I will let you know what I think of it in due course, though it should be good. Finkelstein is, I believe, one of the leading authorities on the archaeology of the near east in the Bronze Age and Iron Age periods, and things have evidently moved on a great deal since my rather sketchy introduction to the subject at university.
I bought the Karen Armstrong book several months ago, but have not yet got round to reading it. How far have you got with it? And what do you make of it so far? I gather that the starting point is Karl Jaspers' concept of the 'Axial Age'.
I have just looked at the Vallely thread on CiF but having been away for a couple of days it is rather overwhelming but I have invited Longsword to contribute here.
PG(if I may):
The book sounds v. interesting and right up this blog's street. Could you summarise for us when you have finished it.
E:
Yes, that is what I meant by plague villages. Your explanation is very interesting.
It chimes with a dead village in the Yorkshire Wolds (where there are lots), called Wharram Percy, that I visited some years ago. It took quite a long time to die and it finally gave up the ghost only recently (1950s I think). There even used to be a railway station there. Presumably this was partly caused by the change to sheep farming.
I look forward to your views on the Finkelstein book. This and the one recommended by PlasticGypsies will be added to my (growing) list.
Re- the Armstrong book. It is a bit heavy going at the moment and I confess to speeding through some of the denser passages. Yes the Axial age concept is core to her thesis.
I am up to 'Suffering' (600-530 BC), which is about half-way through.
PG : I've read ISOTM and Ouspensky's other books. Certainly they are more accessible than Gurdjieff's Beelzebub, which I failed to complete. Meetings with Remarkable Men is a good read, though.
The one thing that's stayed with me is the practice of self-observation.
Biskieboo : The moral dilemmas in TGD are quite interesting, because the data from internet questionnaires seem to point to a universal morality, which doesn't depend upon religious beliefs.
Boltonian : I'm a big fan of History of God, but have found Karen Armstrong's subsequent work of lesser value (eg. Buddha, Fundamentalism).
pttp -
I take your point, but I don't think the studies were great because they were based on dilemmas that we are extremely unlikely to ever find ourselves in. And studies on *actual* behaviour would be far more valid. I would have liked to have seen moral dilemmas such as abortion and euthanasia discussed. Are there differences here in actual behaviour due to religious beliefs? I would hazard a guess that there were.
We may all have a universal sense of moral behaviour, but what difference does that make if we don't act on it in the real world?
Another question could have been "are those with religious beliefs more likely to give money to charity" or "....do voluntary work" or "....less likely to lie on their tax returns" or any other question where beliefs are relevant to the real choices that people make.
Ethics and moral behaviour are integral to my reasons for being a faith-head, so I was sad to see such a light-weight job done of it.
All:
Thanks for your book recommendations - please keep them coming.
I have just been reading the latest few posts on the Grayling thread and an uncharitable thought occurred - because Grayling does not have a spiritual bone in his body he assumes no one else does either. So, they must either be mistaken or lying.
I am sure neither of these is completely true but it set me thinking about the human condition. If you say to me that you have seen ghosts and I ask you to prove it; you might reply by saying that only certain people can access their world and clearly I am not one of them. Also, ghosts themselves are very sensitive and would not appear to order.
What do I think of this? that you are mistaken, deluded (to use a famous CiF word), mendacious (even though I would trust you with anything else), mad (with no other corroborating evidence), or completely sane and trustworthy.
What constitutes proof? Science is not very good at rationale. It is quite good at finding evidence and very good at testing it but not interpreting what that might mean.
So, how can we sift and make sense of others' experiences if they lie so far outside our own that they make no sense to us?
I will give you a mundane example. Many years ago my mother complained of stomach pains and the doctor merely prescribed indigestion medicine, which did not help. Every time she went to the doctor he just suggested another drug, none of which had any effect. My father was very unsympathetic and thought she had become a hypochondriac. Eventually, when the pain became unbearable, the doctor was persuaded to send her to the hospital for an examination, where a duodenal ulcer was found. Nobody in the family had had an ulcer and if one's stomach was upset one either put up with it or took indigestion relief. Why did my father assume my mother was making it all up? Because her ailment was completely outside his experience, whereas phantom illnesses were not. This still rankles with her now, even though my father has been dead for more than 20 years.
One thing I tried to explore earlier was the idea of scale. I used the example of a beetle - it would comprehend (although we cannot know what that means for a beetle) things a bit larger and a bit smaller than itself but it would be unlikely to be able to perceive a human being, except perhaps how we might feel the arrival of an earthquake.
Our technology has allowed us to stretch our boundaries, as it were, to encompass the observable universe and sub-atomic particles but nothing beyond those extremes. Why do we suppose that we are nearing the limit of what there is? I used the example of Carl Sagan, who said that if we could break open an electron (a fundamental particle)we would find a multiplicity of universes.
Also, we are severely limited by our sensory and intellectual equipment, so we are having problems understanding what Dark Matter and Dark Energy are, and these two account for something like 96% of the make-up of the universe.
Just a thought on morals, bitbutter on CiF referenced something from Stephen Pinker that we are becoming less violent as a species. What do you think?
The link is: www.edge.org/3rd_culture/
pinker07/pinker07_index.html
I don't know what happened. Ulrich Beck had an article on CiF that spoke directly to my principle concerns. It disappeared after 18 comments. I've searched the Guardian website for it, but its not to be found. Just disappeared. So, I decided to pop over here.
But the prospect of going through 287 comments so as not to be redundant is a little intimidating. Anyway, I'll do my best to contribute something meaningful (and not redundant) to the discussion.
Boltonian
Have you come across 'The Lost Villages of England' by Maurice Beresford? If not, you might find it of interest. It was originally published in 1954 and so in some respects is a bit out of date, but it is still probably the most comprehensive work on the subject, and a revised edition published in 1998 has an introduction by Christopher Dyer which discusses some of the more recent research and the shifts in perspective which have resulted. Beresford, incidentally, conducted the first excavation on the site of Wharram Percy - work which was continued over many years by John Hurst, making it one of the principal type sites of a DMV. 'Wharram Percy: Deserted Medieval Village' by Beresford & Hurst (London 1990) gives details of the excavation results up to that date.
************
Some interesting points raised in your last post. I, too, have been struck by the apparent inability of Grayling (and like-minded commenters on his and similar threads) to comprehend that spiritual or religious ideas could be based on anything other than deliberately perpetuation of fictions or some form of mental derangement. Likewise, there seems to be a simplistic assumption on the part of some CiF posters that religions originated as nothing more than an attempt on the part of people in a pre-scientific society to explain natural phenomena, or as systems devised by cynical elites to keep the plebs in line, whereas I would argue that these were only a part (and probably a small and secondary part) of a much more complex process, which had at least as much to do with people's attempt to engage with the world (seen and unseen) and their own nature on a much more profound level.
Given our limited faculties, there seems to me to be nothing particularly irrational in positing that there could be levels of Reality which we cannot perceive directly or empirically, but which might be glimpsed intuitively or imaginatively in part. Perhaps theoretical physicists, approaching the conundrum from the other end, may eventually meet the mystics half way (?).
On the question of whether humanity as a species is becoming less violent, this is probably true, relatively speaking, although it would, I suspect, be a mistake to generalise too far. Reading the Pinker article, I was particularly taken with the views of Peter Singer which he cites, about the extension of empathy from the immediate kin group to larger social groups as society developed and became more complex over time. This chimes, in fact, with something I wrote here a while back). Early anthropological studies of tribal societies found a tendency to regard members of other groups as somehow less than fully human (often a tribe's name for themselves translated simply as 'the People), but historically, where increase in population meant that clans, tribes, nations or whatever had perforce to engage on a more intimate level with each other, it presumably became easier to identify with 'the other'. Also it would become more obvious that an 'always cooperate' strategy was generally more advantagious than 'always defect'. On the other hand, when nations engage in war, one of the first effects still seems to be the tendency to demonise or dehumanise 'the enemy' (see the attitudes attested in the accounts of US soldiers returning from tours of duty in Iraq, as reported in G2 today). Moreover, when it is possible, as now, for one person to kill hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands without ever seeing the people whose lives are extinguished, it is all too easy to eliminate any feelings of empathy. (Just as an aside, there is evidence that in some tribal societies in the past, warfare may have had a much more ritual aspect. In the Irish epic Tain Bo Cuailnge, which recounts the legends of an Iron Age society, and also in the Homeric legends, the warring groups are often depicted sending single, representative champions to decide a battle. Boudicca's followers, it is true, torched whole towns and slaughtered their inhabitants, but how far were they influenced by the example of the Roman methods of warfare they had witnessed).
As for falling murder rates (if the statistics are correct), does this indicate we are becoming more moral/less violent as a species, or is it simply that modern forensic techniques make it more difficult to get away with, and this act as a deterrent?
I am another CiF thread refugee (one who is familiar or was, years ago, with "G" and Uspenksii) -- presently occupied with far too many "work" related tasks to do much more than scan, quickly, but hoping to join in, eventually....
Bill I.
http://www.realitytest.com
longsword and bill:
You are very welcome and I look forward to your contributions. I have much admired your posts on CiF.
I don't expect you to read all the posts before contributing. It is a free and easy site with a loose agenda. If any of the posts that you have read provokes a thought, a question or an opinion that would be great but please let us know anything that interests you or catches your eye from CiF or anywhere else. I have asked people what they are reading at the moment, or have read recently. I shall try to summarise each of the books that I finish in case it might be of interest.
I does not matter if the subject has been aired before as most would bear repetition and the active personnel here change from time to time. Much of what I have posted here is reiteration. It will be interesting to see how my views have modified in the light of these discussions over time.
E: Thanks for the Beresford recommendation.
I agree that the part religion plays in our development is highly complex. Some of it is certainly to do with the formation and imposition of a moral code. I have said this before a number of times but we have a deep need to construct complete pictures from scant evidence and myths help us to do this.
The huge pace of change in our knowledge that has occurred during the last few hundred years has been very unsettling for many people, I would guess. We still have that need, however. Just look at the number of books written by scientists attempting to interpret the data and come up with explanations. I am sure that in a couple of hundred years or so people will look back at our feeble attempts and think how primitive humanity once was.
Re-improving behaviour. I think we should be very careful about leaping to conclusions on recent data showing we have become less violent. You are right about the fact that the more interdependent we become, through trade etc, the less we would want to murder our neighbours. Matt Ridley, in 'The Origins of Virtue,' suggests that our default position (which has allowed us to survive as a species) is what he calls 'Generous.' This is a better survival mechanism than either 'Always defect' or 'Tit for tat' at the level of a certain population. 'Generous' says that if you insult me once I will regard it as a mistake if if you do it again I will kill you and all your family. So, the initial reaction is restraint but the penalties for further transgression are penal.
That does not, however, preclude the existence of 'Always defect' or 'Tit for tat.' There is still pre-emptive and retaliatory violence around but at the species level it is not the dominant behaviour, otherwise we would have murdered ourselves out of existence.
An example of this is the campaigns of Alexander the Great. Often he would spare the local conquered population and leave a small garrison behind but if the garrison were attacked he would return and massacre everyone in the town.
We are a tribal animal and have always been suspicious of strangers. Also, we are not very good at thinking at the level of fine detail, so we tend to generalise and categorise. CiF, for example, is very tribal - all atheists are x; all Christians are y; even innocent agnostics like me come in for comments based on some generalised pre-conceptions, rather than on what I have actually said.
Enough for now.
I promised replies to Daddy0Marcos & boltonian to their comments on Vallely's CiF thread:
Daddy0Marcos : "However, I'm nevertheless going to ignore most of your points and focus in on one point in particular, which strikes at the heart of why I classify myself as an agnostic.
[steve]: "There are many things which *might* exist, but for which I cannot provide disproof of their existence. (Insert your own daft example here.) Nevertheless, I am justified in discounting their possibility since they're just so unlikely. And "god" comes within the scope of those extremely unlikely things, whether he be defined anthropomorphically, or spiritually a la Vallely."
My simple question is why you think a "spiritually" defined "god" is as unlikely as an anthropomorphic one? There are very good reasons for discounting an anthropomorphic god that I won't bother repeating here as they've been gone over ad infinitum. However, if we hypothesise that a "spiritual" god is, for example, some form of deeper universal consciousness, it would seem to me that our current scientific understanding of consciousness is so flaky that all bets are still on. Of course, that situation could plausibly change at some point in the future, in which case I will change my position.
Granted, there is no scientific reason for believing a "spiritual" god exists. However, there are good intuitive reasons for doing so, even if they are roundly dismissed by atheists simply for being "mystical".
My deepest apologies to Spacepenguin for possibly misrepresenting him by pulling a quote out of context, but I always love his posts and think that on the second Grayling thread the following point he makes is very pertinent:
"Surely when discussing something for which there is no empirical evidence for or against the most important matter is the motivation for belief . Unless you actually saw a pixie , what would motivate you to believe in the existence of pixies in the absence of someone telling you they exist ?"
To me, 50/50 seems to me a reasonable probality on the existence of a "spiritual" god. But even if the odds are, say, 5/1 against, this hardly falls into the Flying Spaghetti Monster category. What makes you think the odds are so significantly longer than that?"
My reply: It just seems so unlikely, despite your assertion....we have no real conclusive evidence for *any* supernatural phenomena; daily, I see a lack of evidence for a god of any sort....this lack of evidence (LOE) accumulates and, to me (and many others) becomes evidence of non-existence (EONE). Granted, there is a different threshhold for different people as to when LOE becomes EONE. But isn't there a point where *everyone* should become sceptical, lest they be credulous? As a PS, I suspect you don't really believe the odds are 5/1 against, otherwise you'd call yourself a believer, a la Pascal, rather than an agnostic....
And thanks, D0M, for copy'n'pasting my earlier piece here to Vallely's thread. Much appreciated.
boltonian : "Steve:
Re-the continuum - I would argue that we cannot know where most of these things lie along the continuum. Where do the following lie:
- Copenhagen interpretation of QM;
- Many worlds;
- String theory;
- Multiverse;
- Supersymmetry;
- Loop Quantum Gravity;
- Simulated worlds?
Let's take the last , which is being discussed seriously by many theoretical physicists, including Paul Davies. He thinks that if the many worlds hypothesis is true there are likely to be far more simulated worlds than real ones, thus increasing our chances of living in one. So,in his view (and others), it is further towards the likely than not likely end of the continuum. If this is so, who or what is doing the simulating? Where now sits the idea of God (or gods) for we would, if ever there was an encounter, find them indistinguishable from gods?
I just use this as a way of demonstrating how difficult it is to know where our state of knowledge actually lies. And this is only from conjecture already being discussed - there will be millions (billions?) of other possibilities that nobody has even thought of. My own view (today, at least) is that whatever the real world is like it is nothing like how we perceive it, nor, possibly, how we are capable of perceiving it. Why? Because everything come to us through our senses, mediated in the brain. Every creature on earth (including different human beings) see the world differently - and probably very differently. It would be a remarkable coincidence if our perceptive equipment were capable of seeing things as they really are."
Ah, well, you've cheated a little, by picking all the half-way houses ;-} although my personal view is that string theory is out since it's just so *daft*....multiverses too, I reckon....
And I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on the "perception" thing. I'm firmly of the opinion that you have to start somewhere, purely on practical grounds, and if we can't accept what seems to be reality as reality, then we'll never get anywhere. If every question becomes bogged down in a series of meta-questions, then we have no need for the word "answer"....I do realise, as in my reply to D0M above, that the point at which one defines "reality" may be arbitrary, but one can't defer this point indefinitely....I see this as a practical, and possibly "anti-philosophical", approach....
PS Thanks, boltonian, for being understanding above re my posting problems. We're still not out of the woods, although now I can strangely post on *some* CiF threads, but not others....I should be OK to reply over this w/e (14/7 & 15/7), but will then be MIA for a few days.
Boltonian...
"I have just been reading the latest few posts on the Grayling thread and an uncharitable thought occurred - because Grayling does not have a spiritual bone in his body he assumes no one else does either. So, they must either be mistaken or lying."
It's unfortunate that the Grayling thread came to an end (snip!), because this is one of the issues I had wanted to address -- a serious flaw in Grayling's approach -- that his sanctified "facts" have the same ontological status as faery dust and pixies.
There is scarcely a "fact" that has survived historical scrutiny, for one good reason. Facts are mortal. They are images of truth and not the truth itself. And because facts are "made things" (that is, things made in the image of truth) they are subject to the law of the earth -- which is entropy. They become frayed at the edges, weaken, and eventually die.
This is one reason why authentic religion has never considered "facts" normal, in the sense of being the norm for conduct. Truth was the primary reality. "Facts" were but images of this primary reality, secondary abstractions from lived life, and therefore resembled idols. Truth, it was held, was eternal and immortal. Facts belonged to the saeculum and were consequently mortal. Aeternitas and saeculum, truth and fact, immortal and mortal, immensity and mensity belong together as a single constellation of meaning. So, of course, they speak past each other.
All reason does is struggle to re-present the primary truth, which is our experience of reality. Facts are always post hoc, the products of reflection. And there is a necessary time lag between the experience of some truth and our representation of this truth in the form of "facts". Mentation (which belongs to mensity) is honest only as long as it strives to be faithful to the truth. Sometimes (frequently) it fails. Often it is demonstrated to be incomplete, or a misinterpretation of experience. But facticity is always only re-presentational, whereas truth is the primary presence.
Grayling represents an orthodoxy of his own. He wants a privileged position for facts as opposed to pixies. But anyone with a knowledge of intellectual history knows, too, that "facts" have pretty much the same status, and few (if any) have survived the crucible of time. Here man, and not evolution, via his consciousness is the active principle of selection, and those who were weeded out by this "supernatural" principle of selection, and lost their share of history, were those who refused to give up their belief in the facts, or failed to discern and discriminate sufficiently between truth and fact, between primary and secondary orders of reality.
Those who claim the primacy and supremacy of the fact even wrong their own authorities. The sceptical method applies even most of all to our reason and its product -- the fact. But by confusing and conflating truth and fact, they also confuse two things which should also be not be confused -- lucidity and rationality, consciousness and mind.
Steve:
Thanks for retrieving that post from CiF.
It seems to me that your positioning of those things along the continuum (I agree that I did not include FSMs etc) is arbitrary and subjective. If I asked a string theorist, for example, he would give me a very different view. Likewise Leonard Susskind, who is not only a string theorist but a firm believer that the multiverse is a reality and not a metaphor or a possibility only.
If I took a straw poll here there would be a disparity of views based on very little more than gut feel.
Perception is interesting. Popper was notoriously dismissive of those who tried to understand reality. His view was that if we couldn't access the noumenal world (as Kant termed it) what was the point in even discussing it? Popper hated Plato, where many of these ideas came from, which might explain his irritation.
I happen to think it is an interesting topic but I have a difficulty when it comes to reconciling our perceptions with what is really out there (if anything). And the more I learn about physics (particularly quantum theory) the more unlikely the coincidence of perception and reality seems. There might, of course, be no such thing as objective reality.
longsword:
I agree with your thesis that there is a tendency to confuse fact with truth and that facts can and do change over time. They also change depending on the level of accuracy one requires. For example, 'This table is made of solid wood,' is sufficiently accurate for 99% of life but absolutely useless to a chemist examining its molecular structure or a particle physicist looking at the behaviour of individual atoms under different conditions.
But what is truth? Facts are objective and out in the world for anybody to use but truth is not. For me truth is subjective - a personal issue that might not apply to anybody else.
I have just finished listening to the 'Prom' from the Albert Hall. The final piece was Beethoven's Ninth symphony. However many times I hear it the sound of a full choir singing, 'Freude, schoner gotterfunken, tochter aus Elysium' reveals something to me that mere facts cannot. It is not the words but the music, or rather the combination, that creates the magic.
Even a line from a simple, beautifully sung English folk song can have a similar effect.
A poem, a painting, a sunset etc. These describe truths to me (but only some) and although they are outwardly available to anybody, nobody else (I surmise) will experience exactly what I do. A classical musician friend of mine hates all of Beethoven, for example, in much the same way as I cannot enjoy Wagner.
For others, that kind of spiritual connection comes to them through religion.
Here is an attempt to unravel the psychology of Grayling and his allies.
He hates religion for its past (and occasionally present) intolerance and persecution of those not subscribing to its doctrines. He thinks that this has held western society back for hundreds of years. He is a progressive, therefore religion has harmed him personally, for which he cannot forgive it.
He misses a number of things here. Therevada Buddhism is not a doctrinaire, or even a theist, religion. There is no punishment for apostasy or heresy. Yet the Christian, oppressive West led the way in scientific discovery and produced the Enlightement when South East Asia was still more or less an Iron Age culture.
Secondly, it is humanity that is tribal (not some abstract concept called religion)and which wishes to encourage, then persuade, and finally force its values on others. Organised religion is merely one vehicle for doing so. In Thailand, for example, it was the institution of an absolute monarchy, rather than religion that played that role.
Anyway, I would be very interested in your definition of truth. Do you have examples and does it connect us to reality, as Schopenhauer felt music did? And Kant morals, come to that.
I think that my view is that we cannot say and does it really matter? It is another dimension to our existence that is precious and not reducible.
For Olching
Hope this does not interrupt another conversation!
Allow me to attempt your questions...
What is this god?
Creator of Heaven and Earth. Being. The ground of our being.
What makes one's god different from other gods
I'm not sure they are - all talk of God is provisional. It might be that all of these are imperfect descriptions of the same reality.(or the absence thereof)?
If I've understood this correctly it's a reference to atheism/agnosticism. There is truth, reality and reason in humanism in its struggle to resolve the problems of the here and now.
How can Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, mystics etc all be considered equally right or legitimate?
I think they're imperfect attempts to describe the Ultimate reality. As an undergraduate many years ago I read Juan Mascaro's translation of The Upanishads (published by Penguin)and was very moved by the way in which he was able to make comparisons with Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Islamic writings. It's far more eloquent than my incoherent ramblings.
If so, what's the point of religion. This is a personal response - it contains a source of ancient wisdom.
and how can an idea of a Christian, Muslim or other god(s) be maintained?
At the risk of putting words into the mouths of others even a lot of zealots would balk at describing God as an adherent of their religion. "In the end, we know God as unknown" - not the words of a new age liberal but Thomas Aquinas. When God is described as Christian/Muslim/Jewish not as a way of describing these religions' views of God but as a way of describing God it is idolatrous.
Cheers - time for bed
PS Just in case you were wondering examples of atheists I admire include AJ Ayer, Peter Singer. I like the fact that they adopt unpopular positions because that's where the logic takes them - even though I obviously take different views.
boltonian - I was being somewhat facetious about the string theory/ multiverse ideas....but I wanted to say seriously, without giving examples, that most things are very likely or very unlikely. Tables, beer, teapots and beauty are very far from invisible tables, superfluid green beer, independently flying teapots and zwrelgty on the scale of likelihood. So you know what mean, and I know what you mean, by our various examples.
And don't you have a starting point for your musings? Surely you have to assume *something*, or have some axioms, otherwise (to parse), it's questions, questions all the way down.....I just feel there has to be some starting point (to which one can return later, and re-examine if necessary), otherwise the questions go on forever, with no point, and no *possibility* of answer. I frankly can't see the point of that. And what *we* see (hear, touch, detect, whatever) seems the best place to start. Otherwise, one *could* answer each of your posts about a different book you've read ; "how do you know that's what you read? Maybe you only *think* you read that....Are you sure you "remember" correctly? What do you mean by "read"? Maybe that book says something different *today*....Maybe I would see different words?" And then there'd be no point in discussing *your* perceptions of the book, we'd just get bogged down in the meta-questions....You see my point? We need to agree a reference point; and to say there can be no such thing means that it's futile to ask further questions....
boltonian...
"But what is truth? Facts are objective and out in the world for anybody to use but truth is not. For me truth is subjective - a personal issue that might not apply to anybody else."
I would say that the inverse is the case. Facts are consensual percepts. Truth is wholly objective (although I use that term "objective" in the sense of not- being-dependent-for-its-reality-on our-perceptual-organic-organisation.).
Truth comes to us as a whole. Facts come to us piecemeal and second-hand, as the result of analysis (a word which has an interesting geneaology in itself). Truth is immediate. Facts are mediate. Truth is presence, while facts are re-presentation. Truth is the primary reality, while all facts are secondary abstractions from primary reality.
David Bohm once described primary reality as "wholeness in flowing movement". Of course, in even stating that he transformed the immediacy of truth into a symbolic form -- the statement of fact. This is the kind of subtelty that almost prevented both the Buddha and the Christ from speaking and teaching. Both, legend has it, experienced a moment of grand hesitation (as did the anonymous person otherwise known as Lao-Tze).
All statements of fact resort to the copula "is", in the form "life is such and such" or "love is such and such", etc. This is called the indicative form (ie, "pointing" or index form). As such, "fingers pointing at the moon," as the Buddhists say. But, before we can say what something "is" in that sense, we must first have passed through much experience in time before we can issue our "conclusions" in this form (and all conclusions are terminations, endings, definitions of an action or process which has ceased to be operative). The sequence is "Love!" (imperative form, dramatics), "May I love!" (subjective response, optative form, lyrics), "we have loved" (narrative form, historical, epics) and only when the action ceases can we say "love is..." (analytics, indicative form, Understanding stops action). Love is frozen into "fact". But before it was so frozen, it was experienced as a living and life shaping process. That is the nature of truth -- fact is the last stage in truth realisation, and not the first.
You ask for my "definition" of truth. Since definition means "to place limits upon", I can offer you none since truth comes to us as a whole before we participate it through the action of ratiocination and mentation, and to define truth in such a way is to reduce it to fact once again -- a particular, not the whole. The whole truth is in the phases I described. Truth, truce, trust are three aspects of one process ("the whole in flowing movement"), which the religious imagination could only represent symbolically in terms of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In the last stage (the fourth) as a "fact" the dynamic dies and is entombed. Any "conclusion" is an ending.
I really felt for Vallely. I know what he was trying to communicate. But he was trying to make concessions to Grayling's demand for the brute facts (Grayling's own fetishism), and in trying to accommodate, Vallely was being too generous to Grayling. Really, a book could be written about that encounter in The Guardian, because there was much more involved and implicated in the 1500 words allotted to each for their say than could possibly be accommodated within that limit. The relationship between truth and fact has some subtelties, nuances, and intricacies (and a long history of sibling rivalry) whose meaning would require unfolding at length.
Gerry, Steve, Longsword
Many thanks for these.
Much food for thought. I will not have much time to respond today, until perhaps later this afternoon.
What do others think?
Gerry, there is no such thing as interrupting conversations here. Just post whatever you wish to say.
Quickly - Steve. Yes, of course we must agree some anchors but we must also nail down precisely what we mean. We also need to understand that these definitions are provisional. Lots of other things to say but no time just now.
Longsword, I would really like to explore your concept of truth in some depth. I will return anon.
I'm copying this from the Grayling thread:
"cynicalsteve
Comment No. 697782
July 13 23:29
Biskieboo - so I'm right in thinking you couldn't be bothered to follow the link, missed the whole point of Grayling's thread, and have been arguing from a (shall we kindly say) factually challenged standpoint?
You may reassure yourself, however, that most other posters above are in the same self-imposed position, and prefer to score cheap points, rather than engage with his argument...."
Oh come on Steve, it was Friday night - I didn't have time for a wind-bag reply cos I was going out.
I *did* read the link before I posted so you are wrong about that. After reading it it became clear that knowledge is a slippery beast, and sometimes we just have to do our best with it. Well, that's what I got out of it anyway.
I am well aware that some people have not had the same experiences as me, but that does not mean they are in a better position than I am to sit on judgement on them, and write things off as mere coincidence when they do not know the ins and outs of the things that have happened to me.
I would have to write a book to explain all the challenging experiences I've had, and how I believe I have been helped through my faith in and prayers to God. I can safely tell you that most people who had lived my life, especially the last ten years of it, would be gibbering wrecks in the local psych unit by this point.
But unfortunately (but not for me)I can't go back in time and re-run my life with an absence of belief and prayer in order to prove this to anyone.
And before you start, yes I know it *could* just be that the belief in God itself has helped, and that all the help that I believe I had was coincidence, but I find on weighing up the probabilities, that this would be highly unlikely.
It saddens me that whenever I mention something really interesting such as the dream that I had, it is totally ignored. I can only assume that people think I'm lying about it, which I am not.
Gerry, thanks for your answers. Of course I still have some questions: First of all you say that the numerous religions available are imperfect descriptions of the same reality. That's fair enough, but how does one select which one to go for? Clearly, these are simply human construct, which are almost entirely dependent on geography. For instance, are you, Gerry, an adherent to a particular faith? Why bother if they are all the same? How do you select that? I won't even mention the fact that they are so obviously based on plagiarisms and so on.
I also struggle to understand how easily you draw the line between what you call 'the here and now' and something called 'ancient wisdom'. I don't see how there can be such a strict differentiation. If I just go along for a second with the idea that 'ancient wisdom' or something 'divine' exists, then surely the two must overlap; in fact they do (just look at what we are doing right now). But to you, so it seems, there is something which (without really being able to explain how) explicates everything (the universe and all that jazz), but somehow the here and now can only look at trivial details (let's ignore the Hubble telescope and so on). How can you draw such a rigid differentiation: there's one thing that explains the one big answer of 'the meaning of life and everything', and then there's another sphere which fills in all the details, although clearly those details challenge the former sphere. I don't get it. I just don't get it.
And that leads on to a third issue: I'm an atheist. I don't see or feel or sense anything spiritual, mystic, religious. Will that have a negative effect on me? Will it have some ramifications for me either in the here and now or (if I just accept for the length of this sentence) in some kind of afterlife? If not, what's the point of mysticism, religiosity, spirituality? What difference does it make whether I believe in something else or not?
P.S. Singer is a good read, but a bit too utilitarian for me... :-)
steve,
No problem. Just a shame you were having trouble posting. Hate it when CiF gets all flaky.
Scepticism is indeed a useful shield against credulity and is the main reason why I call myself an agnostic (more on that later). However, you don't want the shield pressed so close to your face that it blinds you to seeing things as they are, or at the very least how they might be. I appreciate your "anti-philosophical" approach and its practical benefits. However, I don't see how you can extrapolate from it that there is no god.
Regarding the supernatural, the problem is that outside the crucible of scientific practice, what constitutes evidence, as distinct from proof, becomes much more subjective. Lack of conclusive evidence is not the same as lack of evidence. People are continuously saying that they have experience of the supernatural. Sure, this doesn't prove anything. But anecdotal evidence is still a form of evidence. And there may simply be some things that science is just incapable of explaining, yet are real nevertheless. This is the essential problem I have with your position. See it's fine to be sceptical, the higher you set the bar for what constitutes acceptable evidence, the higher should be your threshold for when lack of evidence becomes evidence for non-existence.
Or to put it more bluntly, surely an anti-philosophical approach would preclude such a philosophical stance as *strongly* believing in the non-existence of god?
Re the PS. If I thought the odds were 5/1 that the zealots are right and there is a vengeful God who would consign me to Hell, then I would probably hedge my bets. Except which zealots to choose? Wouldn't want to piss Him off any further.
That aside, I calculate odds when playing poker because I can and it makes sense to do so. It's pretty meaningless to do so on the existence of god, which I see as nothing more than a three-letter word anyway (before I was assigning probabilities merely for the sake of argument). However, for all that his debating style may grate, WML did once say something that made me laugh a lot when he said that agnostics were Deluded who just hadn't yet mastered the doublethink skills required to commit to a religion. I found it funny because, speaking for myself only, I recognised an element of truth in his joke (though I'm not deluded... well, apart from sharing with ChooChoo a belief borne from wishful thinking that Arsenal might just win the league next season).
To elaborate a little, I stopped calling myself an atheist after a mushroom trip I had a few years ago. It wasn't my first experience with psychadelics, but certainly the first I would describe as "spiritual" (btw, it was this trip that inspired the ant question, and thanks for the reference a while back to GEB, I shall endeavor to read the relevant bits and hopefully even the whole thing at some point). Part of it involved a sense that everything around me was alive, not just the animals and the trees but also the soil, the rocks, the waterfall and even the air. Looking back, I would interpret it as to say the universe is a single conscious entity that we are a small part of. Though I wouldn’t do so myself, others might call this entity God.
The fact that this feeling was brought on by the mushrooms is neither here nor there to me - it gives a biological cause for the altered consciousness but says nothing about my reality of the experience. However, I do retain sufficient scepticism to accept the strong possibility that there really was nothing more to it than the mushrooms playing with my mind and that all this one entity crap was just so much bollocks. I don’t think so, but this possibility is why I call myself an agnostic.
Boltonian,
Uncharitable or not, I think you have hit the nail squarely on the head regarding Grayling. The problem is that words are inherently limited in conveying meaning - they are simply no substitute for direct experience. And it doesn’t help when the words come laden with baggage. This is partly why though I read the CiF threads on the topic, in the past I rarely commented much – it seems like an exercise in futility sometimes.
I do think the inner world of consciousness is as real as the chairs, teapots etc. and seperate from it, as opposed to just a brain state. There’s a metaphor I like to use to describe what I see as the complementariness of science and Buddhist thought, insofar as I understand it. Science can be seen as a pyramid, with Aristotle as its architect. It is rigid and hierarchical but with a solid base. Buddhism is like concentric circles. The everyday reality most of us experience on a daily basis is the outer circle, but through meditation people can reach deeper levels of consciousness.
Now if you put the pyramid on top of the circle, then the additional height you get will allow you to draw much better maps of the surface, which is a pretty damn good thing given that’s where most of us inhabit. But it can’t tell us much about what lies beneath. Physicists are beginning to deduce, by observing the horizon, that the world is round, but there are those who continue to insist that it is flat.
Meanwhile, Buddhists are saying, “Tell us something we haven’t known for over 2,000 years.”
ChooChoo,
I haven’t forgotten your post and will respond to it shortly.
daddy0marcos
"Part of it involved a sense that everything around me was alive, not just the animals and the trees but also the soil, the rocks, the waterfall and even the air. Looking back, I would interpret it as to say the universe is a single conscious entity that we are a small part of. Though I wouldn’t do so myself, others might call this entity God."
I empathise. I have had the same experience, although I wasn't on 'shrooms at the time. Having had the experience, I also see the limitations in Grayling's approach, but also the incompleteness of Vallely's.
We might put it this way -- do we have a universe or a cosmos? Again, these terms are often employed as being synonymous (consistent with a whole host of confusions, like "totality" and "whole", or "truth" and "fact," or "assimilation" and "integration,")which reveal the breakdown and collapse of discernment and discriminating reason at "the end of history," which I refer to as "the breakdown of perspective consciousness" in formation over the last 500 years.
So, at the end of history we have reached an impasse (you only have to look at all the articles and books that begin "the end of..." this or that to observe the widespread sense of an ending in religion, science, politics, philosophy as postmodernism, etc). The Modern Era is over. Can we outrun it? Which is no more than to ask, wherein lies our survival knowledge?
Here I return to what I consider the root confusion of our dying age -- the mistaking of "totality" or "the whole". The universe, as it has evolved as a fact of our experience, as the sum total of laws, the system of objects we call "reality," a sum of particulars, is incomplete. By establishment, since Descartes and Newton, it omits sentience and the action of sentience as the exceptional instance. Mind and body occupied discrete and incommensurate realms of experience, with their own laws, etc. Our "universe" is not a cosmos, therefore. If "universal reason" omits, therefore, entire dimensions of experience (not least of which is the meaning of time, which Descartes simply declared a miracle daily created by God), it is no wonder we cannot reach the integral theory and so complete our consciousness. The cosmos is the whole, while the universe -- the domain of the ratio -- is only part of that cosmos.
Therefore I hold that we must make the leap from "Universal Reason" to "Cosmic Consciousness," even though I know well how much "New Age" baggage is often associated with this term. But I draw, from my experience, a sharp distinction between rationality and lucidity, and for the same reasons I discriminate between fact and truth, mind and consciousness, totality and whole, assimilation and integration, etc. Since I do not see consciousness and world as isolated realms of experience, these confusions attest to an alarming contraction of our being, sometimes described by others as "culture of narcissism," (Lasch) "closing of the Western Mind" (Freeman, Bloom), "vicious downward intellectual spiral" (Jacobs), "closing circle" (Commoner), or "Dark Satanic Mill" (Blake). These are all images of mind descending into tautology -- the original state of the self-devouring ouroboric dragon, which is the image of mind caught up in cyclic time, fatalism, resignation, eternal recurrence of same. And a lot of mainstream intellectual culture is just that -- self-devouring tautology. A Dark Satanic Mill doing little else than manfacturing infinite unrelated facts as its chief product.
The role of God throughout history has been as determinant counterpoint to the multiplicity of forms, the plurality of things and events, and the fragmentary facts of the matter. Man cannot live in such a fragmentary world. He goes to pieces just as it goes to pieces. Therefore he has always insisted on a synthetic, unitary, integrating principle -- a whole against the mere totality of things, truth over facts, which integral principle is named "God" as All that is, omniscience, omnipresence, or ground of being and the whole that reconciles within himself all irreconcilables and contradictory instances.
This is why people cling to God tenaciously, and why Nietzsche's declaration of the "death of God" was truly ominous. It meant loss of the integral principle, the monad that holds the Cosmos together and which prevents it from sliding back into a Chaos of disconnected facts, unanchored images, babble, and incoherence. And in the absence of "God" or an integral principle, men will resort even to absurdities like substituting Evolution (capital E) as an explain all principle. (I believe someone over in the UK even wrote a book called "Evolution as Religion"? -- a Mary someone).
In the past this integral principle, which human consciousness seeks desperately, has been called "Logos", "Dharma", "God", Elixir, Philosopher's Stone, Holy Grail, Tao, or Theory of Everything (TOE). Men cannot live in a broken world, because this fracturing is autobiographical. There is no ultimate separation between consciousness and cosmos, for the cosmos has an uncanny way of mirroring back to us ourselves. And if the universe today seems meaningless, pointless, and purposeless, it has a lot to do with the mood of "the end of history" and a certain exhaustion of the Modern Era's original inspirations -- to effect, "that you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free", of which the secular era represents only a continuation.
In other words, "meaninglessness", malaise, pointlessness, purposelessness only reflect our exhaustion, world-weariness, aetiolation, and the expiration of an original inspiration. Dutifully, the universe reflects us back to ourselves.
It is this "uncanny" (as one physicist put it) capacity of the universe to reflect us back to ourselves that even suggests to me the entire purpose and meaning of the cosmos in a way that reconciles science and religion, reason and faith, and overcomes all the internal divisions of the human psyche -- ie, that we are here to learn to create a world, a cosmos - a kindergarten for the gods, as it were. For it is even written in the NT, "Is it not written in your books, that ye are gods?"
"Be thou therefore perfect, even as thy Father in Heaven..." launched the Christian Era and the process of history as godman-making. There is a certain irony in the fact that we now use the term "genius" for ourselves, which was originally only the name of God as the first Genius of Genesis. And the "atheist" Nietzsche, with his "overman" (the transhuman) is even only a continuing response of man to the Christian imperative -- that man, as "divine spark" of the Light of the Great Fire, should become "brilliant" and be as God is.
olching... if I may interject into your discussion,
"First of all you say that the numerous religions available are imperfect descriptions of the same reality. That's fair enough, but how does one select which one to go for?"
You don't need to select one out to the exclusion of others. Look for the invariants in all of them, the items that make for unanimity (a word meaning literally unus animus or "one soul").
Let me give you an example, if I may. I have found that for almost every "law" that comprises the scientific description of reality, there existed a corresponding understanding in antiquity, albeit articulated differently and in terms of the mode of understanding and perception of the times.
Take Newton's law of reciprocal actions, as a first example. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This is, in a sense, only a translation, into a scientific idiom, of the law of karma, the Buddhist doctrine of action and reaction. Where they differ is that Buddhism does not isolate consciousness from the web and woof of reality. Desire, thinking, reasoning, all belong to the same web of interconnected being, and their actions also affect the web. We too know this, when we state, for example, that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". Intention also is action, and has hidden, unanticipated consequences for both good and ill.
Now, if we turn to Greece, and to Heraclitus, we find that Newton's law, and the law of karma, also finds its representation in the principle of "enantiodromia" -- reversal of fortune, in which processes change into their opposite at the extremity of action. Roughly, the sequence described by the word "en-antio-dromia" is "version-perversion-inversion" when we parse out the meanings. I want here to ascribe no moral interpretation to the word "perversion", which simply means a turning through or passage through from the action to the reaction.
Now, if we turn again to tribal society, and magical man, we also find the law of reciprocal action, the law of karma, and the law of enantiodromia represented in the form of honour killing and retribution (eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth). It is the law of vengeance. Wotan and Thor chase each other across the sky forever in a vengeful cycle of action and reaction. Today, this intuition of the fundamental law of action and reaction, of enantiodromia, is formally represented in Chaos Theory. Chaos Theory may even be said to be the self-consciousness of enantiodromia as reversal of fortune.
These are all describing, in different idioms, the same intuition about the supreme law of reality -- the basis for homeostasis and equilibrium being reversal at the extremity. The same consciousness undergirds all these different representations. But it is only by relating these to each other that we come to a more holisitic or more perfect understanding of the law of action, because each supplements the missing factor in the others. Newton's law omits the action of consciousness, with Karma underplays the realm of action described by Newton. Whereas, in the tribal and religious forms they also appear differently. For tribal man is driven by necessity to fulfill the law of action in the form of vengeance and honour killing. But in religion "justice is mine, saith the Lord") which relieves man of the compulsion of action and necessity. Forgiveness is made possible, which overcomes the compulsion of action and reaction. It is precisely to become free of that fatalism of action and reaction that foregiveness is elevated in Christianity to a principle of emancipation and dissolved the fatalism of the pagan order of time. Once that once done, historical progress became possible, since man's psychic energy was freed up from the necessity of sustaining, as an image of the natural order of things, the cycle of action and reaction.
All in all, they represent the same consciousness (today also found in ecology, as the equilibrium of the niche), only valuated differently.
@Olching
How does one select which one to go for?
Clearly I can only speak for myself in this regard but I was brought up in the Christian tradition and so its traditions and narratives have a resonance to me. As you rightly point out this is almost entirely Geography (with a bit of History thrown in)For someone like my wife ,for instance, who was brought up in the Jain tradition this does not have the same resonance although bits of it appeal. For someone whose experince and upbringing has led them to an entirely secular view traditions such as these may appear charming at best, dangerous superstition at worst.
In a way it seems like the tradition selected me rather than the other way round.
I'm not so sure if I explained myself properly re the ancient tradition. Tomorrow many Christians will hear at church the parable of the Good Samaritan. This two thousand year old story speaks to me very directly. It reminds me that I have an obligation to all those who require my help beyond ethnic, political and perhaps above all religious differences. It seems to me that this piece of ancient wisdom applies in a particular way to our time and condition.
As for your third point well I don't think so if you find fulfillment in your life and are sensitive to the needs of others and find inspiration from nature, art or some other source then I would suggest that you have already found enlightenment - I know how trite that sounds but can't seem to make it sound less like cheese.
As to what's the point of it , what difference does it make...well for me it acts a source of consolation, of inspiration, it provides me with a sense of place and purpose in the universe. If you already have these things then I really don't think it (mysticism/spirtuality/religiosity) has much left to offer you.
boltonian - good to see that your blog is taking off with all the new blood (and, if I may be allowed a personal view, some pretty good new blood....although given the number of recent plugs, you're bound to get some unwelcome types sooner or later....) I know you're a busy guy, but can I make a request that you give some thought to a format change here, in that a few relevant threads be identified and split off on separate pages? Otherwise this one will become unwieldy & slow to load....
Daddy0Marcos - as I've said on a few CiF threads, I start from the position of believing nothing until some kind of evidence is presented. And I maintain that the logical corollary of this is that atheism is the default position; any theory with ambition to displace it needs to prove itself. So where is the evidence for "god", or other supernatural phenomena?
You said : "...outside the crucible of scientific practice, what constitutes evidence, as distinct from proof, becomes much more subjective. Lack of conclusive evidence is not the same as lack of evidence."
It's the long term accumulation of the lack of evidence that seems significant to me. It's not as if people haven't been looking for evidence, and eventually one is justified in drawing conclusions from the failure to succeed (as with the infamous WMD....)
You said : "...anecdotal evidence is still a form of evidence."
Someone shrewdly said on one of the homeopathy threads that the plural of anecdote is not evidence, and I strongly agree.
You said "...there may simply be some things that science is just incapable of explaining, yet are real nevertheless."
This I also disagree with. There may well be some apparently strange phenomena that we can't *yet* explain (although fewer than some suppose), but no reason to think that we won't eventually work them out; on the other hand, how can things be "real" and yet inexplicable? That, to me, seems contradictory.
I'm afraid I don't read much into your mushroom story, either. Sleep deprivation can also cause hallucinations but I'd never accept that an overtired person had a greater insight into the nature of existence than an alert one. Others here have read much into NDEs which I find irrational. I've kept out of such discussions, and I wouldn't want to comment again on drug-induced "insights" here, as my views are probably more suited to CiF's free-for-all than boltonian's civilised blog. ;-}
Anyhow, just to clarify, my problems in posting previously weren't down to CiF, but to my computer (actually, my wife's, as it's more used to support her jewellery selling website). The odds are that this one has been on the cyber mushrooms, as its version of software reality is distinctly idiosyncratic. I fear the worst.
Biskieboo - glad you picked up on that comment. I'll reply later, but don't want this post to get out of hand.
Hey! I turn my back for five minutes and look what happens - all Hell breaks loose (if you'll forgive me). :-)
steve:
Yes I have plugged the site because there were so many interesting discussions happening that I did not want to lose after they closed. Also, selfishly, I was indisposed (in at least a couple of senses of the word) for most of the time that they were live, so didn't contribute very much.
I hope that we will not import any of the silliness from CiF. Those who enjoy chucking abuse and sarcasm around might not feel so comfortable here. But, on the other hand, I do not want to be po-faced and censorious. The site is meant to be a forum for discussion and learning - sharing ideas as well as communicating opinions. Let's face it there are very few certainties, so there is plenty of space for the development of some interesting concepts.
Also, I want people to feel free to discuss personal experiences, for which there might not be any objective evidence, without fear of ridicule.
As a last resort I have editorial control but I would feel we had failed a little if I have to use it. We might attract a rogue poster and then - well, let's cross that bridge when we get there.
BTW, I have said this before, this is not meant to supplant CiF but to offer something different. Many of the topics, as here, have been inspired by CiF and almost all the contributors have learned about us from there.
Re- new threads. It was suggested a while ago and I completely failed to manipulate the technology, so if anybody has ideas please let me know. I ended up starting a completely new blog, which confused everybody.
Yes it's great to see new contributors and fresh topics for discussion. I hope that others who have not posted for a while will be tempted back.
Olching:
You are very welcome and I look forward to your contributions here.
I am now out of time and I really want to explore some these recent issues. Longsword's idea that truth, as opposed to fact, is objective, accessible and public is something I want to examine. If that is so it must lend itself to the scientific method. Why, then, has it not and why are there so many variations?
Are they all just a bit of some mysterious whole - like Spinoza's pantheism? I noticed you used Leibnitz's word, 'Monad' but not, I think, in his sense of the word as fundamental 'components.' Or did you?
My, rather simplistic, view is that facts are public and truth personal but you have turned this upside down and I am struggling with the concept. I will re-read your posts very carefully and come back with some Qs.
No time just now to comment on everything. At least we are not time limited here - just as well.
Great stuff.
boltonian...
I agree with steve that you should begin to spin off a new thread. This one is becoming unwieldly. You would do this by simply issuing a new post. You don't have to enter much into it, even only the same words you did with the original. Or you might want to issue each of the questions you put in the original as separate posts. I'm not familiar with blogger, but I imagine it works much the same as my own blog.
And to respond to your last comment...
"Longsword's idea that truth, as opposed to fact, is objective, accessible and public is something I want to examine. If that is so it must lend itself to the scientific method."
"Facts" are the democratic and public form of truth representation, it is true. This form (the indicative form) is necessary for the purposes of peer review. But that is precisely necessary for the purpose of reaching a consensus view. Therefore, facts are public and belong to the consensus perception Facts, in that case, are symbolic representations. But, after all, symbolic representations are ways of making present again -- that is, making present a primary reality to which they refer. But as "made things" (as the word "fact" means) they are secondary abstractions from that primary reality, which is truth. Truth cannot be thought, only experienced for that reason. For once we begin to think "about" the truth, we do so in symbolic terms, generative of the facts of the matter. Thinking is always reflection, and reflection is always post hoc. Another term for "primary reality" would be "ground of being", and it is from whence that the plural facts are derived as secondary symbolisations.
So, you see, it is precisely "truth" which is the wholly (or holy) objective reality, while the facts are actually the symbolisations adapted to our biological and mental disposition and predilections (our human organisation, or what Heraclitus called our "ethos" as characterological pre-disposition, ie "character [ethos] is fate".
This primary reality is "objective" only in the sense that it is not dependent upon us for its reality. This "ground of being" is sometimes called the "pre-personal" or "trans-personal," for the reason that it is not dependent upon our perception of it to exist. But that does not mean that it is not dependent upon consciousness. Consciousness is not personal. Mind is the personal aspect of consciousness. But this takes us into some strange territory.
You suggest that, if this primary reality is the real "objective" reality (and facts are but the secondary abstractions from this reality -- as more or less faithful images or reflections of it adapted to interpretation by and through the human form) then truth should be directly accessible by "the" scientific method.
I would say instead by "a" scientific method rather than "the" scientific method. Efforts are even now underway (at the usual slow snail pace of evolution) to expand the horizons of what is understood as "scientific method". Some of this is the fruit of the Buddhist-Science dialogue or inspired by other sources. It is necessitated by the fact that the scientific method has hit an impasse with the quantum level of reality, and can proceed no further in the erstwhile historical effort to complete our consciousness. Likely it is, that in the future there will be no "the" scientific method, but plural methods (practices) in which the unity of experience and experiment will be restored.
I still hold that integral consciousness is possible (which is the aim of the Integral Theory or the Theory of Everything), but not on the basis of current assumptions that inform and direct "the" scientific method. Sheer necessity has forced good, creative scientists to look for ways to expand the horizons of "method" and the continued possibility of consensus. These are often two related but distinct aspects of method -- the truth and the representation of truth.
But that is something all sincere human beings also wrestle with.
daddyOmarcos:
'I do think the inner world of consciousness is as real as the chairs, teapots etc. and seperate from it, as opposed to just a brain state.'
I agree with the first part of this statement but I do not know how we can come to any form conclusions about the nature of consciousness. Neither Churchland's view that consciousness is merely a function of the brain nor that it is some form of dualism has been proved, at least to my satisfaction.
You also said something about the approximate nature of language. This has been a bit of a hobbyhorse of mine for some while. Language is not only approximate but we do not know whether what has been transmitted is the same as that received. For example, my concept of the word, 'Antidisestablishmentarianism,' might be different from yours but we blithely bandy the word about with gay abandon as if we had an identical understanding. I make an assumption that you hold the same image in your head as that in mine. We have to do this otherwise simple conversations would take forever but it is a compromise nevertheless and, therefore, language must remain approximate. It is certainly not the precise tool that some would have us believe.
Longsword:
Are you proposing a form of Platonism whereby facts are mere shadows of the truth?
There have been a few references to Buddhism recently. My understanding of Therevada Buddhism is that enlightenment is a very personal journey, comprising both understanding and behaviour. Although support, through discussion and texts, is available, it is essentially a private road.
I know that Schopenhauer was influenced by both Hinduism and Buddhism, neither of whose texts were available in translation to Kant. His view was that reality comprised an undifferentiated, 'Blind will to exist.' We, through our limited brains, create the differentiated world that we perceive.
Another thing that I am sure I have said before is that we create our own truths based on experience and temperament. Schopenhauer, I surmise, could no more have proposed a joyous paradigm for reality than he could have opened the batting for England. He was a curmudgeonly old pessimist. Why then should truth not be personal, rather than objective and public.
You hinted that the scientific method we currently use, based on falsifiability and predictive experimentation, is drawing the the end of its usefulness. I admit that we are in a bit of a hiatus in Physics, not necessarily so in other sciences, such as genetics, but we have been here before. For well over 200 years Newton was the last word in Physics and it was felt to be the end of our scientific learning but it wasn't - Einstein and QM came along.
My guess is that Darwinian evolution will undergo similar metamorphosis shortly - not is disprove it, possibly, but to show that it is not the full story.
I still do not understand that we can ever know what objective reality is, nor whether it even exists. How do you come to the conclusions that:
1) There is such a thing as objective reality; and
2) That it is accessible to us?
Steve said, in a reply to daddyOmarcos, that only when some evidence is presented could one begin to allow for the possibility of its existence (whatever it is).
Spacepenguin has said something to the same effect. If we have no evidence for the possible existence of (pixies was his example)why should we entertain the thought that they might exist?
These seem to me to be sensible starting points. So, beyond the confines of our subjective being, what evidence is there for a universal, objective and accessible truth? And what are these other scientific methods to which you refer?
I would like to get the views of others here, including SaraB and spacepenguin
boltonian :
"Spacepenguin has said something to the same effect. If we have no evidence for the possible existence of (pixies was his example)why should we entertain the thought that they might exist?"
In my example I said "why would you be motivated to believe in pixies if you had never seen one and had never been told about them ?" . My point was that you may intuit a spiritual force or God and come up with rational arguments for their existence , but it is unlikely you would do the same for little creatures with big ears .
I think the motivation for belief is of a different order for the two things . Having said that , theory without data isn't science . It would be a mistake to equate reasonable motivation for belief with the existence of the subject of that belief .
I'm not sure there could ever be scientific proof of objective reality (OR from here on). Nothing can survive total skepticism , even possibly self existence . The weaker claim of scientific evidence for OR is problematic , what form could it possibly take without already taking OR as axiomatic ?
daddy0marcos...
"Language is not only approximate but we do not know whether what has been transmitted is the same as that received."
This is my chief field of study -- communications. And I will not spare you my conclusions on the relationship of speech to reality.
Primary conclusion: specifically human life does not alternate between the polarities "subject and object" first and foremost, but between the symbolic and the diabolic. When we take Man just as we find him, without advance prejudices, presumptions or preconditions imposed on his existence, we find first of all that man is homo loquens, the speaking animal.
Second conclusion: symbolic action is both a physical process and not a physical process. It belongs to both mensity (measure, ratio, quantity) and immensity (immeasurable, a-ratio, quality). It has both phonemic and morphemic (semantic, syntactic) elements. In speaking, we affect physical reality directly. Symbolic action (which is speaking) adds something to the world that was not there beforehand -- that is, to the world interpreted as simply the "given" world (as a datum, the world is "gifted"). Speech is also a form of energy, even if only concieved in its most minimal phonemic terms as "sound" alone, and so participates in the entire field of energy we call "cosmos".
It is the failure to comprehend how symbolic action affects and modifies reality that prevents us from making the transmodern leap -- ie, from the limitations of a merely universal reason to a truly cosmic consciousness (ie, "universal" as consciousness of reality as a mere totality, as an aggregate *perspectivally derived* and inventoried system of objects organised into sectoral facts (the ratio), or consciousness as holistic aperception of the whole. da Vinci marks the beginning of the first mode of perception. Picasso (following Nietzsche) marks the breakdown of perspectivally organised perception, and the emergence of a more global or holistic vision -- the revelation of the hidden or occulted aspects of perception and the co-presence of all times in one global whole. Picasso is, in effect, quantum art in which the principle of non-locality -- or translocality -- is anticipated and made visible).
Third conclusion: since you mention the problem of reception and transmission, you highlight the problem of time, as origin and destination. The objective method is not well suited to a positive handling of time (for which reason, Descrates merely and superstitiously dismissed time as "a miracle" demonstrating that "universal reason" and the objective method alone cannot account for the whole, finally). But it is precisely the issue of time that interjects itself into the quantum level where the distinction between subject and object breaks down, and is demonstrated not to have anything other than conventional reality. Here not subject and object, but the older Aristotelian and Medieval polarities of "potens" and "actus" (potential and actual, or wave and particle) force themselves upon us. But these terms "potens" and "actus" which were the fundamental ontological categories of all theological thought (and not subjects and objects), highlight the issue of time over space. Reality is symbolised and organised differently depending upon what aspect of the cosmos is emphasised as "real" -- time (in its aspects of past or future, death and birth, origin and destiny, evolutionary or revolutionary) or space (in its aspect of inner or outer, subject or object, private and public). The objective method can handle only one quarter of our whole experience of reality considered as a cosmos -- a whole.
"Potens" and "actus", as the basic theological categories, pertain to the relationship between the timeless and time, aeternitas and saeculum, or the immortal and the mortal orders, immensity and mensity, immediacy or mediacy, or in our terms truth and the factual. This idiom was simply translated by the Renaissance into visual and perspectival terms as the relationship between the infinite and the finite spaces, and the polarities "potens" and "actus" were translated into the categories "subject and object". All the older theological categories were simply translated into the idiom of Universal Reason, which became the basis for the "true world".
All the dichotomies of the quantum realm are the result of bringing an obsolete or at least deficient method, derived from perspective perception, to a realm where this method of perception does not belong. The real issue of distinction between the Newtonian and the quantum orders, is one between space and time consciousness. For the Newtonian-Cartesian frame of the world, a subject and object or mind body metaphysics was adequate. It is not adequate at the quantum level where the primary tension is between the potens and the actus (or potentiality wave and realised particle).
I have gotten a little off track here, but what the hell, it is merely a temporary detour whose madness will be revealed as method over time.
If one reads the numerous attempts to explain the paradoxes and ambiguities of the quantum realm (especially Bell's Theorem), it is very easy to see from whence these dichotomies and ambiguities arise. It is an attempt to frame quantum reality within the familiar habits of perspective perception and consciousness, to bring in the methods of a da Vinci, instead of the sensibilities of a Picasso.
I have gone this roundabout route to highlight two aspects of the problem of "reception" and "transmission" (which is but fancy terms for listening and speaking). In linguistics, this is sometimes called the synchronic and diachronic factor -- one time or many times. And this pertains to the issue of severance between the symbol and the reality the symbol strives to symbolise or represent. This is an issue not just in the dialogical moment of communication, but especially the historical dimension and the attempt to relate different historical times (such as Modern and Medieval and classical and primordial). And you may note that in a lot of my posts, I attempt to reconnect, by etymological means, the symbol with the reality it attempts to represent, but from which it has been severed over time and has, more or less become a "free-floating image" unanchored in primary experience any longer. It is just this severance between the symbol and its source reality that represents today the triumph of image over substance (captured in the slogan "perception is reality"), "the culture of narcissism," the "closing of the mind", the "vicious downward intellectual spiral," the "war against truth," or "the assault on reason" -- the bubble of perception.
"The echo overtakes the voice" is how it was once wonderfully stated in a Star Wars film. The "fact" as symbolic form, is only an echo, as image of an even more fundamental reality. And if we want to know that reality directly and immediately unmediated by facts, we will have to trace it back through the symbolic forms to the root source of the symbolising activity itself.
The shifting meaning of symbols over time (including "the facts") are an index into successive mutations and transformations of human consciousness and its cosmos -- the flux as "the whole in flowing movement" as Bohm put it. Consciousness is not a personal possession in the way that "mind" is, say. They are not synonymous. Mind may become an object for consciousness. But consciousness may not become an object for mind without distortion and ending in tautology, perplexity, and quandary.
"If we have no evidence for the possible existence of (pixies was his example)why should we entertain the thought that they might exist?"
It depends upon what is meant by "exist". They exist as symbolic forms. And even as symbolic forms they are a presence in our cosmos. And this fact needs explication, not dismissal or explaining away, just as the symbolic form "unicorn" needs to be unfolded in its meaning as symbolic form.
It amazes me continually that people will insist that there is one reality only, and yet dismiss elements of that one reality as having no reality at all. The logic is inconsistent and self-contradictory. Dream, hallucination, mirage, fantasy, falsehood, error also belong to reality, and the existence of these things as also forms of symbolic activity need to be explained as part of our whole reality, not dismissed as unreal. The rationalist loads the dice and fixes the game in advance of the play by his definition (ie, "limitation") of what will be treated as "real" and what will be dismissed as "unreal", whereas obviously anything that occurs in our experience of reality is real.
"And what are these other scientific methods to which you refer?"
Scientia is sentience, knowledge, lucidity. If scientia is our purpose and aim and the meaning of our activity as "method", why restrict ourselves to one method only? To speak of "the" scientific method belongs to the unfortunate habit today of confusing all ends and means. Scientia is the objective aim, not method. And if the method now restricts our possibilities of scientia -- of completing our consciousness in the form of "integral theory", etc -- then the method must be examined for its possible deficiencies and limitations, and as the element that is actually restricting the further unfolding of scientia.
I hope I have made myself understood. We must not confuse ends and means. It leads to absurdity -- the kind of absurdity that states that the universe has no meaning or purpose, yet expects us to find in that statement both meaning and direction.
"then the method must be examined for its possible deficiencies and limitations, and as the element that is actually restricting the further unfolding of scientia."
Let me rephrase that this way, borrowing from Jesus' statement that morals existed to serve man, not man morality. Equivalently, method exists to serve man and his unfolding self-understanding, not man the method.
Again, this belongs to the confusion of ends and means that infects both secular reductionism and religious fundamentalism at the end of history -- the priority of method versus morals. But both have lost sight of meanings and purposes. Method is means not end. Scientia is the end purpose of method. So, too, the decadence of religious fundamentalism is this, morals exist only as means to an end, which end is peace -- the peace of the community. But the peace of the community (Umma, Sangha, Christendom, Israel) is itself only for the purposes of establishing a secure environment for the higher goal of self-overcoming and self-transcendence (the "Greater Jihad" or struggle of Islam). This has been the higher form of religious consciousness in both Christianity and Islam where "crusade" or "jihad" was primarily the issue of self-overcoming and self-transcendence -- that is, the struggle with human narcissism (which is idolatry -- confusion of self with self-image, the distinction made between true self and false self and the former to be realised and the latter -- ego -- made obedient to the true self, rejection of tribal particularism and exceptionalism through the insistence on human unanimity realised in the genius of one supreme godhead (one genius of one genesis), repudiation of all ethnic nationalism or the vanity of ethnic supremacy, etc).
Morals and methods exist for much the same reason -- as means. It's when the means become confused with ends in themselves, leading to tautology, that we have the kind of trouble we are having today.
[Warning: This post as well as being overlong doesn’t really add much to the discussion, so I advise you skip over it. However, having spent far too long on it when I should have been working on my article instead, I can’t bring myself to trash it. Sorry]
Longsword,
[I think you might have confused Boltonian’s last post with one of mine. I read your last couple of posts after writing most of what is in this one, but given that it takes me so long to organise my thoughts into words (a very big problem for someone who relies on writing for a living), I thought I’d add a little to the end rather than revising wholesale what I’ve already written. Otherwise I’ll forever be trying to catch up with this thread and never posting anything]
Thank you for your posts. I’ve been wanting to write something in response earlier, but it takes me time to digest new ideas and I’ve been busy reading more and thinking through what you say and how they fit in with my own ideas. The idea of a “cosmic consciousness” is one I can strongly relate to.
Relating it to the subjects in the Beck thread which I managed to read before it irritatingly disappeared, I have long also felt politics needs to stop being so damned parochial and that we can only deal with the challenges the world faces in the global age if we all start dealing with them holistically, on a planetary scale. However, I struggle to see the mechanism for this to happen without us ripping ourselves to shreds first. This thought scares me.
It’s a shame the thread disappeared, because that was really the place to get into it, rather than here which to get into the nitty gritty, rather than here, which is more a blog about metaphysics.
However, I am intrigued by the following thing you wrote:
‘It is this "uncanny" (as one physicist put it) capacity of the universe to reflect us back to ourselves that even suggests to me the entire purpose and meaning of the cosmos in a way that reconciles science and religion, reason and faith, and overcomes all the internal divisions of the human psyche -- ie, that we are here to learn to create a world, a cosmos - a kindergarten for the gods, as it were. For it is even written in the NT, "Is it not written in your books, that ye are gods?" ’
There is a sense in which I *like* this view, as an antidote to the fatalism it is all too easy to fall into when confronted with the powerlessness most of us feel against the barbarism of the new dark age. To me what you say represents an ideal that I fail to see reflected in the real world.
When I was younger sought from history evidence to support Marx’s notion that it marches inexorably towards utopia. I realise that what you are saying does not amount to the same thing as historical materialism – having a meaning and purpose does not amount to the same as the realization of that purpose – yet the parallels still seem strong to me in that I detect in it an element of wishful thinking.
If I see meaning and purpose in the cosmos, it is in the beauty and order we observe in the universe. Concepts such as good and evil, love and anger, are available to us like points on a compass irrespective of we as individuals choose to believe that they derive from objective Truth or biological processes. I strongly empathise with what you are saying but there is a sense in which ascribing such an anthropocentric meaning to the cosmos seems deeply counter-intuitive to me.
ChooChoo,
‘I'm not entirely clear on your last point(s) though I'm sure this is more to do with me than with you. When you suggest that abstract thought might be, ultimately, "communication to ourselves", do you mean we communicating among ourselves (in which case, I can go along with you) or we, individually, each communicating to him/herself (in which case I have qualms)?’
It is no fault of your own that you didn’t catch my meaning and everything to do with the fact that I stuck it in as something of an afterthought, without properly expanding. The short answer is that I meant the latter, the one you have qualms about.
If I may, I will elaborate in a roundabout way. In a recent post Bolotonian, revisiting a theme from earlier in this thread, suggested that we can never know how a beetle comprehends things, something I would concur with for the very obvious reason that we can never enter the mind of a beetle, a la Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Going back even further in the thread, when I raised the question of whether an ant colony can have a collective consciousness, asked to define what I meant by consciousness I replied, some form self-awareness.
I would now revise this to awareness, without the self, something far more primordial. And it is from this primordial something that self-awareness stems. Venturing into the realm of wild speculation, I would hazard a guess (and it is just a guess) that if we could, for a moment, observe the world through the mind of a beetle we might be surprised to recognise in its world something strangely familiar, stemming from this primordial something from which consciousness stems.
Continuing further with my speculation, I would guess that it is from this primordial awareness that self-awareness stems, and from which in turn our capacity for abstract thought is derived.
It is in the sense that our being – as we recognise it – is derived from the same source as that of a beetle, and so our *subjective interpretation* of abstract thought is a bit like a running commentary in our heads, that I meant “communication with ourselves”. Looked at this way, modal logic and social historiography are indeed “instinctual”, however odd that may seem.
Approached from a different angle, one way of putting it is to say that we have no free will. Alternatively, we could say that we do have free will but that free will is something far more primordial than we imagine and is something that we share with beetles and other animals.
I too have qualms with this and I am not sure if it is what I believe. I really am agnostic on this one.
“The questions are: is there something distinctive insofar as we have this capacity (however much or little we use it); and ought we to cultivate it, does it pertain to our 'nature' to cultivate it?”
[Although this is the middle of this post, I’m actually writing this bit last. I really need to prepare some food, and start doing some work because I’m terrified about what’s going to happen tomorrow when my editor finds out that not only have not done my article but I haven’t even bothered to interview anyone yet because it’s so BLOODY BORING! Consequently, I’m not going to do your questions the justice they deserve]
If I were being consistent with what I wrote above, I would have to say both yes and no to your first question. Yes in that only we are capable of abstract thought, no in that it stems from something more fundamental that we share with other animals.
Very provisionally I would say yes to the first part, and depends to the second part. I think our “nature” reflects our actions rather than the other way round.
Boltonian,
When I say I think consciousness is separate from brain states, I don’t mean as some kind of disconnected “other”, but rather I mean it separate as time is separate from space. I appreciate that this has not been proven scientifically, but as has now been said a few times in the last few posts, you have to start somewhere and this seems entirely like the natural default position to me. Where you lay the burden of proof is entirely subjective, shaped by each individual’s experience and outlook.
I must confess that my knowledge of philosophy of the mind only extends to cross referencing on wikipedia things I read here. Hence, when it comes to critiquing dualism I can only do so on the basis of some poorly understood caricature of Descartes and other dualists who have followed him. However, it does seem to me that the notion of some sort of separate mind is rapidly becoming redundant after the QM revolution. A little while back SpaceP mentioned neutral monism and, if I understood the term correctly, that might also be a good description for my position. [Little postscript: I see that Longsword has made the same point somewhat better than me, that Cartesian-Newtonian dichotomy no longer applies]
The problem some people have in accepting the idea of consciousness as something separate from matter, I would speculate, is analogous the problem others have of conceptualising the Big Bang. The latter imagine that some *thing* existed in a void which at some time before time exploded rather than the expansion of time and space itself, with matter formation a by-product of the process. Likewise I suspect some people look for evidence for consciousness and when they only see it in the form of brain chemical patterns, assume that’s what consciousness must be. But to me consciousness is not a *thing*.
I guess where I might differ from someone like Steve, for example, is that while we might both be able to agree that there is nothing, my subjective understanding of nothing is probably quite different to his.
Steve,
I think there a lot points on which we can agree to disagree, but at the same time I don’t think we're coming from a too dissimilar place. It’s just that we both see reality through the prism of our respective experiences, and mine have been slightly different to yours. By the way, I didn’t offer up the mushroom story as something for people to read anything into. Rather it was just a ramble giving a little background as to why I believe the things I do. I’m probably a bit more inclined to speculate on the metaphysical, but I accept it at speculation.
Longsword again,
I think you’ve addressed the qualms I had at the beginning of my post in your last couple of posts. The last one in particular, as far meaning is concerned. So apologies for the redundant nature of what is this now rather long post, but having spent so long on it I’m somewhat reluctant to chuck it all away.
Anyway, I enjoyed your posts a lot, and learning more about the origins of words has been a real eye-opener. What we can learn from the study of linguistics dwarfs so many more popular disciplines. Something you said in one of your CiF postings that I strongly concur with is that when you learn another language, you realise just how much language shapes people’s perception of reality.
There were a few more observations I wanted to make, but they will just have to wait for another time.
daddy0marcos : "I guess where I might differ from someone like Steve, for example, is that while we might both be able to agree that there is nothing, my subjective understanding of nothing is probably quite different to his."
I *really* like this comment....
Boltonian, thank you for your welcoming remark.
Longsword, you may of course interject, and I appreciate your detailled contribution. It was certainly interesting, and, to a point, persuasive, but I doubt very much that a pendant exists for every scientific law, as you state. It seems to work with action-reaction (you can of course extend this to Hegelian and Marxist philosophy), but then you assert that Christianity emancipated itself from that cycle. I however see major paradoxes in that claim:
The 'eye for an eye' paradigm was retracted (at least this is the usual claim) through the Jesus narrative and the new testament. If one were to accept that, then one would have to assume that Christianity never had the need to move on, as it were, from the 'eye for an eye' paradigm (the alleged shift takes place before Christianity, i.e. 'within' the bible).
I would claim however that action-reaction was never renounced at all, in fact it has been accentuated by Christianity (even through the Jesus narrative). What Christianity has established is a cycle of action-reaction in relation to what has been defined as a higher being (god). Actions in the here and now will be reciprocated somehow in the afterlife. Or one has to somehow atone for them through prayer and self-castigation. Similarly if one begs for forgiveness, help or anything else, one would hope that such actions would result in something positive (indeed Christian friends often tell me, to my total bewilderment, that they secured university funding, got a job, got through hard times etc., after they (and perhaps the congregation) had prayed for it). I would also assert that the Jesus narrative is an entirely action-reaction driven process: Judas betrays, Jesus is arrested; Peter denies, the cock crows; Jesus talks to Lazarus, Lazarus lives again.
I would describe free will (in this case specifically the act of being able to forgive) as a religiously independent thought process. It is the ability to step beyond the realms of received rules and access and apply self-derived rules. Rather than relying on religious tags and spiritual conscience, self-derived rules (based on a thougt process outside mysticism and spirituality) offer the possibility to really contemplate the value of rules (or ethics or morals).
Gerry71, thank you for your reply.
I agree that the tradition probably selects the person (if we substitute tradition with 'one's environment' it probably describes it better), but that's precisely what I struggle with: Knowing it's a construct, knowing that it's so very predetermined, people still remain convinced about the seriousness of it. It's almost as if you are able to deconstruct your faith, but then don't go that extra step to discard it. And the same goes for the last point (i.e. what's the point? Your answer: It offers consolation and provides you with a meaning in life): Again, it seems that you are identifying religion as a constructed crutch, but you still attribute meaning and validity to it. I just find that a very difficult concept to comprehend. I really do.
As far as your general take on your personal religion is concerned, I have of course no qualms with it, in fact some of it (your application of the good samaritan story) is quite noble; I just cannot understand why people can't arrive at such conclusions without the help of religion/mysticism/spirituality. But, Gerry71, I also think that not every religious person thinks as you (as far as I can judge from the few exchanges we've had); sadly, I often encounter a far more messianic approach (just in everyday, before I watch the news), which is of course extremely alienating.
daddy0marcos
"Something you said in one of your CiF postings that I strongly concur with is that when you learn another language, you realise just how much language shapes people’s perception of reality."
Yes, and while that might seem to lend support to relativism and to the "perception is reality" school of propaganda and perception management, there are still invariant elements in all human languages so far studied that lend support to the conclusion that all human speech is *one* speech -- vox populi, vox Dei has something to it. The analogy I used earlier was in comparison to the refraction of light as it passes through a prism -- one light, many colours.
These invariant elements across grammars I take as the most hopeful prospect for the future, for on the basis of this we can probably articulate a universal history of mankind's experience of the earth by synchronising different cultural-historical experiences, different modalities of reality apprehension, different historical structures and streams of consciousness (tribal, pre-modern, modern, postmodern reconciled in a "transmodern" or integral era). And only then can we speak authentically of a "Global Village" by creating the conditions for unanimity.
But the prospect for the integral era is crucially dependent also upon overcoming the current impasse partially represented by "Planck's Wall", which we've hit at light speed, to speak cryptically. I believe it can be accomplished, but not by relying exclusively on the methods imported from the past.
This prospect pertains to my conviction that the real problem of globalisation is one of time (and therefore of synchronisation) and not essentially of space (therefore, of coordination). The problem of the Planetary Era is that different histories are converging on the present, and we are tasked with making of these one cosmos. That may sound paradoxical, but it is more than amply exemplified in the Iraq War where tribal, pre-modern (religious) and modernist (secular) tendencies are in deep and seemingly intractable conflict with one another. This is the new crucible, and our human survival generally depends upon reconciling these different historical ways of being. "Globalisation" is the process of this convergence. But "globalism" would be the successful integration or synchronisation of these contradictions and apparent irreconcilables.
Unfortunately, the prospects for the near term do not look good for this, and it may well be catastrophic. There are enormous energies and forces at work which have escaped the leash. We are opening the gates of Hell pretty wide. I cannot help but be reminded of William Blake's mythic poem "The Four Zoas". Properly understood, it is prophetic. But, as in the poem, there are also hopeful elements.
(Ironic it is, too -- and perhaps deeply meaningful -- that a recently opened museum of modern science in Britain chose William Blake's caricature of Newton as Narcissus, absorbed in "single vision", as the model for a sculpture to adorn its entrance. Somebody there has a subtle sense for the ironic. It would be too terrible otherwise to think that it was entirely inadvertent and accidental! But I am becoming used to the "end of history" being but a synonymous term for "the end of lucidity" that I wouldn't be surprised).
By the way, the British Muslim intellectual Ziauddin Sardar beat me to the term "transmodernism" for this process of synchronising different histories and distemporaries (the basic idea was originally proposed by the "speech-thinker" Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy). I just finished reading his book "Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim", which I highly recommend for its insights into the present, especially into the disintegrate state of the Muslim Ummah and the ulema (the congress of Muslim scholars).
"The problem some people have in accepting the idea of consciousness as something separate from matter, I would speculate, is analogous the problem others have of conceptualising the Big Bang."
Matter just ain't what it used to be. It's more mysterious than ever. It can hardly be said to exist at all. How can people claim to be "materialists" still when matter has virtually vanished? It has been so thoroughly and completely analysed that it has practically evaporated.
It's a frequent complaint one encounters in reading the literature -- other branches of knowledge have yet to catch up to the implications of the quantum description of reality. Reality just ain't what it used to be. I believe it was Wheeler at Texas A & M who said that reality has become virtually indistinguishable from magic.
The times are out of joint.
"I strongly empathise with what you are saying but there is a sense in which ascribing such an anthropocentric meaning to the cosmos seems deeply counter-intuitive to me."
No need to be anthropocentric, or what's transhumanism for? We need to ask the question that Nietzsche (and Aurobindo) also put -- is it possible to transcend the limitations of the "anthropos" -- the human form (or the "all-too-human" form)? And I don't mean through "cyborgism" either, which is one current interpretation of "transhumanism" (but which I only consider post-humanism and post-biological, and therefore decadent -- contempt for the body as "meat"; loss of all sense of vitality and physiology). To give a succinct answer (rare for me I know): yes.
Boltonian sayeth: "I have asked people what they are reading at the moment, or have read recently."
There is so much for me to focus on that I tend to read books very slowly, here and there; it often takes a very long time now for me to finish even a very short book, even as the quantity of books started but unfinished grows ever larger.
I am in the last chapter of Gwendolyn Leick's Mesopotamia now, even though I've been recommending the book for some time.
I especially enjoyed the previous chapter on Ninevah (each chapter features an ancient city -- there are ten).
Will I next read Quantum Enigma by Rosenblum and Kuttner? Maybe, but I really should read the novel The Secret Magdalene by my friend Ki Longfellow first, now that the big publishing company version has come out. Ki started this long before Dan Brown became rich and famous, eventually self publishing, but lost money on every copy sold. Random House/Crown's purchase seemed a godsend at the time -- it's too bad they took so very long to bring out their version, tweaked and shortened a bit by Ki working with a senior editor, waiting until everyone was Dan Brown'd out.
Meanwhile, summer in Magnolia, the tiny peninsula north of Boston on which I live, always brings visitors.
This week two old friends -- one an amateur medium, the other a professional clairvoyant, visited, and I am still reeling, inwardly, from the visits, beyond having thoroughly enjoyed the pleasant company of two very different ladies, sharing meals, walks by the shore, conversation, and meditation.
I am left with some challenging questions to answer, but I intend to do so, in my own way:
o Was there ever a Count of St. Germain and, if so, what was his nature?
o Are there truly 'crystal arrays' housing unbelievable quantities of information in a distant past but still accessible now by those who were trained to do so long ago? (Are flash memory chips something of a recreation of this ancient technology?)
o What are the full personal implications of an impending decline -- in several senses of the word -- of the U.S. and global climate changes?
o To what extent (if any) is the personality of Elizabeth Tudor wrapped up what might be termed a "queenly archetype?"
o Is "the mark of the scorpion" not just the name of an old movie but also something found on a medieval ring worn by a member of some unknown secret society?
I can find no reason whatsoever to be bored by existence, but it would be nice to have a heckuva lot more time to do a number of things, including catching up on my reading.
Regards
Bill I.
SpaceP:
Thanks for the clarification - I couldn't find your original quote.
Longsword:
Your penultimate post I think was a response to me rather than dOm.
I am not an expert in communications, which is your subject, so you must forgive my ignorance. It is also late and I am getting a bit tired, so this will be a very incomplete response.
Yes, we can categorise speech as you suggest but we can also divide it otherwise - descriptive and narrative; personal and public; emotional and factual.
Categorisation is not a fact, merely a way of presenting things.
How can we take man without prejudices? how can we take anything thus? We are subjective beings and so biased by our own genetic inheritance and experience. We will each view aspects of humanity differently perforce.
Speaking, you say, affects the world. Every single action, thought or utterance affects the world. Every change, wherever and in whatever, will affect the world. This does not, of course, negate determinism. Entanglement is a macro as well as a quantum effect.
You mention reality and our effects thereon, without saying how either
we can know what it is as subjective beings, or whether it exists at all. QM has nothing to say about this at all. Interpretations of the experimental data vary and, in many cases, are contradictory. It seems to me that we are no further forward now, in this area, than the days of Bishop Berkeley and David Hume.
Time, as Einstein among others, have suggested might not exist independently of human thought. But, as we are human beings, it is difficult to understand the world without it. Like the wave - particle duality. That almost certainly does not exist, except as a metaphor to aid our understanding. So, I am not sure that your categorisation of potentiality and reality is anything more than a convenience. I don't think we really know what to make of the quantum world because we don't have the language or, possibly, the conceptual apparatus, to describe it.
You say that you would like to re-unite the term with the reality (as if there were a time when language accurately describes reality and was not a metaphor). What does this mean, exactly? You also say that all things are reality, which of course is true in the sense that all things are in a state of flux and impinge one on another.
You make a strong assertion that consciousness is not a personal possession but mind is. You will need to define these terms for me. Are you saying that consciousness is separate from mind, which again separate from the brain? Does consciousness exist independent of our existence? Do you think that mind exists independently of the brain? If so, what are its properties and what evidence can you produce?
You mention the restrictiveness of the scientific method but do not proffer alternatives - could you describe them?
I am not sure that, 'Perception is reality,' is such a bankrupt notion as you suggest. How do we access the objective world - it is something that philosophy and science has wrestled with since Thales was a lad?
I don't think most scientists confuse means with ends. Science is a method (means) and its findings merely staging posts (not ends).
Finally, 'Absurdism' is a perfectly respectable position to hold ( I am not an absurdist, by the way). For where is the evidence that the world has meaning? We impart meaning because it is we (not the world) that requires it.
Forgive me if I have misrepresented your thoughts - much to digest at such a late (for me) hour.
dOm:
Re-consciousness. I am not sure this will ever be solved. Even if we could reconstruct a human brain molecule by molecule how would we know that it was capable of conscious thought? (I think spacepenguin pointed this out some while ago)
Secondly, I think that our concept of matter is wrong, simply a metaphor for our convenience. We make the distinction between mind and matter, in other words. What are thoughts and dreams, for example - they cannot be measured as we would measure matter but they undoubtedly exist?
boltonian...
Apologies for mixing up posters.
"How can we take man without prejudices? how can we take anything thus?"
Quite simple. It's called disinterestedness, or simply "justice" (rather than pre-justice). It comes from cultivating a mood of equanimity, which is accepting the given world initially exactly as it presents itself to consciousness. One does not therefore "take" man so much as one allows man to first "present" himself. (my confessio... In secret I use the phrase "the gifted world and its presents" rather than "the given world and its presence" -- every "datum", every "given that..." belongs to a gift of knowledge. Without prejudice means only without expectation. For when you expect nothing from the world as an entitlement, reward, or right, then every datum great or small comes as a surprise, as a present, and as a gift merely for being unexpected. All this is subsumed in the attitude of "disinterestedness". And it is the only proper attitude for any man or woman whose goal is scientia. There is not a great deal of difference between Buddhist mindfulness, Christian attentiveness, or scientific disinterestedness. All express, more generally, a concern with justice).
"Yes, we can categorise speech as you suggest but we can also divide it otherwise - descriptive and narrative; personal and public; emotional and factual. Categorisation is not a fact, merely a way of presenting things."
We must make a distinction here between speech as this performance of categorising, arranging, distributing on the one hand, and the categorising of speech acts into tenses, names, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives, phonemes, morphemes, sememes, or epics, analytics, lyrics, dramatics, etc. For in the latter case, speech becomes the object of attention itself, whereas when we speak we usually don't pay attention to grammatical categories and how we knit these together articulately and coherently to form a meaningful whole. In the one instance, we are in the magic circle of speech and its power. In the second instance, we become aware of speech, and in penetrating the meaning of speech, grammar, etc, we free ourselves from any temptation to confuse word and thing, the symbol and the symbolised. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free" is never truer than when we take speech as an object of meditation and experimentation in its own right, deliberately and intentionally testing its power and its weakness.
This simple example even demonstrates the latent transcendental possibilities of consciousness. When we speak, we are almost wholly unconscious of the field of force which is language. We are in the grips of the power of the written or spoken word. Grammar has a close connection with "grammarye" -- a magic spell. (In Latin, the word for magic spell is "fascinum" -- the binding power, which is related to both "fascination," or course, but also "fascism"). To become conscious of language is to become conscious of the possibilities of speech as the binding power (or what Blake called "the mind-forg'd manacles"). But just as psychoanalytic insight into the unconscious compulsion of the complex frees the mind from compulsion, insight into speech frees the mind from the fetters of a merely grammatical interpretation of fundamental reality. We live in a semantic sea, a matrix field in which we make up our minds or lose our minds. The fascinum of propaganda demonstrates every day that our unconsciousness of this matrix semantic order has dire consequences. We therefore have the choice to become masters of meaning or slaves to it. Only a hair separates the false from the true, as Omar Khayyam put it. And the difference between unconsciousness and consciousness of a process has everything to do with the possibility of human beings acting freely or slavishly. Mastery (or what the Buddha called "skillful" versus "unskillful") is only another word for consciousness. Slavery is only another word for unconsciousness. Consciousness makes the difference between *being* selected as an element of chance and accident, or being a principle of selection and determinant oneself by acting by choice from one's own inner core.
Historically, men eventually revolt against being categorised. And those who do the categorisation will inevitably swing from the lamp-posts.
A warning to the intellectuals.
boltonian...
(Didn't want to aggregate all my responses to your post in one long one)
"Speaking, you say, affects the world. Every single action, thought or utterance affects the world. Every change, wherever and in whatever, will affect the world. This does not, of course, negate determinism. Entanglement is a macro as well as a quantum effect."
If everything is connected to everything else, instantaneously, synchronistically, indifferent to distance or interval, then it makes little sense to speak of determinism at all. If we credit Bohm that primary reality is "wholeness in flowing movement" then this very wholeness makes distance and interval irrelevant. Determinism has no place where every cause is simultaneously an effect and every effect is instantaneously a cause. "Determinism" is simply the mind's necessity to sequence things in succession, as if it reads the cosmos as if in a book. As my Sioux friends say, "Mitake Oyasin" -- we are all related. By which "we" is meant all that is -- rocks, trees, humans, animals, plants, mountains, clouds, stars, etc, etc. Same consciousness as Bohm. The issue of "entanglement" ultimately defies any resort to the notion of determinism. Determinism becomes an obsolete "fact" or category of reference. It is transcended and replaced by mutuality.
"You mention reality and our effects thereon, without saying how either
we can know what it is as subjective beings, or whether it exists at all. QM has nothing to say about this at all. Interpretations of the experimental data vary and, in many cases, are contradictory. It seems to me that we are no further forward now, in this area, than the days of Bishop Berkeley and David Hume."
Not really sure that I understand the gist of this question, but I'll have a go. We are certainly more ahead of Berkley and Hume. Berkley and Hume merely assumed that in a world divided inexorably between subject and object spaces, one had to be true and the other less so, or outright false. This is not the case today. We face the paradox, as Bohr put it, that the opposite of one great truth is not a falsehood, but quite likely another great truth.
"Time, as Einstein among others, have suggested might not exist independently of human thought."
Einstein is in error. We experience the force of time directly in our mortal bodies, as the transition from birth to death. There is nothing unreal about death. The reason Einstein became confused about time is that he tried to make it a dimension of space -- a "fourth" dimension augmenting the three dimensions of space. Time is not this at all. Time is mortality and the entropic force. Time as Einstein treated it is an abstraction.
"You say that you would like to re-unite the term with the reality (as if there were a time when language accurately describes reality and was not a metaphor)"
Description was never, initially, the motive for the development of speech. It was to call upon the aid of the ancestors or to summon the help of the gods. Magic and myth are not primitive attempts to explain the world, but to summon the powers of earth and sky. Most of words for "things" were originally names of beings. "Tree" was not a description, but a summons -- the name of the being "Tree". "Facts", as I noted earlier, were never considered normal in the sense of being normative for human conduct. Ancient man did not live between the categories "subject" and "object", but between the vocation and the profession -- between call and response, imperative (dramatical) and narrative (epical) orders. These are the poles of time, not space. And the very first imperative order is "Live!" which ancient man experienced in his being as a divine commandment, therefore not as a push from behind (a so-called "drive"), but as a call from the future -- the very meaning of vocation. Until the Modern Era reverse the order of times, God was always considered to be in the future, waiting for Man to catch up and keep his appointment. The relationship of "vocation-profession" or call and response is the relationship of future to past.
Man is drawn towards the future by imperatives issued in the past. Buddha, Christ, Lao-Tze or Mohammed, etc are not men of the past, but of the future because we have not yet caught up with their consciousness. They continue to draw others towards them because they are the future and not the past. It is really the height of post-modernist stupidity to suggest that religion is the result of a "God gene". Religion persists as long as men feel called to catch up with the consciousness of a Buddha, or a Christ, or a Lao-Tze.
The progressive dynamic of the West until today (for it is now exhausted) was not the push from behind, but the sense that men had an appointment with divine destiny not yet kept -- to answer the call and the vocation. But now that the fashion is to declare history meaningless and without purpose, or that we have reached "the end of history", "the end of faith", "the end of democracy" ,etc, etc, it attests to no more than the West has exhausted its reason for being, that its original inspiration is expired, that even its ambitions for freedom, or the integral theory, etc are frustrated, that it has no future since it no longer responds or knows how to respond to the call and the vocation. This is its nihilism. Western man, once the locus of determination inasmuch as he was determined to reach the future to which he felt called, has suddenly, in a grand reversal, resigned himself to being the determined. This resignation, this fatalism, this surrender to necessity, and the exhaustion of imagination, is truly his "end of history".
The West is finished and the Modern Era is over. It now sings its swan song.
"Are you saying that consciousness is separate from mind, which again separate from the brain?"
No... and yes. Every cell in your body is conscious. Why do you restrict this consciousness to your brain alone? Your whole body is an expression of consciousness. The Egyptians held that the heart was the seat of consciousness. The pre-Hellenic Greeks at one time believed that the knees were the seat of consciousness (later it migrated to the blood). Each of these is completely reasonable (and true if you don't accept that consciousness is exclusively expressed through one organ of the body). That the modern man identifies his brain with consciousness is, in historical terms, completely aberrant. In the past, men knew that consciousness was expressed throughout the entire body. And because man historically held that consciousness was expressed throughout the body, he (quite literally) had more "sense" than the modern who willfully isolates his consciousness within Plato's Cave again -- the cavern of his skull.
"You mention the restrictiveness of the scientific method but do not proffer alternatives - could you describe them?"
One should bear in mind Nietzsche's dictum -- "the will to a system is a lack of integrity". If we accept that as a precept, then it is precisely our will to a system that prevents us from reaching the integral theory (otherwise known in history as Logos, Elixir, Holy Grail, Dharma, Tao, Philosopher's Stone, The Word, etc). Really, human beings have always and everywhere been concerned to identify the "one needful thing" and ground of being, the quintessence that would account for the unity and integrity of the cosmos. The task, as I have repeatedly suggested, is to examine these and to integrate them, for each period of human history offers a vital clue to the whole. Human history may be a jig-saw puzzle, but the pieces fit.
"I am not sure that, 'Perception is reality,' is such a bankrupt notion as you suggest. How do we access the objective world - it is something that philosophy and science has wrestled with since Thales was a lad?"
The slogan "perception is reality" omits from reality the function and activity of conception. Yet the conceptual faculty was was the privileged faculty at the beginning of the Modern Era. The slogan "knowledge is power" stands near the beginning of the modern era and emphasises conception. "Perception is reality" represents an historic reversal of this dynamic. What is the relationship between concept and percept then? And how is it that precisely at "the end of history" the concept has disappeared from reality at even the same time when people are announcing "the closing of the Western Mind", "the culture of narcissism", etc? These are all connected. To say that "perception is reality" is to say that perception is truth. Reality is not dependent upon us for its existence.
The faith of the founders of the Modern Era was that true reality could be known through the concept, not the percept. "Perception is reality" dramatically reverses this (like so much else that represents reversal today as object evidence of Heraclitus' enantiodromia). The disappearance of conception from reality may even have a connection with Paul Hawken's "the death of birth". And in fact Fukuyama justified his celebrated "end of history" thesis solely on the basis that we could not imagine a future sigificantly better than the present. One asks, is it possible that we are in the era of Nietzsche's decadent Last Man who can no longer conceive or desire beyond himself and who therefore cannot pass over the bridge to the future?
"I don't think most scientists confuse means with ends. Science is a method (means) and its findings merely staging posts (not ends)."
All means are bridges. All meaning is also means as bridge and arch. The technological society produces means (media) in abundance, but it no longer knows why it does so or to what purpose or end. The creation of means for their own sake becomes tautology, and it is not coincidental that the LSE's John Gray now concludes that really time is cyclic and that progress is an illusion, or that Fukuyama declares the end of history because there is no goal or appointment to keep. It is precisely because means have become ends that history stands still and becomes a circle once again.
At the CiF, the poster known as Simplicius, who described himself as a theoretical physicist, confessed that the guiding imperative of physics today is "shut up and calculate". Very revealing. Any computer can calculate. But it cannot conceive, imagine, nor create.
"Finally, 'Absurdism' is a perfectly respectable position to hold ( I am not an absurdist, by the way). For where is the evidence that the world has meaning? We impart meaning because it is we (not the world) that requires it."
The absurd is the abyss. The definition of absurd is "opposed to reason or truth; irrational; ridiculous". Are you certain you want to call this a "respectable position to hold"? It belongs to nihilism and the anti-biotic (as opposed to the pro-biotic). One may recognise that the present circumstances are absurd without endorsing absurdity.
I reiterate my question. How can anyone say that life, the universe and everything is meaningless and expect that statement to be meaningful? Only someone who no longer feels part of reality, does not include himself or herself in the real world, but stands apart from it at an abstracted distance -- in the mind alone, and the mind fully alienated from the cosmos it merely surveys from afar -- the perspective attitude, in fact.
But perspectivism is breaking down into perplexity, paradox and confusion and self-devouring tautology.
boltonian...
"Every change, wherever and in whatever, will affect the world. This does not, of course, negate determinism. Entanglement is a macro as well as a quantum effect."
Oh yes, it occurred to me just as I posted that "deterministic" has actually be superseded by "probablistic".
Longsword:
There is lots here to think about and I would like to get others' views but there are are a couple of issues I would like to comment on.
Whether non-locality supersedes cause and effect or not it has no effect on determinism. Nor does the probabilistic nature of quantum effects; it merely pushes it back. If all entities obey strict laws, whether they are entangled or not, determinism is more likely to be the case than not.
If by conscious we mean self-aware, what evidence do you have for supposing it exists at the cellular rather than the organisational level? Everything we understand about the world is mediated in the brain.
How can we be disinterested as individuals? Science is (supposedly) disinterested but scientists certainly not. Even science is subject to group-think and breakthroughs often need to wait for the next generation to emerge.
Time. The past exists as an approximate, fallible and fluid memory (six historians in a room will all disagree about what really happened last week, never mind hundreds of years ago) in the brain, the future has not happened and the present assumes an instant which is neither past nor present. If things happen instantaneously and it is we that imposes cause and effect what role can time play?
Your hypothesis about the origins of language is one that I have not heard before (although it is not my field of expertise) - do you have supporting evidence?
You sound very pessimistic about where we have got to. I would suggest that there are those in every age who say that earlier generations were wiser than us and it is all downhill from here.
Re-simpliscius' point. Yes but there are also the iconoclasts like Smolin, Laughlin and others who will not do as they are told. 'Twas ever thus. The majority conform and will not rock the boat but there is always a risk-taking minority from where leaps of knowledge emerge.
As I said earlier this sort of argument largely depends on one's temperament rather than evidence. I am optimistic by nature.
You seem to be saying that 'Absurdism' cannot be right because you don't want it to be right. Well, neither do I but that is not the same as refuting it.
'Perception is reality,' does mean the same as 'Perception is truth,' to me. It means that everything comes to us through our senses and is mediated in the brain - our perceptive apparatus gives us our view of the world. It does not mean that we can access reality this way - in fact it means almost the opposite of that.
'But perspectivism is breaking down into perplexity, paradox and confusion and self-devouring tautology.'
I am not sure what you mean here. Do you mean that we no longer accept the certainties of faith-based religions as truths any more? If so, I would agree with you but I do not regard that as a bad thing. We do live in a perplexing and paradoxical world because we know so little about it. Therein lies its endless fascination for me. I do not know what 'Self-devouring tautology means.'
Sorry if that's a bit all over the place but like dOm I have some deadlines approaching. By the way, dOm - I hope your editor was impressed by your copy and perfect sense of timing. :-)
'Perception is reality,' does mean the same as 'Perception is truth,' to me.
Should have read: '... does NOT mean the same...'
Some excellent stuff here, and there are a few points I wish to raise, but as I'm still hideously behind on my deadlines they may have to wait a couple of days. However, just one pont ...
Biskieboo:
"It saddens me that whenever I mention something really interesting such as the dream that I had, it is totally ignored."
I would like to know a bit more about your dream and also of how different people experience dreams and sleeping.
As a deep sleeper, I normally just black out and very rarely remember my dreams. However, a few times whilst stoned I have gone to bed meditating and got into a state where I slept whilst remaining aware - once even going through REM (I could feel my eyes jumping around) while consciously of the whole thing.
Anyway, it occurs to me that this might be how "light sleepers" frequently experience sleep, or at least stages of the sleep cycle.
Last night I managed to get in this state for the first time while not stoned (though by the REM stage I was properly slumbering). I wanted to try and somehow access my dreams, but remained at the stage of enjoying the pretty patterns.
I know of the concept of "lucid dreaming" - when you know you are dreaming and can control what happens - which I rarely but occasionally experienced even before I heard of it. How much is dreaming an active and how much a passive process?
Does anyone have any experience of this?
I regret that I don't have time to enter into all the fascinating discussions that have sprung up. Hope to at some point.
DaddyOMarcos - hope deadline stress has not been too much. (What's your article on?). Thanks for your reply. I don't have time for a wholly adequate or satisfactory response. Some thoughts, though.
On the clarification (i.e. we each communicate to ourselves, there is something irreducibly individual about all of this etc). I am not denying the 'incommunicable' dimensions of our subjective existence. You could try as you like, but there would always be something irreducibly mine about my experience of the world. Sure. But, part of our thinking depends on - perhaps presupposes - others, and I wonder to what extent our thinking, our communication (even to ourselves) necessarily reflects an outside, more 'communal' dimension. There is a sense in which our development depends on others to bring out (and, in some ways, shape) our selves: babies need, usually, their parents to learn, eventually, about their own existence as selves, as well as their parents' (and others') existence as selves, as 'Is' in their own right. Moreover, language - through which we communicate to ourselves among other things - has a radically non-individual dimension. It offers a shared, though not static set of communicative, interpretative tools and schemes. Thus, even when communicating to ourselves (and even if we try to do it like Descartes) I'd speculate that there are always inescapable 'footprints' (if you like) of others.
To go to the beetle example - again, I stress the poverty of my speculative powers on this. There is a plausible (though speculative) possibility of some sort of primordial familiarity insofar as (we assume) a beetle does experience and engage with the world from a, in some parts, irreducibly 'subjective' perspective: to use the word again, perhaps there is something ineffable and incommunicable about it (though this creates more headaches for our thought experiment!). At the same time, there is nothing about a beetle's (or, to revisit a previous example, the insect I christened Sufjan some time back) behaviour that suggests to me that it could quite consider itself an 'I' in the way we (presumably) do.
Perhaps I might agree with you, then, that "it is from this primordial awareness that self-awareness stems". But self-awareness (poorly or not really defined, I admit) while ontologically(?) dependent on this posited primordial awareness, does still seem different from - or to transcend - it in some ways.
What you say on abstract thought, subjective running commentary and instinctual social historiography(!) is v interesting, and I fear I won't do it justice. I agree that it seems plausible, in some ways, to think of this subjective (by which, incidentally, I mean no more than pertaining to us as subjects, as 'Is', rather than the more epistemological sense in which it is often used) running commentary as 'communicating to ourselves'. I don't deny that we do this but - as I tried to argue above - this self-communication does still contain "shadows" of others. I am still a bit unclear on quite what you mean about 'modal logic etc' as 'instinctual'. (Sorry). If you mean something along the lines of it pertains to the kind of beings we seem to be, relates to our self-communication etc, then sure.
I guess the sense in which I meant that 'modal logic' etc seem to me to be distinctly non-instinctual is when one attempts to explain (away) such practices in mechanistic terms (in terms of efficient causation): (i.e. here I mean instinct in the way one says that Sufjan has an 'instinct' to do whatever it is his weird species of insect do - eat smaller ones and reproduce etc). This just doesn't make much sense to me. To give an example: when Saul Kripke raises the possibility of a posteriori necessities (i.e. things that are necessarily true but can only be known after the fact, as it were, incidentally one of the few Kripkean ideas I can honestly say I feel I grasp soundly), can this (his conclusions and also his route to those conclusions as expressed in a paper/book) be understood in terms of instinct (in the sort of sense given above)? I can't quite see how. I would defend charges that I don't have the imagination to work out the complicated chain of cause and effect (as understood in a particular way, i.e. efficient causation). I mean that however long one makes this chain, it doesn't seems to work (or be the whole story) in terms of what Kripke is doing. I hope this is half-clear (even if it may be whole-wrong).
Finally, you wrote, "Yes [there is something distinctive about our capacity for abstract thought] in that only we are capable of abstract thought, no in that it stems from something more fundamental that we share with other animals."
I am not averse to understanding ourselves as animals. But, we do seem to be unique animals, as I said above, in terms of being able to represent reality to ourselves and others. I guess our sharing something fundamental with other animals refers back to your posited primordial awareness point, to which I am partly sympathetic. Yet, overwhelmingly, we appear to be capable to represent the world (to ponder the capacity of other animals to do this) in a way that these other animals do not. We share with them important ontological dependencies on certain things for our very existence. Yet, we do, to my mind, have something rather strange about us: namely, this latent rational capacity which we actualise to varying degrees (and which depends on a certain interpersonal communion - c.f. the child raised by wolves example someone gave above), which (I'll stick my head out) does not seem to be qualitatively shared with other animals. And a large part of this is stems from our language (and capacity as language users), bearing in mind that while other animals clearly have languages and communicative schemes, none of them seem to have, as far as we can tell, representational qualities in the ways ours do.
Hope to continue this discussion, DaddyO, though please do fulfil your more pressing obligations first.
Sorry. zubin (not mehta) = ChooChoo. I guess this propounds the question of what to write for the name next time. I hope I will be forgiven for sticking to ChooChoo, simply because this is how new participants from CiF etc might have come across me.
By the way, have started Paul Davies' Goldilock's Enigma following recommendations here and elsewhere. V interesting hitherto. Though, I fear that I underestimated how little I concentrated in GCSE physics: I am still slightly at a loss (or half in the dark) over space-as-flat etc. I guess that intuitively a layman (or an ignorant one like me) immediately pictures the big bang as a something which 'explodes' outwards as an ever enlarging sphere, while also realising that this seems to be wrong. Is the point that there is no 'bird's-eye', third person view outside the box, as it were, to see the 'shape' of the universe from 'outside'? (And this whole point about space-time being curved?). Any quick clarifications much appreciated.
ChooChoo:
I thought I recognised Zubin's style.
I would stick with ChooChoo, though, as that is how the world at large knows and loves you. Names are sacred, as the ancients knew, and not lightly to be cast aside like a worn out jockstrap.
Interesting post and, if I get the chance I might butt in later, if I may.
ChooChoo: I hope this helps....
The universe's form, I feel
Is something like an orange peel.
From inside, all seems made of pith
(At least, that's one creation myth.)
The view from outside? Not a clue!
It could be orange, pink or blue:
Perhaps we'll find out when we die
What meets the orange-peeler's eye....
ChooChoo writes: "On the clarification (i.e. we each communicate to ourselves, there is something irreducibly individual about all of this etc). I am not denying the 'incommunicable' dimensions of our subjective existence. You could try as you like, but there would always be something irreducibly mine about my experience of the world."
My understanding is that the physical world you perceive (some would say create) is literally yours alone.
Obviously it shares a great many features of those worlds others create and there must be some means of reaching agreement on the details, the parameters, of shared features.
I suggest this is accomplished by means other than spoken language and largely unconsciously.
"..But, part of our thinking depends on - perhaps presupposes - others, and I wonder to what extent our thinking, our communication (even to ourselves) necessarily reflects an outside, more 'communal' dimension. There is a sense in which our development depends on others to bring out (and, in some ways, shape) our selves: babies need, usually, their parents to learn, eventually, about their own existence as selves, as well as their parents' (and others') existence as selves, as 'Is' in their own right. Moreover, language - through which we communicate to ourselves among other things - has a radically non-individual dimension. It offers a shared, though not static set of communicative, interpretative tools and schemes. Thus, even when communicating to ourselves (and even if we try to do it like Descartes) I'd speculate that there are always inescapable 'footprints' (if you like) of others."
For many years I have accepted the existence of telepathy -- this would seem to be happening nearly continuously and is likely to be the means I write of above but, again, this is largely below or beneath conscious awareness. We can become somewhat consciously aware of it, however, beyond those odd moments when we happen to notice it (often during an intimate relationship; consider, too, the intimacy of a child in the womb, something we have all experienced, of course).
A great many of my friends and associates take this for granted, as I do; I sometimes forget how this is a strange and even impossible notion for others, however.
I don't claim to be a master of conscious telepathy; happening to occasionally notice its existence is quite different.
Testing its validity (as opposed to assuming I am merely "hearing voices") has been much easier to accomplish owing to the rise of the Internet, but I became aware of non-physical communication long before this, in dreams.
An example would be the dreams of a friend, a woman who lived several hundred miles away and was an enthusiast of Freudian psychoanalysis, which includes dream recall.
She would recall a dream in which I provided details of my life for her analysis and include this in a letter to me.
The details were quite accurate, but I had not communicated them to her by any physical means.
It's apparent to me that we are thoroughly connected to all others beneath our conscious minds (and our beliefs in our discreteness) -- that connection is telepathic in nature. (What other word do we have to describe this?)
This kind of unofficial awareness, shared by a great many, suggests to me that we live in what in certain ways is a very primitive civilization, despite its sophistication in material directions, a civilization wherein very basic and natural realities are occluded from our awareness owing to the way we have been trained -- from a very early age -- to focus.
The focus is on what is "outside" and/or "objective" -- the sensory world, while the selves we develop tend to spend so much time thinking -- that is, engaged in conscious mentation (not true for everyone, of course) -- that all kinds of other processes are missed or simply not noticed, including telepathic communication.
(I view the increasing global electronic communications as symbolizing the inner 'network' -- an exteriorization.)
It has long seemed to me that this kind of awareness (and I am not very special in this way; owing to my friendships and long Internet activities I know that a great many share a version of it) turns _almost_ all established religions, philosophies, and scientific understandings on their heads -- makes _almost_ all of them largely useless in terms of achieving any successful overall understanding of the nature of reality.
They are the understandings of a particular kind of limited egoic consciousness (with certain major exceptions found here and there, of course).
As more partake of a different and expanded experience, this must change (and is changing, so far as I can determine).
As I've posted on CiF, "Meditation" is a word that describes an activity -- however poorly and however rife with the assumptions and beliefs of endless traditions -- that can enable an expanded experience wherein such things as telepathy (and much else) become consciously accessible.
The question of where to go with any of this is a large one, one that frequently preoccupies me when I am not engaged in other activities (including working, of course; I am not independently wealthy).
Regards
Bill I.
Clarification for ChooChoo, part 2 : The Big Bang....
Mankind lacks imagination,
Cannot see that pi's and sigma's
Show primeval eructation
Born from cosmic borborygmus.
He prefers the idea sceptic
(Thinking otherwise is tough).
Time and space were once dyspeptic
The Big Bang's just a load of guff....
boltonian...
I want to omit responding for the moment to some of the objections you raised in your last post in order to focus on what is, perhaps, the most salient and foundational of them, which is the teaching of "perception is reality". It would seem that we cannot advance our understanding without resolving the relationship between perception and percept as these bear on the determination of fundamental reality (or, as is otherwise said, "the foundations of the world"). For basically, it is a controversy over the meaning of "understanding" itself in the sense that the root meaning of per-ception (cipere) means "to grasp". So, we address what it means to "grasp" before we interrogate "reality" as to its existence or meaning.
(And it might be fun and illuminating to compare the religious imagination's conception of the "foundations of the world" to the secular imagination's understanding of "fundamental reality" at some point. I don't think they are as wide apart as most people think).
The doctrine of "perception is reality" makes the act of perception constitutive of the reality it perceives, and therefore makes the human organisation (the organic apparatus) wholly determinative of the reality it observes. Reality (the "res") is not essentially a system of things or objects here. Rather it is defined as a system of percepts where even "objective" and "object" and "thing" are conditional upon perception. But immediately we are faced with a problem of interpretation and comprehension.
"Per-ception" means "to grasp through", attesting to the primary reliance upon the sensual array (the "doors of perception" in Blake's terms) for grasping. The word therefore establishes, in advance, an assumed determinant relationship between mind (the grasping thing, the res cogitans) and world exclusively mediated by the sensual array, which is invested now with definitive authority for truth, which far from solving perplexing issues of knowledge becomes generative of more of them.
In any event, I am here reminded of a passage from Goethe's Faust which seems apropos to the moment.
Two souls reside, alas, within my breast,
And each one from the other would be parted.
The one holds fast, in sturdy lust for love,
With clutching organs clinging to the world;
The other strongly rises from the gloom
To lofty fields of ancient heritage."
I will return, perhaps, to this since it is Goethe's judgement that it is precisely perception (where "clinging organs" invokes the act of grasping) that is "the gloom" which requires the penetrating illumination of insight rather than perception. And, of course, there is a great deal of difference between sight and insight where, like Goethe's "two souls" also, "vision" has a double meaning.
"Perception is reality" doesn't have much to say about the existence or non-existence of the perceiver, unless we grant that the perceiver is itself a percept -- a self-image without a self in the act of grasping itself. But then we end up in a kind of house of mirrors that I have referred to as "self-devouring tautology", but which exactly describes the situation Narcissus was in in the myth of Narcissus and Echo which, I hold, is the situation into which a consciousness circumscribed by the sensorium must descend if "perception is reality" is granted.
When we return to the act of "grasping" as the dynamic of mind in its quest for understanding (and as to the meaning of "under-standing", more anon), we find articulated not just "perception", but also inception, exception, reception, transception, conception all of which surely belong to its reality as well. Yet "perception is reality" makes sweeping claims which omit by establishment all these other directions in which mind moves dynamically in order to get "the whole picture" as it were -- by which it attempts to embrace the whole via its particulars. "Ex-" (out, outwards), Re- (backwards), In- (in, inwards), trans- (across, over), con - (all together, with), as well as "per-" (through). There is also "pre-cept" (in the form of belief) which legislates the act of perception in advance and judges the legitimacy or illegitimacy of of percept, just as logic legislates conception and sits in judgement of the truth or falsehood of a concept.
This directionality in the act of mind, in which our consciousness attempts to surround a percept and interrogate it as to its validity and truth, demonstrates in what way consciousness implicitly understands reality as a cosmos comprised of four (and not two) fields of reality -- backwards and forwards in time; inwards and outwards in space. For a something to be real or become realised, it must "take time" in order to "take place" at all. So that in order for any "thing" to become a percept at all, it must first have passed through progressive stages of realisation before it is realised as a "fact", that is, as something really real, occupying time and space.
This phasic process in which things eventuate and become reified as "fact" (the "made" thing), that is that they must take time in order to take place at all, is omitted completely by the doctrine "perception is reality". "Real" are also all the stages leading up to the construction of the percept. Or, as William Blake once put it, "what is now prov'd was once only imagined", which slides into Einstein's judgement that imagination is more important than knowledge, or at least has priority in the order of realisation in which things must first take time in order to take place.
We see, therefore, and quite despite ourselves, that consciousness regardless of our minds or our clarity about the process, holds us to a proper order of realisation, in which it establishes and interrogates any process as to its history and future prospects, as well as its relation to the spaces, its inwardness and outward aspects. In the various articulations of "grasping", consciousness reaches backwards, forwards, inwards, and outwards in order to surround the process as a whole. And it is only in the very last stage of realisation (as a percept, as a "fact", in the indicative form of "it is...") that the process stops and the "thing" now takes its place as a "fact" amongst the system of objects, or the system of percepts as the case may be. The relationship of "potens" to "actus" is only the consciousness that things must take time in order to take place at all.
As to the doctrine "perception is reality", the founders of the Age of Reason would probably be astonished at this outcome and conclusion. For them, it was precisely the percept that had to be arrested, put on trial and tested by a judge and jury as to its truthfulness. The percept had to be tried against the concept, and it was the concept, and not the percept, that was the final authority for the truth and reality of the percept, for the percept was the particular instance, while the concept pertained to the universal.
So why has the teaching of "perception is reality" taken root if not because it is a conclusion completely adapted to the new mediated environment in which the modern mind finds itself ensconced like a fish in water? The "mediated environment", which is the technological society, exists precisely because all means have been transformed into ends in themselves, just as all use values have been translated into exchange values. And just as all ends have disappeared, so has man lost determination himself. For what need has man of determination if he is at the end of history? He relaxes his vigilance. He extinguishes his passion. And having become the spitting image of Nietzsche's Last Man at the "end of history" determination now passes to things outside and external to his life -- the percepts, which things and processes are now seen as intending him as means, agency, function rather than himself being the seat of intention and a volunteer or a founder, or an originator.
The echo overtakes the voice. The founders of the Age of Reason, who largely believed in the possibility of the "infinite perfectibility of man" and "the truth that sets free" (a very Christian impulse) would be aghast at this apparent reversal. And so aghast was Nietzsche, in fact, that he had to restore the Christic impulse to history, the vocation, and the sense of appointment by re-introducing the transhuman (a far better translation of uebermensch than "superman" or even overman) as the continuing narrative of Western man's effort to fulfill the imperative "be thou therefore perfect, even as thy Father in Heaven...". And when Nietzsche responded to the death (ie, "murder" as he put it) of God, it was in affirmative response to that imperative, in answering "if god is dead, then must we not now become God ourselves?" But that is only the continuation of the Christic impulse in time.
But, to return to under-standing, as promised. It is a peculiar word. Just what is it that, when we "know", we stand under or beneath? In German, "verstehen" also draws a relationship of understanding to something above and beyond us. The irony is that the polar counterpart to "understanding" is actually the word "superstition" (super-stare, to "stand over").
Longsword:
Many thanks.
I would like others to comment son your various posts before I come back.
I will restrict myself to one observation. I have noticed in many of your posts that you set great store by word analysis and taking them back to their root derivation. Although not my subject I am fascinated by etymology; a philologist friend made some now accepted breakthroughs in the understanding of Uralian languages, which helped to identify previously unknown population movements. But I am not sure that people use words in that way. At least I don't. Words change their meaning quite quickly and sometimes now mean the opposite of what they meant originally.
Also, I cannot know what you mean by a certain word - I can only relate it to my own experiences and by a sub-conscious process of elimination arrive at what I think is the nearest approximation. This is why understanding (however the word is derived) is so very difficult and often not achieved at all.
Bill:
At some fundamental level I think everything, whatever that might be, is part of everything else. whether this explains telepathy, I am not sure. Identical twins often experience it but I am not sure of other research into the matter.
dOm:
Dreams. I have dreams where I wake, whilst still dreaming, and if it is pleasant feel I can continue the dream, as if manipulating it. If it is unpleasant one of two things happens; either I wake myself up or I think I am awake when I am not. The latter is not a nice feeling but it is, thankfully, rare.
I was interrupted before completing my last post, which I'ld like to resume here. But not exactly at the point where I broke off -- the relationship of understanding to "superstition".
The teaching of "perception is reality" necessitates the elimination of any One World hypothesis. Human perception is not at all uniform or homegenous. Any percept has particular and individual aspects which, the early founders of the Age of Reason understood, had to be refined and purified of its conditional, quirky, individualistic aspects by reference to a universal -- the concept.
Not all percepts are the same, nor is the mode of perception universal at all, even amongst human groups. The mode of Western Man's perception of reality is perspectivally conditioned. Since the Renaissance, a regime has been imposed on the act of perception which translates all percepts into perspective terms. Not only did this regimen shift the principal organ of knowing from the ear to the eye (as per Marshall McLuhan and his teacher Harold Innis in The Bias of Communication) but it also shifted consciousness from a focus on time and becoming to a focus on space and being. For us, just as the rules of logic govern the process of reason and specify its propriety or impropriety, so the rules of perspective came to govern and inform the act of perception, with as much moral content as rationalism. When we tell somebody to "keep things in perspective", that is a moral imperative and commandment. But it is useless to tell this to someone who has no knowledge of perspective at all.
Perspective perception is not natural. Spinoza probably could not have taught his "ethica more geometrico" except under the impress of perspectivism. Nor could Galileo have conceived of "ideal space" except perspectivally. And it is of significance that Galileo, before he turned his attention to science, applied to teach the still new discpline of perspectivism at the University of Florence (he didn't get the position).
Grayling, in his article that started all this, commented that the "ratio" that informs rationality is based on a proportionate and measured array of argument and evidence (elements which make for the understanding of "justice" as ad-justing, balance, proportion, measure). That is not the case, really. The "ratio" that informs Modern Man's rationality is based on the ratio of a "holy trinity" of spaces -- length, breadth, depth. This does not come natural to perception, but is learned as is completely observable in the drawings of children and by comparing art forms of different cultures and across different historical epochs.
Albrecht Duerer invented what I consider the archetypal technology of the Modern Era. It was simply frame with a grid array that sectoralised and analysed the whole into particulars -- allotment of space, as it were. Significantly, he called it "lucinda" (meaning "enlightening") meaning that consciousness penetrates into space and takes command of its depth for the first time. (An image of this lucinda is located at http://art3idea.psu.edu/einsof/lusitania/default.html)
This sectoralising "grid" which takes the whole and particularises it, became the basic form for the legislation of perception and the true organisation of space, which has shaped how we construct our cities, our relations, our networks, and how we organise people into nation-states, etc. The device was widely copied and used in the early Renaissance for exactly the purpose of training perception in perspective viewing as a road to the mastery of space conceived in three-dimensions.
Not only did perspectivism specify the parameters of proper perception, it also specified what the moral parameters would be for the conduct of human behaviour. "Keep things in perspective", the sanctity of the individual with his "point of view" are scarcely concievable as moral precepts to a people to whom perspective is unknown (the Muslims rejected perspectivism as "competing with God" or as belonging to the father of lies insofar as the representation of the illusion of depth and trompe l'oeil (fooling the eye) upon a two-dimensional surface suggested falsification). Over the last 500 years, our understanding of reality has been couched in terms of the perspectival. Some common complaints about Western Man's "aloofness" actually stems from the entrenched perspective habit of "standing back in order to get the whole picture" now entertained as an habitual moral parameter of conduct.
Our consciousness is structured perspectivally, which makes it damnably difficult for us to understand time except as an analogue to space. Time is measured as space is measured -- seconds, hours, minutes are like atoms and molecules of time. We take "the long view" or "the short view" on the assumption that the logic of perspective applies equally well to time as it does to space. But other peoples do not experience time in this way. And it is my contention that many of the paradoxes and ambiguities of the quantum are the result of trying to apply perspective perception, with its presumption of ideal space organised in three dimensions as the essence of the true ratio, where it is inapplicable.
If da Vinci represents the prototype of the Modern Man, Picasso represents the end of that type as ideal, and as worthy of emulation. da Vinci was held up as the perfect Renaissance man, made in the image of Universal Reason. Picasso abolishes perspective altogether as an unwarranted limitation and restriction on perception. In his art, the whole becomes presence as a whole. Past and future states are both represented as well in the present. The snapshot or photographic effect is eliminated, so that a painting will depict the different moods of light, morning, noon, afternoon, evening just exactly as they were present at the time of painting. This all-at-onceness highlights, more than anything, the shift of attention towards time and timing rather than the proper perspectival treatment of space. It represents consciousness stretching towards the global or holistic.
This was already anticipated in advance by Nietzsche, who credited his "unique" ability to "switch perspectives" between foreground and background effects for the vitality of his thought, but also because he had, as he put it, one foot in the grave and one in life, and philosophised from both.
It is largely because time is again emerging to the forefront again, and insistently so, that perspective consciousness is beginning to break down. It is a method designed for handling space on the basis of the ratio of spaces. It cannot handle time in this manner, as Descartes even confessed. To perception perspectivally organised, time is miracle and mystery, and even the cause of his angst and anxiety. When it comes to space, man arranges, organises, alots, parcels and generally takes command of the spaces of his life. Time he fears, however, as something which he does not have, but which has him, and which will drive him like the Cherubim did Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
But if time is miracle and mystery, and the cause of Modern Man's chief superstitions about reality, it is because his consciousness of time is defective relative to his awareness of space, and his anxieties about time are largely the result of trying to apply the same methods and categories which, by establishment, were intended only for the discovery of space to the conquest of time. Yet, in the Planetary Era, it is time that becomes the most pressing issue as different historical epochs converge on the present.
boltonian...
"Words change their meaning quite quickly and sometimes now mean the opposite of what they meant originally."
This shift is not arbitrary, but is usually an index into some important change in our consciousness and approach to the "real", and perhaps even as evidence of the principle of enantiodromia (reversal) in action.
One of my favourite examples of this is "nice". Originally it meant basically ignorant or foolish (ne secire, or not knowing). Today, you are considered a good man if you are "nice". Perhaps that is ominous.
Another is "private", which at various times has meant both to steal (piracy, privateer, privation) and liberate (privatisation, privacy, private). How these are to be understood requires sometimes a sociological sensibility to the context of the times, and how the meanings of these relate to the entire corpus of meanings. Not just as examples of a revaluation of values, per se, but sometimes as a radical restructuring of consciousness. Often entire new constellations of meaning emerge which radically transform the social order over time, such as the Renaissance did when it translated the meaning of the relationship of eternity to time, or immortal and mortal orders, into the relationship of infinity and the finite, or background and foreground states. It was a major shift from the ear as the primary organ of consciousness to the eye as primary organ of consciousness.
With that came some interesting (and entirely unanticipated) consequences. The hierarchy of levels of sacred truth was flattened out into the democracy of the fact. Hierarchies (the archy of the hieros or "sacred") construct a ladder or chain of truth realisation, of elevation where one progresses upwards in terms of greater and greater truth realisation. Sacred truth is not public, but is revealed in progressive stages of realisation upwards through the heirarchy (also in the Laws of Manu and the caste system as originally concieved). Secularism flattens out this hierarchy, and makes the truth public as "fact".
This was really what was behind the confrontation between Galileo and the Church. It was a conflict between "truth" and "fact", with deep ramifications for the social and political order in terms of hierarchy and democracy. And here it was definitely Galileo who was confused about truth and fact and the implications of conflating the two as synonyms. When he left his trial muttering "but it's the truth", he still did not get it. The Church authorities were quite willing to accept his discoveries as "facts", but not as the truth. This is why they didn't look through his telescope. It wasn't from ignorance or bigotry. It was irrelevant to the main issue -- the difference between fact and truth, and the spiritual and political implications of confusing the one with the other. Here again is the issue of ear as organ of knowing and eye as organ of knowing -- "seeing is believing" was quite irrelevant to an aural culture.
By the time of the Late Middle Ages, however, -- the period of terminal decadence -- elevation up the hierarchy was less the progressive realisation of revealed truth than something to be purchased. And many a rich thief and criminal ended his days as pope. Totally corrupt, it was inevitable that it would be swept away.
Longsword:
Thanks I will digest and get back.
I would be interested in the views of MartinRDB and spacepenguin, among others.
Steve:
I forgot to congratulate you on becoming this blog's 'Poet in Residence.' I think the traditional payment is a butt of sack, or is it a sack of butt?
Anyway a pint of best wallop awaits in the AA. Creativity should be properly rewarded.
re dreams, lucid or otherwise, which daddy0marcos & boltonian briefly mentioned....
Not sure how relevant this is, but when writing up my PhD 20+ years ago, I was stuck for some weeks trying to model mathematically a particular biological system. Eventually, one night I dreamt the solution (radically different to the approach I'd been trying previously). I wrote it down the next morning, and all was clear.
All I deduce from this is that the conscious mind keeps working rationally even when we're asleep; which is why I'm so sceptical about trying to over-analyse dreams or other mystical experiences. I see that anecdote as more akin to those screen-saver programs that analyse data whilst your computer is idle....but I expect others will put a different interpretation to it. It couldn't happen today as any vivid dream - good or bad - wakes me with pain, because of a rare and bizarre illness (don't ask).
boltonian : "I forgot to congratulate you on becoming this blog's 'Poet in Residence.' I think the traditional payment is a butt of sack, or is it a sack of butt?"
Butt of sack....108 gallons of cheap sherry....maybe you meant a kick up the butt? I'll try not to overindulge, either with granny's sherry, or the doggerel.... ;-}
BTW, no offence meant for not responding to longsword, olching, bill, or others who have posted interesting stuff recently; longsword's pieces especially have been outside of my area, so I leave them for others better qualified. And I haven't forgotten I owe Biskieboo a reply....but tomorrow this computer gets wiped & reprogrammed....hope this site is still here when I return....
steve...
"Eventually, one night I dreamt the solution (radically different to the approach I'd been trying previously). I wrote it down the next morning, and all was clear."
Most of my ideas come from dream. I'm not smart enough to think them up myself.
But your story reminded me of a similar one of my own. In a former life as a software developer, I was frustrated one day by a particularly intractable problem that kept crashing the programme before it could load completely. I took the project home. I tore the code apart, hunted and hunted for the flaw, and finally gave up in complete consternation around 1 in the morning. I started to dream the code (and I often wrote much of the code in dream and simply set it up in the morning)and suddenly I was directed by the dream to look in a directory that did not belong to the project. I woke up about three o'clock, turned on the computer and checked the directory. Sure enough, the project had become split across directories, and was crashing because it was attempting to reference code in two different directories.
But the most deeply transformative dream I had also radically changed my self-understanding and perception of reality, and I tell this dream because it is relevant to the things I write about. I dreamed I was a fish, a northern pike as a matter of fact, and I was this fish completely. My consciousness was fish consciousness (which was quite an interesting experience in itself). In this dream, I took a lure, and I remember vividly the pressure of the lure in my mouth as I was reeled struggling against it towards the surface of the lake. When I, as fish, broke the water I saw a fisherman standing in a boat facing me with rod in hand, and at the exact moment that I, as fish, broke the water I was also the fisherman in the boat. My consciousness and identity was in two forms simultaneously.
The situation was so incongruous that I woke with a start. And to compound the incongruity, I realised at the moment of "surfacing" from the dream that my consciousness and identity had actually been in three forms, the fish, the fisherman, and my normal everyday self who had been in the background observing during the dream, but was startled out of it by the incongruity.
But then the my mind was literally blown and dissolved when I realised that throughout the dream was still another "self", the architect of the dream, who constructed it, performed it, acted in all the roles, including itself as the perplexed "me". This self so vast in potential and awareness that its very immensity escaped comprehension. I was merely another fragment of its total identity and consciousness. The analogy that suggests itself is a fish in the ocean, who easily overlooks the immensity of the ocean because it is wholly immersed in it.
At that moment, though, when I peered into that "greater self's" identity (or it peered into my reality, I don't know which) reality also dissolved into a dream of eternity, and I understood Blake's words, "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is: Infinite."
"The universe in a grain of sand, and eternity in the hour" is not just a quaint bit of fancy. It is our fundamental reality. Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "The Oversoul" isn't a matter of speculation for me, nor is Nietzsche's "self" in his Zarathustra.
Consciousness is able to assume multiple simultaneous forms without losing its overall identity within any of them. That's not just an idea. It's my experience. One consciousness is able to express itself simultaneously in multiple forms or identities. And on the basis of reading of similar experiences by others, and trying to put together the pieces presented in different places, literatures, etc, I extrapolate from my own experience that there is only one "I am" which happens to be everybody's fundamental true name. I do not call this "God". It approximates closer to Emerson's and Nietzsche's overself, but which is not separate from our own being and identity as such. If some people want to call this "soul", well, then, we are all souls and we are such stuff as dreams are made on.
So there you have it. Against the repressive pressure of my better judgement, I have declared myself and made my confession.
Steve - a friend in need and all that. You really do have a gift ("sigmas...borborygmus [which, I confess, I had to look up: my knowledge of synonyms for 'innard farts' is embarassingly limited]). And I vaguely sense that the big bang - in terms of how it is immediately envisaged by a layman like me - is "guff".
Bill - thank you for what was a v interesting post. I guess whether or not, or the sense(s) in which, "the physical world you perceive (some would say create) is literally yours alone" may well be a subject for recurrent debate here. But for the time being, I am more interested in what you go on to say.
To put my cards on the table, I am vaguely (or initially) sceptical about 'telepathy' etc. I should add that this is somewhat coloured by the connections it has in my mind with some books that regularly litter the sofa areas in the bookshop where I work, kindly dumped by customers for self-pitying sods like me to pick up in a huff.
(On a hopefully not overlong sidenote, it always interests me which categories of customers - in terms of the books they're after - are particularly guilty of this: the main culprits, in my experience, are those looking at travel, 'new age', self-help and fashion books. Don't get me started on dog-eared, unbought lifestyle magazines from which the 'freebies' - ranging from flip-flops to handbags - have been extracted, or else poor old Boltonian and his homely thread will truly become hostage to a 50,000 word hijacking).
"I sometimes forget how this is a strange and even impossible notion for others, however."
But, if I'm honest, I can't rule this out, even if I'm not swayed. (I guess this simply describes various people's attitudes to various things). Clearly, communication is not just linguistic (in the way we normally mean). I would be most interested if you could expand on a few things.
First, on our being "thoroughly connected to all others beneath our conscious minds (and our beliefs in our discreteness) -- that connection is telepathic in nature".
Second, you mention how this understanding might possibly turn "_almost_ all established religions, philosophies, and scientific understandings on their heads -- makes _almost_ all of them largely useless in terms of achieving any successful overall understanding of the nature of reality." (This is the bit I probably and ostensibly most strongly disagree with, but would be grateful for your thoughts - what you say about their dealing with "a particular kind of limited egoic consciousness" tantalises - and if you could tell me some of the exceptions you mention, I think I'll get a clearer idea. Do you mean 'egoic' as pertaining to psychological conceptions of the ego?).
One last point: I found most interesting and, if you'll let me get away with the outrageous adjective, pregnant the point you raised on the ineffable and slightly strange 'intimacy' we experience at various times: your examples are of relationships and existence in utero. Both offer some fascinating grounds for inquiry.
A familiar cultural trope - probably not so now - in ideal types for marriage - particularly as exemplified by a long-married, old couple - is a certain unanimity. If you'll allow me the digression, the powerful symbolism of becoming one, of becoming 'one flesh', has at various times been taken as the preeminent sign of a more profound union. Incidentally, there is a fascinating tendency in some cultures to use marriage as an analogy for relation to 'God' - the examples I can think of are in Jewish, Christian and Hindu imagery. Forget the 'God' bit for now - I think the potency of this analogy stems from perceptions of that union, unanimity etc alluded to above; wrt to the relation in utero, I am far less knowledgeable - and my memory of those good old days is pretty poor - but I am vaguely aware of studies of the importance of this period in growth and would conjecture that it is formative in our growth as 'selves'. Sorry for digression.
One final question I'd have is how you understand the importance of our being embodied, er, beings.
I realise that I've asked c.318 questions, so your overall thoughts most welcome (and grateful for any specifics). And my articulations of diagreement, questioning etc reflect both my own admittedly (and bit too) kneejerk reaction(s) in this area as well as genuine curiosity.
ChooChoo - glad to be of service....borborygmus (or a variant thereof) was a favourite word of Burgess in the Enderby novels, which I start rereading tonight. And Burgess' 2 vols of autobiog are fascinating for his take on Catholicism (a bit of a doubter at times, but he couldn't quite shake it off). Well recommended - although as fictional autobiog.
PS keep an eye on Ben Marshall's blog on Roger Scruton - been trying all day to post one of my best doggerels there....may show in a day or so....
Daddy0Marcus -
I posted this on the grayling thread:
"The only one that was of any real consequence was of a letter arriving in the post that brought some bad news. It turned up for real 24 hours later. This meant that I had time to get used to the idea that the bad news was coming, news which upset me deeply. I'm grateful for the time that I had to prepare for it, as on waking from the dream I had the feeling that it was going to happen."
I can't really expand greatly on what I wrote because the topic of the letter is of a sensitive nature. But I can say that only days previously to the dream, things seemed to be going very much my way, so the news was unexpected and most unwanted. I was very much wrapped up in what was going on, as I thought I had a lot riding on the outcome at the time. The passage of time has made it easier to deal with, and I think maybe the dream was partly to show me this - that even though in this instance things didn't go the way I would have liked, it was not the end of the world. Sorry if this is a bit obscure. Maybe I *should* write a book.
I had a whole series of lucid dreams when I was a student (and smoking a lot of a dope). In one, I was sure I was awake and walking around my flat. There was just one tiny detail of the flat that was different, from which I then inferred that I was still asleep,and so tried to wake up. I then woke up, only to find that I hadn't and that I was still asleep. This was quite unpleasant, and I really had to struggle to get myself awake.
Dear ChooChoo:
Please allow me to first discharge a few brief comments before I reply, and before getting into a day rife with annoying deadlines and even more annoying nitpicking tasks require my full concentration (even as I continue to regain my emotional/psychic/mental balance after an extremely intense encounter with a most amazing person, an experience of only a day or so that would, nevertheless, require a small book to fully describe); note, too, that I just deleted this and am reposting in an attempt to improve it:
1. I haven't had nearly enough time to review the many posts here, having only briefly delved into the most recent;
2. I can relate extremely well to Longsword's "confession;"
3. Re: Boltonian's comments on time. I view time as simply one parameter or given of our particular shared physical reality, not at all universal. This would be a meaningless statement if we were not capable of transcending this in a number of ways, including visiting other realities with different givens.
4. Your bookstore isn't by any chance located in London? I missed finding a particular bookstore during my last visit in 2001 -- see the reference found here, in the item provided by Nabet. This is a bit Potteresque, I realize, even so...
5. Although I have at times dug into formal philosophy (including a phase of interaction on The Journal of Consciousness Studies mailing list) and was once greatly intrigued by Phenomenology, my beliefs are strongly colored by three closely interrelated sources:
a.) The Seth material. I would never have touched this, once, as I have a sceptical side, if not for the experience related here. Many later New Age "authorities" borrowed heavily from Jane Robert's Seth, frequently without any attribution. For example, Seth -- not Timothy Leary -- originated the phrase: "You create your own reality" but Seth provided a very interesting context for this; one typically ignored by those who borrowed from him.
b.) My own unusual experiences, beginning in those long ago days when hallucinogenic experimentation was commonplace.
c.) A brief but very powerful flirtation with the teachings of George Gurdjieff in the early 70s.
My comments on telepathy are basically regurgitations of Seth's teachings supplemented by my own experiences (note that Seth strongly encourages validation of his teachings).
ChooChoo:
"To put my cards on the table, I am vaguely (or initially) sceptical about 'telepathy' etc.
Me:
"I sometimes forget how this is a strange and even impossible notion for others, however."
ChooChoo, Again:
"But, if I'm honest, I can't rule this out, even if I'm not swayed. (I guess this simply describes various people's attitudes to various things). Clearly, communication is not just linguistic (in the way we normally mean). I would be most interested if you could expand on a few things.
First, on our being "thoroughly connected to all others beneath our conscious minds (and our beliefs in our discreteness) -- that connection is telepathic in nature".
I would improve on the last phrase -- I'm not happy with it upon rereading it as much more than telepathy is involved; I was focusing on the word and overemphasized it.
All I can do here, really, is try to paint a picture, and this will necessarily be both oversimplified and inadequate (This picture is key to Exercise 5. Regions of Self Focusing Exercise found here.):
There is an overall singular being to which all else belongs.
This all else includes Emerson's "oversoul," and each of us is a physical expression of our own particular oversoul (along with endless other such expressions -- this is where the idea of serial reincarnation comes from but that is quite a distortion, as oversouls exist outside of time).
The most immediate region of our oversoul could be called "inner self" and pertains to our physical personhood -- I imagine that each of an oversoul's many physical expressions is connected with an inner self.
The "location" of inner self, oversoul, and the singularity, in modern terms, is the "unconscious" -- this merges into the "subconscious," of course. What is rarely recognized, however, is that these regions are quite conscious -- our perspective is biased; we have assumed that the conscious self is the primary region of identity.
Physically embodied and focusing on physical reality through our physical senses (there's much more to this but I'm leaving it out so as to keep this simple), we imagine we are separate from all else.
If you choose to explore these other regions of self or identity, however (or your own unconsciousness, depending on the language you choose) it turns out that this is illusion.
Ego has become isolated and to it this is a fearful idea, quite threatening; its 'subconscious' beliefs serve to reinforce this isolation, and these have been with us for millennia.
There's a bit of a barrier to -- not necessarily some "cosmic enlightenment," "grand gnosis," "nirvana," or some other such high falutin' concept -- but to simply becoming conscious of the overall connectedness all & everything is party to.
"Telepathy" is part of this connectedness and includes varying content, much as our external Internet, which includes these posts -- messages -- along with all else.
A fear is that individual identity will somehow dissolve, and some traditions even teach this.
In my own experiences this is not the case, however; we retain our unique individual experience and identity -- never a static unchanging proposition to begin with -- even while experiencing differing degrees of belong to successively larger wholes, regions of self.
"Second, you mention how this understanding might possibly turn "_almost_ all established religions, philosophies, and scientific understandings on their heads -- makes _almost_ all of them largely useless in terms of achieving any successful overall understanding of the nature of reality." (This is the bit I probably and ostensibly most strongly disagree with, but would be grateful for your thoughts - what you say about their dealing with "a particular kind of limited egoic consciousness" tantalises - and if you could tell me some of the exceptions you mention, I think I'll get a clearer idea. Do you mean 'egoic' as pertaining to psychological conceptions of the ego?)."
"Ego" is a charged word, with varying meanings attached to it.
I am using it in a very general sense, as a sense of self identity associated with the physical body and senses.
Without a good sense of the place of ego within larger regions of self, without directly experiencing such regions, religions, philosophies, and sciences will all reflect a particular overall perspective.
Certainly there are many notable exceptions, many individuals who have transcended this overall perspective -- these can be found by peering into history, although they are frequently put into whatever particular box exists in their time and place for such exceptions (certain saints, for example, or even founders of religions).
As you and others here know, certain philosophers definitely tread in transcendent waters, yet their philosophies are often extremely analytical, while the experience of regions of self beyond the ego very quickly enters into wordless realms where intuition is as pronounced -- if not more so -- than intellect.
In other words all of the careful analysis, the conceptualization, and so on, serves to emphasize the intellect at the expense of experience.
This is backwards, as I see it; Sir Henry Rawlinson had to first _find_ the cuneiform inscriptions _before_ he successfully analyzed them.
Further, our science includes a number of foundational assumptions that experience reveals as being anything but (that space, time, and gravity apply to all realities, that a particular type of perception is all there is and is perception alone, and so on).
I need not delve into religion here, save to point out how so very often it tends not just to reinforce the egoic consciousness of its time but to preserve itself as well, generating restrictive structures of belief in which potentially useful symbolism and myth is treated as something else.
"One last point: I found most interesting and, if you'll let me get away with the outrageous adjective, pregnant the point you raised on the ineffable and slightly strange 'intimacy' we experience at various times: your examples are of relationships and existence in utero. Both offer some fascinating grounds for inquiry."
Certainly. I'm not convinced that any variation of contemporary science is at all suited for exploring telepathy, however, particular that which must exist as a primary factor in the womb.
This is a bit of a chicken-and-egg conundrum. Those who create science must partake of the "unconscious" in order to expand their discipline beyond present limitations yet those very limitations prohibit them from doing so; practitioners who explore beyond those are branded much as religion has branded heretics yet consider how science itself came about...
"A familiar cultural trope - probably not so now - in ideal types for marriage - particularly as exemplified by a long-married, old couple - is a certain unanimity. If you'll allow me the digression, the powerful symbolism of becoming one, of becoming 'one flesh', has at various times been taken as the preeminent sign of a more profound union. Incidentally, there is a fascinating tendency in some cultures to use marriage as an analogy for relation to 'God' - the examples I can think of are in Jewish, Christian and Hindu imagery. Forget the 'God' bit for now - I think the potency of this analogy stems from perceptions of that union, unanimity etc alluded to above; wrt to the relation in utero, I am far less knowledgeable - and my memory of those good old days is pretty poor - but I am vaguely aware of studies of the importance of this period in growth and would conjecture that it is formative in our growth as 'selves'. Sorry for digression."
Not a problem.
I confess to having had something a monk-like life although, every once in a long while, I have engaged in an intimate relationship.
(Thus I can only speak of a long-term marriage as an observer.)
During those relationships telepathic experiences became quite pronounced but a conscious awareness of them was only shared with those who did not have thick egoic barriers blocking this -- others were in fact quite frightened by such experiences.
(So called "past lives" -- in my experience -- come to the surface in a most immediate way during intimate relationships. Unfortunately, a great deal of trauma may surface, too. Consider, for example, the wife of a man who lost his head, literally, and was severely traumatized by that. The two come together again, in our time; the man gradually realizes who he is dealing with, in a new form, as subtle, deep, and strong feelings are evoked. The woman, however, harbors a mixture of feelings including the trauma -- not just the positive feelings of the "past" marriage. She blocks everything out, as she must, but this poisons the present relationship, as such feelings still exist, still influence the present, and will continue to until released or resolved).
"One final question I'd have is how you understand the importance of our being embodied, er, beings."
You can probably gather much of this from the above.
I don't accept the dualistic views of Gnostics, Cathars, Bogomils, or others in this regard, don't devalue physical life as though it is nothing compared to some eventual non-material existence.
Both exist now, so long as I live; both are important, else I would not be here.
"I realise that I've asked c.318 questions, so your overall thoughts most welcome (and grateful for any specifics). And my articulations of diagreement, questioning etc reflect both my own admittedly (and bit too) kneejerk reaction(s) in this area as well as genuine curiosity."
Not a problem -- I would make certain unacceptable views (unacceptable for many reasons, including the tinging of all thought considered "New Age" in nature, even when excellent material is lumped together with all else, much as "Liberal" has become tinged such that quite noble sentiment and thought, even ordinary human decency, is lambasted within a larger association).
(I've run out of time to clean this up -- this will have to do, the dead Victorian editor within me notwithstanding.)
Regards
Bill I.
Longsword:
Thank you.
From a personal view your last post was a huge improvement in my attempting to understand your reasoning. 'Simple is the best,' as my brother-in-law says.
I now have a much clearer understanding of your position and rationale.
You have beliefs, I have beliefs, we all have our beliefs - they are all based on personal experience. Also, we all employ various levels of scepticism concerning others' views. I don't think Hume was a million miles away, no matter our supposedly superior accumulation of knowledge.
Belief, in my view, must not, however, descend into dogmatism. That way lies ignorance, fanaticism, intolerance and a hatred of truth.
Neither you nor I, nor anybody else here has a monopoly of wisdom. We are all groping around trying to learn something of the world we did not know yesterday.
Bill:
I thoroughly enjoyed your,'Confession' and learned much.
The issue that resonated most for me was that we are all part of one universal 'Whole.' Intuitively, I think that is right but, in that case, we need to explore the concept of ego in a little more depth.
I have no strong opinions about time but I was just putting forward a sceptical viewpoint - a position for debate. Despite the firm views expressed here and elsewhere I do not feel we have bottomed this.
Bill - thank you for your reply. Forgive me for not replying at length just yet. (Judging by your link, it won't be the same bookshop. It certainly is not one of those wonderful, romantic old bookshops. It edges towards - if not exemplifying - the more Starbucks end of the bookshop spectrum, something which one comes to consider a bit more seriously and uncomfortably in the run-up to the new Harry Potter).
Steve - only read (and forgotten) Clockwork Orange. Burgess seems to me to be one of those inescapably 'catholic' authors - whose catholicism is, in some ways, inescapable (perhaps Joyce is a bit like this in some ways, though I can't - and never will - be able to say in terms of Finnegan's Wake). Burgess strikes me - from what I know - as a lot like Graham Greene in this regard. There always seems to me - or perhaps I am hypersensitive if not hallucinating here - that there tend to be some particularly interesting tensions in 'catholic' writers, whether disaffected or devout. I think I've mentioned her before - Flannery O'Connor. Anyone here familiar? To me, her stories (haven't read Wise Blood, though there was a pretty good film version on tv in early hours of Sun morning) are inescapably 'catholic' in a sense (and she was a devout and, indeed, v learned lady). Yet, I can see how someone might read them - enjoy and be struck by them, esp the 'grotesque' characters and (often) arresting denouements - and (understandably) not consider these things. (Interestingly, I believe she always hated the tag 'catholic writer' - as most do - but she also once said that each of her stories has some sort of 'moment' of grace). Not sure if available online, but heartily recommend 'Good Country People' (only 15 pages or so) as an intro to her writing.
On a sidenote: I often argue with a good friend of mine about artists (broadly conceived, though we usually mean writers). We both agree that there is a tendency or a temptation for artists to become self-absorbed (or absorbed in their work). We also note the connection people often make between artists and radical, antinomian lives (by which I don't mean conceptual questioning etc). We disagree on whether this is a necessary part of being an artist (I argue it is not). What do people think?
Boltonian: "The issue that resonated most for me was that we are all part of one universal 'Whole.' Intuitively, I think that is right but, in that case, we need to explore the concept of ego in a little more depth."
I'm in favor of exploring the concept(s) of ego -- while noting that we shall necessarily be engaging the _reality_ of ego while doing so.
On the other hand, it's not very difficult to engage deeper regions of self while typing -- ego is still required for this, of course, but its role shifts a bit.
Boltonian again: "I have no strong opinions about time but I was just putting forward a sceptical viewpoint - a position for debate. Despite the firm views expressed here and elsewhere I do not feel we have bottomed this."
We have most definitely not accomplished this!
As with ego, we can explore concepts of time even while experiencing variations, as we type, in a similar way -- if anyone is interested.
What I am suggesting is to play with mild trance states while typing. This may take some practice for those unfamiliar with it but is not difficult, involving mostly adjusting conscious focus. An intense focus on a topic while writing/typing can easily generate a mild trance condition.
Whether anyone is interested in this or not, I offer Arnold Toynbee's unusual experiences as a young man as a relevant item. Excerpts from _A Study of History_ are found here.
(I would likely enjoy the usual sort of on-line discussion, sans mild trance, if that is the chosen direction -- typing in an altered state can be done at any time.)
Regards
Bill I.
Item posted elsewhere as "Buddhist Quote of the Day:"
The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science. Since, however, sense perception only gives information of this external world or of "physical reality" indirectly, we can only grasp the latter by speculative means. It follows from this that our notions of physical reality can never be final. We must always be ready to change these notions - that is to say, the axiomatic basis of physics - in order to do justice to perceived facts in the most perfect way logically. -Einstein
Bill I.
"The issue that resonated most for me was that we are all part of one universal 'Whole.' Intuitively, I think that is right but, in that case, we need to explore the concept of ego in a little more depth."
There has been a tendency in analytical psychology and transpersonal psychology, to differentiate between "Self" and "Ego". This tendency harkens back to the original religious concern with the true self and the false self, and that the "Fall of Man" was essentially a fall of the seat of identity into the false self (the egoic), which we might call the idolatry of self-image as represented in the myth of Narcissus and Echo.
(As an aside, there are a conjunction of terms here in relation to the myth of Narcissus and the undeveloped meaning of narcissism that I find evocative -- fascinum (a magic spell), fascination (an enchantment) and fascism (bonds and the binding power)).
In my experience, there are no real divisions between Self and Ego in terms of identity, yet naming this identity on the one hand "Self" and on the other "Ego" lends the impression that there is such a division. To surmount this, I find it useful to speak in terms of the relation "I" and "me" (or "mine") as equivalent to Self and Ego, or simply to describe Ego as the self-image (or what is termed "false self" in other places) consistent with the myth of Narcissus, who was also absorbed into his self-image (fatally).
Narcissism is the human condition. It should not be restricted to the clinical description given for psychopathology alone.
This distinction between "I" and "me" (or self and ego, or true self and false self) belongs to the insight of Goethe's "two souls", which I quoted in an earlier post. The obsession one finds today with "the me brand" belongs to a thorough-going narcissism.
Ego, also, is definable in a way Self is not. Ego is the historical being, qualified by historical circumstance, conditional upon particular national, climactic, geographical experience, dependent upon the organic nature, the experience and perception of time and space, and identical with what we might generally call "the human form" and all that entails.
My experience of Self, on the other hand, indicates that self is not "human" at all. A "human" consciousness and existence is simply one of the forms self may assume amongst an array of other forms. The classical description of the "polymorph" or the shape-shifter (which still occurs today in shamanistic cultures) in which one may become a tree or rock or insect and experience these forms as one's own for a time, is based upon this fluidity of primary consciousness (and many early cave paintings of this polymorphic potential really do depict men transforming into trees or bears at a time when consciousness was probably more mutable and less reified into "mind" and ego than today).
It was Nietzsche's intuition also into the nature of the "overself" that forms the basis for his own transhumanism as latent possibility and as a human destiny based upon this "overself". The significant passage occurs only once in Zarathustra, but it draws the same distinction as Goethe's "two souls" between a "higher" and a "lower" self. The relevant passage occurs in the section "The Despisers of the Body". I hold, however, that Nietzsche only stood at the threshold of this "self" as an intuition, consequently his experience was distorted somewhat. As proof of that, we see that Nietzsche-Zarathustra is only the *prophet* of the coming of this overself, not the realisation of it himself. Nietzsche did not cross the threshold even though he speaks as one who has had direct experience of a "higher" (or "truer") self. (The passage from "The Despisers of the Body" is available on line for reading).
Emerson's "The Oversoul" (also available on-line) accords closer with my own experience.
It is difficult to discuss "ego" and "self" without introducing misunderstandings. Nonetheless, the distinction does form the core meaning of the instruction Jesus gave to his disciples, that they "be in the world, but not of the world", which is quite subtle and nuanced, I find.
Bill I. I've been to your site and find it a good resource. Like you, it seems, my main interest is time. I have also read "Seth Speaks" and find it quite engaging, noting also that it has influenced some physicists even (Norman Friedman's "The Hidden Domain: Home of the Quantum Wave Function" actually credits the Seth material for new insights into fundamental reality, which is a dangerous thing for an honest science writer to actually do). It has left me a little perplexed. And although Seth describes himself as "an energy personality essence no longer focussed in physical reality", he seems very, very human -- a right jolly old elf whereas my own experience of "self" left the impression of a vast intelligence completely indifferent to moral categories of good or evil, or pleasure or pain, and the all-too-human. It struck me as simply creative energy, conscious of itself as creative activity as its very essence and identity while being infinitely mutable.
Anyway, I've gone on too long again. Longs-word is the name.
ChooChoo:
Yes, there is a distinctiveness the writing of those brought up in the Catholic, even former catholics are guilt-ridden. It is not just, I think, that RC doctrine centres on sin and redemption - the fallen nature of humanity. It is noticeable that for Catholic friends of mine the church fulfills an enormous range of needs. It is much more dominant in their lives than other churches are to their congregations, in my experience, and this has large consequences both for those who remain Catholic and those that choose to leave.
Re- your last point, wasn't T.S. Eliot a bank clerk at one time? Robert Graves used to advocate that poets should earn their living in as mundane a way as possible (if they could not be a full time poet), so leaving their creativity intact for writing.
Bill:
I would be interested in your typing exercise.
The quote from Einstein confirms to me what a good philosopher he was. I am not sure that we can ever access the real world, or even that such a thing exists.
Boltonian: "Bill: I would be interested in your typing exercise."
(I'm _very gradually_ reading the whole thread, paying particular attention to Bastille Day onwards, amidst much else. Jeeze! What if all of you folks were to gather in ChooChoo's bookstore and engage in conversation? I imagine a video of the proceedings would be fun to watch and listen to... I hope to be able to reply to Longsword later.)
Regarding the "typing exercise:"
This could be boiled down to "allowing," as in allowing deeper regions of self to seep through into your typing, as you type.
I believe anyone can do this, but different approaches are called for by different personalities.
Imagining seems to work very well for some -- they imagine this happening while focusing on some question and writing an answer.
This doesn't work at all for others, however, as the very word "imagining" throws them off at the start.
Others prefer to 'practice' privately before even thinking of posting something written this way, which has been called a number of things in different eras. (It has much in common with 'automatic writing,' for example, or, perhaps, 'free association.')
I've played with this for some years, very annoyed at first as many of my on-line friends took to this instantly when this became something of a fad on the mailing lists of the day.
They produced very unusual essays, some quite poetic, others definitely in the strange department, all worth scrutinizing.
I couldn't seem to get the hang of it, my own conscious mind getting in the way.
My beliefs in my ability to do this very gradually began to open up, particularly after focusing intently on writing just part of a page on my website some years ago.
This _seemed_ to take only a few minutes, but when I was finished, I was amazed to discover that _hours_ had gone by, while the result had a definite tinge of some other self, some other time -- it really didn't "sound" like me at all.
Of course by the time I got to this point most of my friends had already lost interest and moved on to other activities.
A certain playfulness -- even if adopting a very serious tone in the writing itself -- may be quite useful for anyone choosing to try this out.
Regards
Bill I.
Longsword:
I am not an academic and do not understand the various nuances of self/ego/false self/overself or any other self.
What I mean by ego is that which goes into making what it feels like to be me. I have feelings, likes, dislikes, tastes, strengths and weaknesses of character etc that are unique. The bundle of things that makes me me is what I mean by ego.
Boltonian - certainly sometimes this distinctiveness can be characterised as "guilt-ridden". One example I can think of is Portrait of the Artist - 'guilt-ridden' is too simplistic, perhaps, but it seems to me to be part of the picture (at least in the characterisation of Stephen until the final part). But the distinctiveness I meant does go beyond this. (A quick disclaimer: much of what I'm about to say may well be applied to non-catholic writers). There are a few tensions which spring to my mind, one of which might revolve around sin and redemption (which you identify). Bear in mind that catholic understandings of both, particularly the former, are not simply a discrete question of doctrine or theology. There is an interesting arc in Brideshead Revisited, for example, or (to pick another Waugh novel) Vile Bodies. Right now, though, I can't quite articulate what I mean by this (ostensibly or for the time being) ineffable distinctiveness (and it is doubtless a subtle one too), so perhaps we can come back to it at some point in the future. V interesting to read what you write on your friends:
"It is noticeable that for Catholic friends of mine the church fulfills an enormous range of needs. It is much more dominant in their lives than other churches are to their congregations, in my experience, and this has large consequences both for those who remain Catholic and those that choose to leave."
To stick my head out (and this is ludicrously generalised), catholic identity seems to be actually rather absorptive. The idea of a privatised (which is not the same thing as personalised or intimate) religion doesn't quite make sense where privatised contains notions of being cut off or bubbled. (There are exceptions). I wonder whether the sense of the 'religious sphere' is less easy (though it may well be accepted on practical grounds). And as you suggest, the 'bigness' of the whole thing is evidenced by people who leave (and also those who become catholic).
On artists etc: you're right about T S Eliot. Am I right in thinking that Rachmaninoff was something of a family man or have I got things hopelessly muddled? Thought not quite an artist, the recently deceased anthropologist Mary Douglas seems to have had a v happy childhood, marriage and family life. These are pretty lame examples, I concede (one v speculative, the other not really relevant...). But the point I'm trying to make is that antinomian, bohemian lives (and rationales underpinning them) are not a necessary part of being a distinguished poet, artist etc. (On a sidenote, there is ticklish bit on the 'Bloomsbury Grope' in Craig Brown's recent 1966 and all that).
ChooChoo:
To give some examples of these Catholic friends - one is agnostic (his father is quite scathingly critical of the politics and hierarchy of the church); another sceptical who often derided many of the previous Pope's encomium's; a third throws herself into the church (particularly the charitable activities)without thinking too deeply about the metaphysics; and another only attends mass to please his parents. There is only one of all the Catholics I know who takes the dogma and the word of the Pope as the truth.
Just like the rest of us, really. But not so. There is is something tribal, vestigial and permanently marked about them all. They all share something and that is a bond but also a curse.
Interesting what you say about Joyce - the whole of Ulysses revolves around the lapsed Catholic and the Jew living in an almost primitive, fiercely Catholic country. Remember, Joyce never really forgave his countrymen or catholicism for renouncing Parnell.
Re-the bohemian lifestyle of artists. A.E. Houseman was a respectable academic; G.M. Hopkins was a priest (but went through agonies of conscience); Milton was not a noted Hell-raiser; Wordsworth became respectable (even reactionary) in middle age. There were lots of churchmen who were also poets, particularly during the 17th and 18th centuries - Vaughan, Herbert etc. Malcolm Arnold doesn't strike me as a man who lived life on the wild side either.
Not all poets lived like Rochester or died like Keats, Shelley and Byron.
boltonian...
"I am not an academic and do not understand the various nuances of self/ego/false self/overself or any other self."
It's not a matter of academics. It's a matter of survival that we work to identify the common and mutual elements in mankind's full experience of the earth -- in arts and sciences, in religion and politics. We will not survive the future if we do not. Without such a universal history as a basis for unanimity, the global era will fail and that will mean the end of our earth.
So it is not a matter of lauding unique elements, but common elements that are the necessary requisite for globalism. If feelings, tastes, sentiments, strengths and weaknesses were unique, a common language would be impossible and common experience unsharable and incommunicable. Humanity would descend into gibberish and babble (and also war of all against all). Language works because these things are not unique, and because they are not unique, we can have peace on the basis of shared experience.
To the extent that ego places itself in a position of uniqueness or speciality, it robs the Planetary Future of its basis for success, which is the requirement of mutuality. Ego is a fiction, a perspective construct that isn't even known in some tribal settings where the totem consciousness trumps and all are only agencies of the tribal genius. Ego (or persona) even appears to be only the unique affectation of Western man, a conceit which he has made into a universal principle of being, especially in the form of "the self-made man". Ego is the fictional character in search of its author, and probably the biggest obstacle to realising the global future at all.
Longsword:
I am afraid that I will just have to disagree with you.
I do not deny commonality. Nor do I share your rather apocalyptic vision if we do not, as a species, do what you suggest we ought to do. It is perhaps a matter of temperament.
Language works because we share sufficient in common thanks to our genetic inheritance and narrow genome, not because we are each of us not unique.
I have no idea what it is to be you, nor you I, but we make assumptions that enable us to rub along together. Sometimes those assumptions are in error and then we have conflict. The benefits, so far, have outweighed the disadvantages many times to one. whether this will continue neither you nor I can say.
I am not sure that your historical reading of an ego-less existence at sometime in the distant past when noble savages roamed the earth is quite correct. Nonetheless, you are, of course, entitled to interpret the data, such as it is, in a way that suits your world view (perhaps Elephantschild can help here).
And no matter how you might wish it were otherwise you cannot escape from your subjective perspective (see Bill's Einstein quote above). If this were not so you would not have a set of views, beliefs and tastes that are peculiar to you, and to you alone.
I am not usually given to sprinkling my posts with quotations but here are a couple:
‘For where is the man that has incontestable evidence of the truth of all that he holds, or of the falsehood of all that he condemns, or can say that he has examined to the bottom his own, or other men’s opinions? The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than to constrain others.’ John Locke.
‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ Shakespeare (Hamlet).
I would steer a middle course on this question of "ego," somewhere between the perspectives stated by Boltonian and Longsword.
The word has -- as we've seen -- different meanings; when tied to "self consciousness" Longword's comments ring true.
Relevant CiF quote of mine:
"Note that the first instance of the private or personal "I" in Western literature is found in the writings of Augustine per Thomas Cahill in _How the Irish Saved Civilization_: 'If we page quickly through world literature from its beginnings to the advent of Augustine, we realize that with Augustine human consciousness takes a quantum leap forward -- and becomes self-consciousness.'"
I prefer to use "ego" as referring to the conscious mind and the physical body and sensory apparatus, with its accompanying _basic_ unique human personality.
"Self consciousness" and the heightened Western version then become almost secondary constructions ("neurotic" per some authors) on top of this more basic version, a version absolutely necessary for survival within physical reality.
(There's also the awesome examination of the many "I's" within self-consciousness found in Gurdjieff's -- and other's -- teachings, wherein the illusion of a stable, consistent "I" is ruthlessly exploded, but that is best left for some other post.)
There's no need to discard the more basic version; it's as natural as our bodies and, again, necessary, although we no longer need hunt or be wary of dangerous wild creatures intent on eating us (in most places, that is).
The heightened version Longsword refers to (please correct me if I misunderstand you) _is_ a problem, however, and this problem connects with my prior descriptions of the ego's sense of isolation and its fears, particularly when multiplied by billions in an increasingly industrialized and interconnected world.
For me, the problem boils down to a disconnect with the deeper regions of self, and therein lies the remedy.
Regards
Bill I.
Afterthoughts on my own thoughts on "ego:"
This isn't nearly as clear as I intended but I'm too shot to improve it much.
Also, my own words and beliefs apply to me; although I see a preferred solution -- integrating deeper regions of self with "ego," I don't claim to have fully achieved this.
I'm still working on it, in other words.
Bill
Boltonian...
"Language works because we share sufficient in common thanks to our genetic inheritance and narrow genome, not because we are each of us not unique."
That isn't a statement that is based in evidence (keeping in mind that evidence or ex-video, relies solely on the eye for the authentication, verification, and authority for truth -- a rather limiting perspective which is out of place when dealing with speech). This statement is an inference from evidence, but is not supported by evidence.
Commonality is not a matter of mere equivalency, but is communion in the deepest sense of unanimity (unus animus or "one soul"). A "We" is not made up of plural egos so that one may construct a merely additive formula to the effect of I + I + I + I.... ad infinitum and come up with a "we" as a sum total. "We" is the communal person, the unus animus where two or more become one flesh. Far more than equivalency, it attests to our power of common identity and identification. "We" is not "first person plural" based upon a presumed equivalency of enumerate egos, but overcomes the merely numerate separation of each ego presumably isolated in its own private cave -- his or her own skull.
I consider evolutionary theory, as currently presented, a fraud and a hoax -- little more than a superstitious dogma. It has obviously appropriated a theological language for its justification and authority, and upon this basis has presumed to present itself as an "explain-all" ideology much in the same way the "will of God" served religious orthodoxy. "Genetics" is a blatant expropriation of "Genesis". Dawkins' "selfish gene" a blatant expropriation of the theological language of the "soul". The "principle of selection" also a crass expropriation of what was hitherto known as "the divine vocation" in which Jehovah's "Harken Israel!" made of 12 fractious tribes a unitary "elect" of God by imperative selection -- not by genetic determinism. In fact, the principle of selection is not substantially different in conception than that other modern superstition, the "invisible hand of the free market", or the baseless "chance mutation" which relies on Lady Luck for its efficacy.
Neither are explanations, but attempts to avoid explanation. Evolution is thus invested with an implicit intentionality simply by default for having appropriated a theological idiom. Even the word "determinism" dislocates determination from man to an abstraction allegedly *external* to himself as (capital E) Evolution, which now is the locus of determination and even of intentionality (and you know you are in the presence of a new god when words are elevated to names by capitalisation). Once man had time. Now time has man. Evolution acts freely by virtue of its character of "chance" action and selectivity, while man becomes the fated factor.
It is almost too ridiculous for words to encompass. Moreover, the falsification of the historical record and the deliberate obfuscation of the truth is egregious. Until even recently, there was no separation of science and faith, reason and revelation. Virtually every scientist believed in intelligent design as the basis for the rational understanding of the world. With the new historical revisionism, which one sees everyday posted on CiF, it is portrayed as if science had truly never held such "irrational" views at all, and that religion has been the chief repressive, persecutory, and retardative element keeping reason from advancing, which is utter nonsense. Even many priests have made important contributions to evolutionary theory. The monk Gregor Mendel formulated the first laws of genetics. The Jesuit de Chardin made important contributions to paleontology and evolutionary theory.
That said, I do not object to evolutionary biology. I object to the uses to which this has been put, which go well beyond what is given by evidence and theory. It is not science, but politics and will to power which slides into superstitious confabulation and even primitive magical thinking. Moreover, when it expropriates a theological idiom for its justification, as it most evidently does in the mouths of the least talented of the evolutionary scientists, it shamelessly exploits and lives off, like all arbitrary expropriations, the accumulated spiritual faith and intellectual capital of the past, including the founders of the Age of Reason, and thereby sets itself up as a competing religion.
I have no qualms in stating that a merely reductive neo-Darwinist evolutionary theory is revisionist theology where the "principle of selection" usurps what was formerly understood as the divine vocation and "the will of God," thus setting itself up as a secular religion with its own theology and an oracular priesthood. And it is even fascistic in spirit. The foundations of democracy were laid with the Christian principle of selection that the speech of the people was the one voice of God (vox populi, vox Dei) from which our sanctified "vote" (vox) is derived as witness to a real faith that history was the process of godman-making and that men could be entrusted with selecting their own destiny. The vote empowered man as himself a principle of selection and as an elector fully in the image of God. And even things formerly the reserve of God (like "genius" which was once exclusively the name of the god) is now entrusted to men. Ironic, therefore, that human history should demonstrate itself such *intelligent design* of man being made in God's image.
But this principle of election justified in the vox populi, vox Dei is made irrelevant by both "evolutionism" as mere ideology as well as "the end of history". I call all this, rather, decadence.
The question of whether theere is such a thing ontological randomness, which Whirlstorm and Spacepenguin debated on the Paul Davies CiF thread seems relevant here.
(As a reminder here is the link to the relevant thread: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2111500,00.html
Also the poster andrewthomas100 put in a link to the following blog, where in the comments at the bottom pretty much the same debate went on:
http://www.ipod.org.uk/reality/reality_anthropic_principle.asp )
Longsword's arguments speak to me very directly. And I strongly appreciate the case "scientism" mirrors the religious position to elevating certain concepts, like "random chance", to the status of secular deities. But what if God does play dice after all? I don't see the compelling reason for believing in an intelligent designer over Dawkins's god of natural selection (I take the point re speech, but this strikes me as insufficient proof). Just because the latter exhibits fascistic overtones, doesn't mean it isn't true.
Just came accross (via CiF) the following essay by Freeman Dyson:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20370
Don't have time right now to jot down my thoughts on it, but think it is both extremely interesting and also highly relevant to the discussion that has been going on here.
daddy0marcos
Thanks for the links.
I have some reservations about Dyson's observations and conclusions. But his statement about cultural evolution superseding biological evolution speaks, in some ways, to my interests,
"Since that time, cultural evolution has replaced biological evolution as the main driving force of change. Cultural evolution is not Darwinian. Cultures spread by horizontal transfer of ideas more than by genetic inheritance. Cultural evolution is running a thousand times faster than Darwinian evolution, taking us into a new era of cultural interdependence which we call globalization."
But, as I commented in CiF, if this process is "a thousand times faster" than we are speaking not so much of evolutionary as revolutionary time. And its pretty clear what drives revolutionary time -- speech.
Which is just my point. Speech has mastered evolution, and the driving force impelling the unfolding of human consciousness is less genes now than "memes". Yet speech remains one of the most misunderstood and unexamined parts of our reality.
Only in this sense to I speak of "intelligent design". As I've stated elsewhere, my main area of interest is the history and evolution of consciousness. To that end religion, science, art, politics become objects of study in their own right. And they are all creations of speech. I have no particular interest in scientific or theological controversies or quarrels except as they reveal something about successive mutations in human consciousness.
And right here we do find "intelligent design". It is impossible to understand the unfolding patterns of Western history in particular without reference especially to the New Testament narrative. It has provided the blueprint for the construction of that history (only terminated, perhaps, with Yeats' Second Coming). There is scarcely a single event great or small in our own traditions and history that wasn't the issue of a human struggle to "properly" interpret the Biblical narrative in order to eventuate "the kingdom of heaven on earth". And in all this, science, religion, arts, politics have played a consistent and even complementary role.
In a very real sense, Dyson's observation of how cultural evolution has overtaken and surpassed biological evolution even supports the old Christian principle that vox populi, vox Dei human speech is the voice of God. And if we credit Dyson's remarks, then speech is indeed "supernatural".
My interest is, therefore, to clarify the historical record in this regard. History is not random, but reveals a remarkable continuity and direction from generation to generation, and an implicit unanimity that I also hold can be discovered in other streams of cultural history. This historical continuity has often been deliberately falsified and obscured by both secular reductionism and religious fundamentalism -- even, ironically, in the name of "truth".
From the Sedgemore CiF thread:
"longsword
Comment No. 710476
July 19 18:16
One of the things I find appalling about Dyson's article is the attitude to living creatures as akin to toys, which also introduces into species fabrication the economic principles of "creative destruction" and built-in obsolescence. If we are going to hand the power of mass creation to bored housewives and children, (where in future no species other than those of our own fabrication will exist -- a disturbing thought), then we might as well supplement this power by giving them also the power of mass destruction -- to every one a mini-nuke.
Of course, it means the elimination of the wild -- the sixth extinction event. Apparently, the seventh generation event (the seventh day of creation) will be completely our baby. I don't know that human beings can respect such a world, and may end up (ironically) like the immortals in the movie Zardoz, bored, alienated, and craving their own extermination."
My response:
Dyman's use of the toy analogy does abruptly raise some of the worst problems that ethical issues such a future would have to confront. In his defence, he does acknowledge this as an issue, while declining to delve into it.
But what I like about his article is the possibility of transcending the economic principles of economic destruction. The idea of treating living creatures as toys in the same way as how we view toys today - consumerist and disposable - is indeed abhorrant. But I also see the possibility that people confronted with the power of creation and destruction that we yield will somehow be forced to choose, and that this might help to bring about a greater harmony and balance with our environment.
daddy0marcos
Dyson strikes me as a very modern type -- a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Some of his comments in that article are indeed insightful, but his proposals for action seem disconnected from his insights. He strikes me as an enigmatic and perhaps dichotomous character.
There are some obvious contradictions in that essay which suggests to me that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde don't talk to each other.
Dyson must be aware that we are passing through (if not causing ourselves) the sixth extinction event -- a completely awesome testimony to our nihilism. I have written something about this myself, and about the hopes for a "seventh generation event". Apparently, following Dyson, this 7th Day of Creation is to be our own activity. God retires from the scene for a well-deserved rest, and we take over (or at least, the housewives and the children do).
I don't think this will work very well. The irony here is that we become the cause of evolution and the principle of selection. We assume this role and this power, perhaps even altering and modifying the parameters of evolution itself. We would become the genetic principle ourselves and, in effect, God as God has been hitherto understood -- as the Genius of Genesis. We would become this collectively (or at least, the housewives and children would). But I'm not certain that this is what was meant by the Christian vocation "be thou therefore perfect, even as thy Father in Heaven...".
Dyson's assertion that in future all species would be our "own" [creation] seems contradicted later by his concern that we do not introduce species that would upset the balance of the wild. But, if we wipe the slate blank, it makes little sense to concern ourselves with the barn doors after the horses have escaped, and concern for a wilderness that no longer exists seems a rather belated afterthought.
Which is why I say, modern man starts as Prometheus, but ends as Epimetheus -- or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
That's just one of the peculiar disjunctives in the piece. There seem to be elements of his fantasy that resemble pathology.
daddy0marcos.
Just after posting that last comment, it occurred to me that I might have commented on the relationship between magic and science (or, more specifically, rationalism). Dyson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (or Promethean and Epimethean) tendencies do reflect a longstanding tension in science between reason and magic.
The father of modern science, Francis Bacon, once weighed the relative merits of science or magic (alchemy then) for mankind's mastery of the forces of nature ("forces" being the replacement term for "spirits") and decided that natural philosophy was better adapted to the immediate ends of man's conquest of nature than magic. Newton, avatar of the new human type as embodied Universal Reason, nonetheless practiced magic in secret. And when Goethe published his "Faust", he also provided the fundamental model for the new human type as well -- the man of science tempted by magic -- "Faustian Man" or Magian Man. This sometimes gets cast as the discrimination between "pure science" (scientia) and "applied science" (techne).
(Greek "magike" is synonymous with "techne". Magike forms the root of Indo-Germanic "macht" -- power -- and also our work "make", "majesty", or magus and magi).
Dyson seems to reveal both tendencies.
That science has been tempted by magic relates to the issue of power, of course, summed up in Bacon's "scientia potens est" -- knowledge is power. A very thin line therefore divides science and magic in which the nexus of mutual concern is power and more specifically, the power to "make". The distinction usually drawn between scientia and techne (or magike) is between know-why and know-how.
However, in its most common expression, magical thinking is formulaic in form. The ritual formula and rite must be followed exactly or the spirits will be angry, the deluge will be unleashed, and the cosmos may well fall apart at the seams. This mode of expression actually resembles a lot of rationalism, with its emphasis on a ritual traditional logic as bulwark against the chaos of the irrational (or as Freud once put it to Jung in insisting on his dogmatic sexual theory as a bulwark against the "black tide of mud of the occult". Freud, often described as "neurotic," was actually magical-ritualistic in his thinking, which is translated into the ceremonial techne of psychoanalysis).
Magical thinking (ceremonial and ritualistic in form, precisely formulaic, know-how at the expense of know-why) has been the abiding temptation of science from the beginning when Bacon weighed the relative merits of natural philosophy or magic for acquiring power. "Scientism" (magical thinking) is precisely what results when know-how (magike/techne) is segregated from know-why (scientia).
It seems to me that Dyson is exemplary of this Faustianism, insofar as he fails to connect know-why with know-how, the Promethean and Epimethean, exemplified (as you noted) by his reluctance to delve into the ethical implications of his proposals.
Alchemy, Dyson, Speech, and Silence
Longsword brings up alchemy in relation to Dyson's piece, mentioning Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton.
I doubt either fathomed alchemy as a symbolic activity (although I have not done any research into their writings with this view in mind).
This other view of alchemy treats its metallurgical activities as secondary to an alchemy of self, an outer to the inner; a kind of disguise and a way of transmitting some very ancient teachings.
This alchemy of self also pertains to a transmutation of base to fine, as you might imagine, and as such can be connected with our brief discussion of ego.
Dyson speaks from that region of self and it is very much a region of words -- speech -- and conscious thought.
Words are surrounded by silence, however; the gaps between words, taken together with the words, constitute a larger reality, one that betrays larger, deeper, and what to us seem as "intuitive" regions of self.
The connecting energies, the tones, of those regions can be felt (this feeling is currently classified, along with much else, within the above "intuitive") in the gaps between the words.
The words are expressions of thought, of course, but observing this expression as close to its origin as possible reveals that thought is the basis for much more in our physical experience.
A brilliant analysis of words, their history, the role they play in changing movements of thought -- belief -- over time, and so on yields an incomplete comprehension.
A larger comprehension deliberately partakes of the silence between words, the experience of deeper regions of self for whom words are often surface manifestations.
Dysons emerge from those deeper regions, seemingly continuously, along with all else.
Regards
Bill I.
Nothingness, Emptiness, Void, Chaos -- for a visual culture, Nothingness (Chaos) is the endless Abyss of infinite space; for a tactile culture, it is the endless Ocean of the all-encompassing Womb before the waters above are separated from the waters below; and for an aural culture Nothingness and the Great Emptiness is Eternal Silence.
Oh yes, just occurred to me also to add the seething energy of formless possibility known as "the quantum vacuum" to the above representations of the Great Emptiness. It is strongly reminiscent of what the medievals (following Artistotle also) described as the domain of "potens" (as opposed to actus).
None of these are actually "Nothingness" strictly speaking, but rather a state or condition of formless pre-existence. As the Buddhist koan puts it, "show me your face before you were born".
Much adoggerel about nothing
It's a cold primeval womb,
Emptiness, a dead vacuum
Unsullied even by a background hiss.
It's the void you cannot touch,
And there isn't very much
To see inside your personal abyss.
Doubt all you hear and see.
Science? It's just heresy!
Close your eyes and you, too, can be blind.
You're left cold by natural law?
Think there should be something more?
Perhaps there is - but only in your mind....
steve: "Much adoggerel about nothing"
I see The Elizabethan Revival has already begun.
(Who said The End of History would include no surprises?)
Regards
Bill I.
Hi all
Sorry - I have been busy for the last few days and, possibly, for the next couple as well.
Bill:
Completely agree with your views on words playing but a small part in our communications system. Emphasis on the words alone misses much.
Steve:
Another triumph!
I'll try to get back with a more considered post in the next few days.
boltonian - actually, I felt the poem was disappointing. I'd tried for three days to get it to work, deleted the first two (and probably should have deleted that one). The only decent thing was the title (as Bill noticed)....trouble was, longsword had come up with some beautifully evocative (if perhaps bleak) words & phrases, which cried out to be used; and I wasn't knowledgeable enough to deal with the issues in a substantive way. I hope others are, though.
I won't pretend that I completely understand longsword's last couple of posts. My gut reaction is that there's something there I profoundly disagree with, but I'd be daft to waffle from a position of ignorance. As I said, maybe someone else will open it out by agreeing or disagreeing. Sorry longsword!
PS for anyone remotely interested, one recent verse I am pleased with can be found here (about 20 posts in):
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/07/you_review_harry_potter_and_th.html
....but don't bother if you're allergic to Harry Potter....
My predisposition leans neither towards bleakness nor morbidity. I am a disciple of the visionary poet William Blake. But...
Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos! is restor'd;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall
And Universal Darkness buries All.
(-Alexander Pope).
I am feeling, today, the very Earth lurch on its axis, groan in its revolutions, and hesitate in its orbit at "the end of history" (and there is more pure nihilism and decadence expressed in Fukuyama's triumphantly optimistic summation of human history than even in Pope's bleak vision).
Whence comes this conclusion? (for it is a conclusion literally). Since it was published, I have had my nose to the ground to track its spoor. He is right. But for all the wrong reasons.
Well, Steve your poem is not at all that bad, there is a lot I like about it; it is certainly at the very least promising. If it is missing something, I think it might be in the rhythmic flow: have you over condensed it from something longer?
By the way have you ever looked at BF Skinner's wonderful lecture 'On Having a Poem'. Someone gave the link on CiF (I think it might have been RalphMagus, who from a recent thread appears to be treated as an undesirable by the moderators - not sure exactly why, he does express extraordinary anti-feminist views, but there must be more)
http://www.bfskinner.org/audio.asp
I am totally with ou in regard to the recent contributions here, I have looked in with some sense of incredulity and a feeling that I have nothing to offer within the parameters of the discussion. I share your feeling of profound disagreement, but not really understanding the contributions. I get the feeling that it is all irredeemably subjective and (I am guesing) very much influenced by existentialism (not something I know much about).
Longsword mentions Plank's wall, I would like to propose something that might be called Heidegger's wall! Unfortunately for me, in this regard words cannot express.... (a poem does a better job at this sort of thing).
Sometime ago Boltonian wrote about the approximate nature of language. This is something that does worry me, particularly since as I have argued before that communication is our validation of external, objective reality.
Dear all:
Thank you for your contributions - they have finally prompted me into action.
Part of the reason I have been quiet is because I have been thinking a lot, particularly about Longsword's posts. Also, I have not had the time to do the subject justice.
I have been uneasy about the general thrust of Longsword's posts for some while and knew that I disagreed with what bits I thought I understood but, like others, I was not sure why.
This is what I think now.
Longsword:
You write as if you have incontrovertible evidence of the truth and use a mass of erudition as your justification, including a blizzard of selective quotes and fairly obscure (to me) language.
However, when I strip all this away your position seems to be one of conflating your own spiritual or intellectual experience as somehow coinciding with objective truth.
When I posted very early in this exchange that facts were public and truth subjective you suggested that I had it the wrong way round. But everything you have said since then tends to support my original thought.
An alarm bell rang for me in your recent post saying that you were a disciple of Blake. Whilst a visionary to some, he was also considered insane by many scholars - as was Nietzsche, whom you also quote extensively (not that the two things are necessarily incompatible).
What concerns me is the word, 'Disciple.' I am a disciple of nobody, nor would I wish to become one. That term implies hero worship, a surrendering of one's critical faculties and, ultimately, fanaticism.
I try to guard against the wish becoming father to the thought.
Another area of your argument I have difficulty with is your extensive reliance on the derivation of words. I am tempted to ask, 'So what?' Interested as I am in Etymology I cannot see how this approach adds weight to your position, except by way of demonstrating your capacious repository of knowledge.
Despite your protestations I would say that, 'Bleak,' is the 'mot juste' to describe the general tenor of your posts here.
Finally, and purely a stylistic point; I find a tendency in your contributions for employing dramatic, even apocalyptic, language, as if you are declaiming from your soap box at Speakers Corner, and prophesying that, 'The End of the World is Nigh.' Why?
I know you do not approve of the maxim that perception is reality but for me this sums up my perception of your position, whether this is the impression you meant to convey to me is another matter entirely.
MartinRBD:
This is an example of what I mean by the approximate nature of language. I have not expressed, in this post, precisely what I mean. I have come as close as I am able but it does not tell the full story. It is an approximation. What you receive when you read this is also likely to be altered to resonate with your own experiences and knowledge, therefore it will move slightly further away from my intention, and so on. And, eventually, 'Send three and fourpence we're going to a dance.'
Also, you use the word, 'Communication.' Language is one small (but very important) tool in our communications box.
To Boltonian:
Yes, I chose the word 'communication' to be inclusive of all forms. I am interested in how the Arts use several modes of communication which seem to operate at different levels.
However with respect to the approximate nature of language, it is not the 'Chinese whispers' aspect that really worries me as this is simply a problem of transcription; issues of translation are more interesting, but what concerns me most is whether manipulation of language (Orwellian if you like) can fundamentally distort what we agree to be reality. At a simple level this seems impossible, a cat can never be a dog, but when indiscriminate killing becomes collateral damage for example has there been a fundamental change to the relationship of a society (because language is a group activity) to reality?
As an unconscious, organic development to language, this is not so much of a problem as I think there would be self correcting factors at work (since the nature of objective reality is that it cannot be distorted). The problem that worries me is whether a deliberate campaign of language manipulation can, in some specific ways, effectively remove our capacity to perceive reality.
It would be comforting to think that an often unspoken objective of Science and other academic disciplines is to provide what is in effect a 'clean' language, that is, so far as it is possible, free of manipulative influence.
Martin - you're spot on with the doggerel, the rhythm is totally up the creek (and doubtless there are other flaws I haven't even seen....) It wasn't condensed, although I did feel that I was trying to pack a fortnight's worth of clothes into a small suitcase....
I *really* don't want to hijack boltonian's "metaphysics" blog, and turn it into poets' corner. But you may be amused to know that I often start these things with a set POV, and yet the rhymes and rhythms will dictate that the final offering says exactly the opposite. Maybe the devil has all the best rhymes and rhythms, as well as tunes....
Unfortunately, I can't access your audio link to Skinner, as although we've resurrected our computer, it's now totally mute! No sounds whatsoever! But I'll try to search for text, as it would interest me. Thanks.
I'm not against bleakness. I have a fairly pessimistic view of the future of the world, but on political and scientific grounds, not metaphysical. (Although I admit theists will presumably find it easier to be optimistic than atheists!) I don't see a bad future as inevitable, though, which is where *my* bleakness would differ from the existentialists. There's a bit of hope left in my (literary, not metaphysical) soul yet. When longsword says of Fukuyama "He is right. But for all the wrong reasons", I suspect I may end up agreeing with him....a bit, anyway.
I'm going to stick with my view that perception *is* reality - or at least, the best approximation of it I can get - perception is all I have to go on. Communicating that perception will, I agree, fuzz it up a little, and your interpretation blurs it some more. But it's the best we can do. And, since we're even more encumbered online by these little dialogue boxes, I'm puzzled as to what more we can use than language? Maybe, boltonian, you could expand on your final sentence.
Steve: the Skinner lecture really does need the audio (it is a delightful performance). You could save it to an MP3 player (or even covert the file on to a standard CD).
Not sure what POV stands for.
What do you mean by perception 'is' reality? Surely not as this easily opens the way to the idea that there are only perceptions (that is perhaps no reality). I suspect you want to use the common sense view that perception gives us a truthful picture of reality. My pint is that language and other forms of communication validate external reality because in our communications, neither of us owns the language and the language contains words or signs that point towards reality (material and abstract). If we took these words to point at different things then we would cease to be able to comunicate (as in the POV example!)
As for the concept of language; some take language to be restricted to words, grammatically organised in written or spoken form. However symbolism, the use of images, body gesture and facial expression, sound organised as music etc all can play a part in communication and play a part in how we respond. These would all be included in a wider interpretation of the idea of language/ communication.
Not sure about pessimism/ optimism: I just hope it won't turn out to be as bad as I think it will be!
Martin, Steve:
Yes, language can be manipulated to distort our perception of reality. Our view of reality comes to us partly through language. The Classical Greeks, for example, did not have a word for blue (as I understand it), so the concept cannot have existed.
Martin, why do you think that our perceptions bear a close resemblance to reality, simply because we are able to communicate? All life forms communicate in one way or another but would have a very different view of the world from us. Why are we so special?
Mathematics was for long thought of as the language best able to describe the objective world but that is now being disputed in certain scientific circles.
I am not sure there is an objective world out there and, if there is, that we are able to access it. My guess, and it is not much more than that, is that if it exists it resembles nothing like our perception of it.
Steve:
Martin has summed up what I meant - we communicate in all sorts of ways: body language; tone of voice; frequency of communication; who initiates the dialogue etc. There has been lots of research into the the proportion of communication methods we use most and for what purpose. I seem to remember one study suggesting that more than 90% of all face to face communication was non-lingual(maybe even non-verbal).
I am fairly optimistic about the medium term future because I think that we are too robust a species to die out altogether just yet. We will continue to evolve and suffer occasional setbacks, some of our own making. What is for sure is that our fate will be decided by something that we cannot foretell. Neither climate change nor a war of resources nor disease will do for us as a species.
Have no evidence one way or t'other and one's POV (point of view) depends largely on temperament. Although largely a sceptical empiricist by philosophical leaning, I am also an optimist in most things.
Martin, boltonian - b's explained POV for me (point of view). Which, as M said, illustrates the problem. You think you have a handle on all these web abbreviations, but I'm constantly coming across new ones & having to work them out (or putting my own idiosyncratic interpretation on them....)
I figured you'd (both) be thinking of body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, etc as other components of communication. But they won't fit in this dialogue box! It's so easy to offend (or mislead) when you can't accompany a comment with a wry smile or a raised eyebrow....just for future reference, please assume that I wouldn't deliberately offend here - I'll save that for CiF, where offence is *occasionally* intended....
My fairly bald conviction that "perception is reality" is really just a follow-on from my line from our previous disagreement, that "you have to start somewhere." I wouldn't know where to start to get a handle on "reality" if it isn't through perception....it certainly wouldn't come from anyone else's view, as that would just be *their* perception, filtered through a couple of layers of fuzzy communication! I would go further and say that it would be a cop out to say that there is *no* ultimate reality. The idea of multiple individual realities doesn't work for me; but I recognise that that argument won't keep the philosophers happy.
I'm sure my reality is your reality - London's in the same place for all of us, and plants are green here as there....history happened, and our only differences are that we saw different bits of it. But the overall picture isn't infinitely variable. It's bounded, and maybe we're just arguing about exactly how tightly it's bounded.
As regards optimism/pessimism :
"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true." Cabell
On the other hand:
"An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience." Marquis
(Marquis also said "Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo." - so I guess he was a pessimist....must try that line on OvidYeats on the Arts Blog.)
To Boltonian:
I certainly do not think we are SO special, nor did i say that "our perceptions bear a close resemblance to reality, simply because we are able to communicate"
This all relates to dualism, solpsism and the private language argument that we debated a while back.
I did suggest that Steve might have meant that he thought our perceptions give a truthful picture of reality when he said that in his view "perception *is* reality - or at least, the best approximation of it I can get"
By 'truthful', I did not mean 'a good resemblance' and in any case the common sense view that Steve seemed to be echoing is not how I would usually put the argument. However I do tend to think that our perceptions are truthful in the sense that they represent genuine data.
I have just noticed that Steve has been adding something that concurs with this point.
Hello Steve! Yes I too baulk at the suggestion that there is no objective reality. Once you have established that solipsism doesn't really work, at least not in any discussable sense (as argued before), you have to accept an external and therefore objective reality. I do not see the point in multiple realities, but I do recognise that even if we did have perfect knowledge of some aspect of external reality we could never be fully sure of this.
Steve makes the interesting comment "But the overall picture isn't infinitely variable. It's bounded, and maybe we're just arguing about exactly how tightly it's bounded."
I do agree and some time in the future I would like to explore the consequences of this for value judgements: how tightly bounded are they? Is it as sure as grass is green that Thomas Hardy is a better poet than William McGonagell or even that Shakespeare is a better dramatist than Thomas Kyd?
boltonian...
"However, when I strip all this away your position seems to be one of conflating your own spiritual or intellectual experience as somehow coinciding with objective truth."
What is "objective"? What does it mean to "cast off", to "thrust away"? A moral imperative is hidden in this sanitising word. In essence, "objective" is a demand that we be honest and truthful with the elements of experience. Are we?
I do not ask questions like "what is the relationship between word and thing" which is tautological. "Thing" is a word. I don't ask about the relationship of language to reality. I ask instead, what is the relationship of language to consciousness? I ask, do the rules of grammar inform the act of perception in the same way that the rules of logic inform the act of conception? Seems rather elementary. For if (as an initial basis for reflection) "perception is reality", and consequently constitutive of reality, then the rules governing the constitutive act of perception should be of the outmost scientific interest, wouldn't you say?
But that is not to ask what is the relationship of language to the system of objects we call "reality". It is to ask, what is the relationship of language to consciousness? Instead of asking what is the relationship of the word to the thing (the "res" of reality), what is the relationship of word (or name) to the percept.
But then, logic and mathematics are only special instances of language as well. (And there is a tendency amongst intellectuals, especially, to assume that the only valid or truth-speaking speech must assume the indicative form alone -- the "pointing" or factive form. Apparently, imperatives, optatives, and narratives have no validity). Or, analytic speech is real, but lyric, epic, dramatic speech belongs to the fictive.
"An alarm bell rang for me in your recent post saying that you were a disciple of Blake. Whilst a visionary to some, he was also considered insane by many scholars - as was Nietzsche, whom you also quote extensively (not that the two things are necessarily incompatible)."
Gosh, somebody had best inform the benighted trustees of the British Library, which just stationed a sculpture of Newton by based on Blake's caricature of Newton-as-Narcissus caught in single vision in its piazza. I would like to think that people still have a sense of the ironies of history, and that the selection of Blake's caricature of Newton wasn't inadvertent and from ignorance. That would be too terrifying. I'ld like to think, instead, that some people are waking up from "single vision".
As to my confession of "discipleship" -- I wouldn't get too caught up in that. It only means assuming a discipline. Some years ago, I decided to take Blake's fourfold vision seriously, just to see how far it could carry one. I was dissatisfied with all monisms and dualisms anyway, seeing them as defective. They had stretched themselves so to accommodate their own contradictions that they had, in any event, become unreal cartoon caricatures. I have disciplined my mind to the logic of the quadrilateral instead. And in retrospect, I can see that it was not Blake who was mad, but his critics. Ditto for Nietzsche whose break with perspective consciousness anticipated Picasso. And, naturally, people still in thrall to entrenched perspectivism and "the point of view" (POV) would find Nietzsche and Picasso lunatic -- or at least incomprehensible.
"What concerns me is the word, 'Disciple.' I am a disciple of nobody, nor would I wish to become one. That term implies hero worship, a surrendering of one's critical faculties and, ultimately, fanaticism."
There are many forms of fanaticism, because fantastic people fancy many different idols in many a different fanum. We call this "value pluralism".
"Another area of your argument I have difficulty with is your extensive reliance on the derivation of words. I am tempted to ask, 'So what?' Interested as I am in Etymology I cannot see how this approach adds weight to your position, except by way of demonstrating your capacious repository of knowledge."
My position is that the symbolic function in man has become divorced from his true reality. The symbolic and semantic environments have become self-referential, the "mind-forg'd manacles" of "the Dark Satanic Mill" as Blake described mind in the throes of a self-devouring tautology where symbols have lost intimate contact with the reality they were designed to symbolise over many generations. and have come to refer to nothing but themselves. Image trumps reality. The word "symbolise" itself means "to bring together" -- to integrate, in other words. The word "integrate" also means "to heal", "to mend", "to make whole". The contrary to symbolic is *diabolic*. The decay of the symbolic function leads to the diabolic predicament, or what else are people saying who write about "the closing of the American Mind" (Bloom), "the closing of the Western Mind" (Freeman), "the vicious downward intellectual spiral" into Dark Age (Jacobs), "the culture of narcissism" (Lasch), "assault on reason" (Gore), "war against truth" (Roberts), and god-knows-who-else-these-days? In fact, it is exactly the kind of decadence and nihilism that "the madman in the marketplace" Friedrich Nietzsche predicted as our unavoidable fate well over a century ago, and sought out ways to outrun this fate.
Hi, just dropped in to say I'm far too busy reading the last Harry Potter book to post on anything sensibly.
Also ( - Steve - ) my prayer was answered in a most unexpected way so I'm rather busy on that front too ;)
Biskieboo - glad you're having fun. Don't forget the old Chinese saying, though, about being careful what you wish (pray) for.... ;-}
Just a brief comment on boltonian's 1-7 possible variants on the perception/reality relationship (with the proviso that a few weren't clear in meaning to me; but I recognise you were trying to be brief).
Some of the options would lead to the situation where even discussing reality with another person would be pointless, as one could never understand, let alone verify, the other's POV. Here I would place 1,2,3,5 & 7. Borderline, and maybe harsh, in a few cases, but I'm sure there would be insuperable communication problems between individuals in those cases. I think I'm more of a 6 than a 4, although I'm a little unclear on what you meant by the "beyond" in 4 : "...indirectly through our ability to communicate beyond ourselves." Just to emphasize, much of my argument comes from the point that, were any of the other options to be true, it would be difficult to have a meaningful conversation about it. (Of course, the fact that we disagree about these things might be a point in favour of one of these options....)
Anyway, I recognize that I'm in a minority here (possibly a minority of one). But arguing for a different reality than we perceive - or could ever perceive - just seems unnecessary.
You (b) said "London might exist but I can never know if your perception of it is similar to mine." But on every objective comparison, we would agree. No-one could make a case for *their* London having Buckingham Palace inside Bethnal Green tube station, for example. So I would strongly disagree with you on this: it would be straightforward to find enough points of agreement to confirm that our perceptions of London were essentially identical. That's not to say that the first image in your mind when you hear the word "London" would be the same as mine, but I'm sure the overall "Londonness" is the same for us both.
Thanks for the kind words about the doggerel. I don't know if any of you browse the book blogs at the Grauniad, but there are better attempts there; including quite a crude one today on the "spoetry" (sic) blog. They're often fun blogs.
MacGonagall is, when all's said and done, *fun*, and often more readable than the "good" poets....
Had to come back to post this link:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20070726/tod-health-us-animals-f62056d.html
Biskieboo - I read about the death moggie on teletext yesterday. Weird. I wonder whether they've considered the possibility that he might be the cause rather than a predictor? And did you notice the splendid name of the doctor? Dosa the doser....
If the cat had been seen curling up on the old folks' faces, then I would agree that we should be looking at the cat as a suspect. It seems that it hasn't been caught out - yet.
I had a cat that was run over and killed a few years ago. About a week later when I was in that not-quite-awake-but-not-still-asleep state in the morning I felt my cat jump up on to the bed and heard it purring. But I couldn't have done, because it was dead.
Spooky.
steve:
Point 4 was saying that the fact that we communicate publicly is indirect evidence of objective reality.
Point 6 seems to me to be the least likely of all. Why should our perception of reality coincide with how things really are?
Re-London. It is not a question of Buckingham Palace not being in Bethnal Green but understanding what you perceive and and how I see them are roughly the same. We make assumptions because we are genetically alike but we also know that perceptions are derived from a huge range of factors, including genetic make-up.
We can test this quite easily by attending the same event and then being asked by a third party to describe it the following day. We will disagree about all sorts of things - the colour of the decor; the size of the venue; number of players etc. And yet 12 hours earlier we were supposedly experiencing the same thing. This is assuming that we mean the same thing by the words we use; and we also know that people use language differently. When we come to describe qualitative experience then we really are at sea and we will differ quite widely. But it is we that categorise some things as objective and others as subjective - not that they are these things in themselves.
Even if we compare things at the time of the experience we will disagree over certain things because our brains works in slightly different ways and our modes of expression vary.
How much different would perceptions vary (assuming we could communicate) between, say, a cat and a human being? So, whose version of reality is correct?
We know that our brains create complete pictures from scant evidence for lots of survival reasons but why should that picture accurately and faithfully reflect reality? I doubt our perceptive equipment developed as it has for this purpose.
Biskieboo:
Also read the cat story - interesting. If next door's cat gets too friendly I will start to worry.
Hi boltonian : "We can test this quite easily by attending the same event and then being asked by a third party to describe it the following day. We will disagree about all sorts of things - the colour of the decor; the size of the venue; number of players etc. And yet 12 hours earlier we were supposedly experiencing the same thing."
There is, though, an objectively correct answer to the questions about venue size, decor, number of players. And even if we answered incorrectly, it wouldn't mean that it was beyond our wit to get the right answers.
Similarly with the London thing; we might not agree on whether we had a nice day out (no objective answer there) but that's not part of Londonness. We might misremember aspects of our day out, but that's not the same as being unable to perceive what really happened. Getting things wrong doesn't mean we couldn't have got them right - Martin or Biskieboo might have been with us, and one of them might have a photographic memory....
I agree that when it comes down to picking one of your options from 1-7, in the end it's personal preference or gut feeling. So I can't *prove* 6 - nevertheless, I don't think your London or venue examples *disprove* it, either. I'm just a WYSIWYG kinda guy....
To Boltonian, Steve and others:
Ahead of any speculation about the nature (or not) of reality lies a stark polarity. A fixed or objective material reality either exists or it does not. Any gloss on this necessarily polarises to one side or the other.
Any proposition that denies the existence of material reality leads to a form of solipsism in which the (non material) individual is his or her own creator, or the individual is a solipsistic fragment or figment of another creator (e.g. Bishop Berkeley's God). However sophisticated the construction it amounts to the same thing. The solipsitic creator is his or her own self-validating, tautological yardstick. In a solipsistic world, the objects and concepts towards which the words and phrases (signs) of language point are as arbitrary as the words themselves; when all is self-referential there can be no meaning. This is an expression of the private language argument.
Does this disprove solipsism? No, strictly speaking I find that I am an agnostic on this point! Nevertheless as I address my thoughts in a public language, I find that the language and the act of communication is in effect an assertion of the existence of a material reality. However we discuss the notion of solipsism, the act of discussion presupposes, that it is not true, so it does not make sense to discuss it as a possibility.
How we perceive, what our attitude is towards and whether we could entirely know material reality are separate questions. Nevertheless, in general, apart from specific conditions such as blue-green colour blindness, Biology/genetics gives us every reason to assume that our fundamental perceptions are not different from anyone else's. Our attitude to our perceptions can however be coloured by experience (the contribution of the external environment).
Our experiences do not take place in a vacuum but rather in a social context, so the conditioning of our perceptions is a shared, group phenomenon. Nevertheless it does not seem right to state that (as a poet) "Hardy is superior to McGonagall) because we say he is according to the rules we set ourselves", as this seems to imply that there may be a set of circumstances in which the opposite could be true. (Steve, the 'fun' of McGonagall arises from the sense of incredulity that anything that aspired to be poetry could be so bad)
"History, however, eventually sorts it out", more than this it leaves an overall impression of standards for value judgements that are independent of individual responses. Thus an assertion that, for instance, 'Shakespeare is rubbish' becomes more of a value judgement on the individual voice than a judgement on Shakespeare's position as a writer.
The follow up questions are how does history sort it out? And what are the implications for what determines quality in the Arts? Why is it not possible to write another Shakespeare play, a 42nd Mozart symphony etc?
That is enough for the moment, but on the cat question, ever since our cat died I get accused of snoring at night - how spooky is that?!
Sorry, I had not read the latest posts by Boltonian and Steve when I wrote that last contribution, which is why I have not commented directly, however Steve's what you see is what you get is not necessarily in contradiction to Boltonian's what you see is just a part of what there is.
Nevertheless Steve does have to admit that whilst you can see the sun move across the sky this is not really what is happening (what you get). The perception in itself is not a deception, but it just leads to the wrong conclusion. To me this emphasises how careful Scientists need to be in distinguishing observation from interpretation. I suspect Steve would defend his position in terms of pure observation striped of any interpretation. Boltonian meanwhile is thinking of the full story of material reality (the thing in itself) of which even if we did have total knowledge, I do not think we could ever know that we had total knowledge.
"Ahead of any speculation about the nature (or not) of reality lies a stark polarity. A fixed or objective material reality either exists or it does not. Any gloss on this necessarily polarises to one side or the other."
There is, however, a third position that has been taken historically, that both are true.
Before it descended, along with everything else, into the general decadence of Christendom and the Church in the period we call the Late Medieval, Scholasticism based its thinking about the nature of the real upon the paradoxical formula "it is and it is not". This was its point of departure for reasoning about the world.
And if we hope to understand anything about ourselves, via the history and evolution of human consciousness to the present day, we must have the capacity to empathise with the consciousness of all former humanity by experimentally adopting their consciousness. That is the only valid meaning of "empathy" at all. It is certainly not to be confused with "pity".
The scholastics acknowledged that "nothing comes from nothing" is a law of nature. At the same time they accepted the authority of scripture that "God created the world from nothing," ex nihilo via "the Word that was from the beginning" -- fiat lux.
This forced the scholastics to make a distinction between the natural order and the supernatural order -- Nature and Genesis, world and spirit. In the natural order, nothing comes from nothing and birth precedes death in the order of time in which the father is always first in the biological order. Nature is the realm of birth (as the word "Nature" means -- the realm of natality and mortality).
(And Paul Hawken's characterisation of our contemporary nihilism in *The Ecology of Commerce* as "the death of birth" echos Carolyn Merchant's "The Death of Nature" for that reason).
In the supernatural order described by Genesis, however, death precedes birth (doctrine of resurrection). The tomb is the womb and here it is the child that is father to the man.
"It is and it is not" made the distinction between Nature and Genesis as the paradoxical aspects of one reality as a continuing dialogue between Cosmos and Chaos in terms of the basic ontological categories of "actus" (actuality) and "potens" (potentiality) which is not one wit different in conception than the paradox of the particle and the wave in quantum physics.
The scholastics saw the world as paradoxical, but not contradictory. And the vitality of early scholastic thought was predicated on this polarity between Nature and Genesis, saeculum and aeternitas, mortal and immortal, just as electricity is generated by the present of positive and negative poles. Decadence emerged when this polarity of vital thought was reduced to an "either/or" logic rather than a "both/and" logic.
The subtelties of scholastic thought aren't actually much different than what one finds in Buddhism, too. "It is and it is not" could well be mistaken for Buddhist. It is also found in Heraclitus, the philosopher of Becoming, who took on Parmenides, the philosopher of Being. Goethe, Nietzsche, Blake, et alia are in the lineage of Heraclitus. Most of our mainstream rationalists are in the lineage of Parmenides. The split between the Logos and the Mythos begins with Parmenides and Heraclitus, and is reflected in the split between Nature and Genesis in scholastism, only to be duplicated in the split between Mind and Body (res cogitans and res extensa in Descartes).
Indeed, one might also say that the very brief periods of lucidity and intellectual vitality in human history (like the Renaissance) have been at times when the paradoxical character of our full reality was sustained in consciousness like the generative poles of an electrical current.
We mustn't forget, either, that the founder of modern genetics was a Christian monk, who saw no contraction at all between his reason and his faith. That distinction between reason and faith (Nature and Genesis, natural and supernatural orders of time) is a Late Modern one (the Renaissance priest and poet John Donne made no such absolute distinction in his poetry). Rather, this "either/or" logic is witness to the decadence of the Modern Era, just as late scholasticism forgot its own foundations in the paradox of "it is and it is not" and descended into dogma.
Greetings & Hallucinations!
Regarding the nature of reality: It's too bad Jane Robert's Seth lacks the perceived weight of any number of famed philosophers but hardly surprising, considering how all of his books were channelled. That process, an art more than a science, remains in ill repute in most places, despite any number of 'famous' instances.
If this were not so, more here might have read The Nature of Personal Reality, among other books by the same author.
I offer a small Seth section here but note that although I acknowledge Seth as a major influence I do not consider myself a "disciple" of Seth; that very concept is antithetical to his teachings (although if I were to deploy Longsword's definition I would be forced to restate this).
Seth's "POV" is entirely relevant to the subjective/objective discussion while distinct from most of the accepted philosophical stances in that he offers exercises for purposes of validation.
I'll restate a very short version then leave this alone:
o Everyone creates their own unique physical continua (this means that there are as many versions of London as people within it at any moment);
o This is accomplished by a transduction of energies utilizing the brain, the rest of the nervous system, the senses, and other more mysterious organs (Seth doesn't delve into these, for the most part; many Eastern teachings do);
o Coordination of these endless individual physical realities is accomplished by what could be called "telepathy," mostly unconscious; and
o There are certain "root assumptions" within any physical system. In our system these include linear time, space, and gravity but our system is definitely but one of a great many. (I've actually visited other systems but have absolutely no way of proving this to anyone, while the tales of how I did so would require book length treatment).
There's a lot more, but I became somewhat "Sethed-out" years ago.
Initially, I was a solitary Seth reader, but some years after my introductory experience (related here), I encountered an early Internet Seth list comprised of an overlap of those with early adopter "Geekish" tendencies and enthusiasm for the Seth material.
I interacted in that (and subsequent on-line environments) for years but eventually reached my limit, after exhausting what were, for me, its many possibilities, not the least of which included folks teaching each other what could be called do-it-yourself on-line mediumship, a fascinating activity.
Seth's teachings have certain features in common with Neo-Berkeley-ism, the "Perennial Philosophy," and even David Bohm's physics (see the other Norman Friedman book Longsword didn't mention: Bridging Science and Spirit) but is definitely not academic in spirit or nature.
Seth is more of a discarnate Socrates.
On another somewhat related topic, did anyone notice the news item regarding the lights seen above Stratford-on-Avon?
(How could anyone ignore The Bard when discussing words and language?)
I found the timing of this interesting, considering my posting of the words: The Elizabethan Revival here and elsewhere and the refocusing I've been doing on that period and what might be termed "The Elizabethan Oversoul" behind it. (Was this an instance of acausal vertical linkage?)
Needless to say, I have a strong personal connection to that situation.
Regards
Bill I.
Hi all
A few disconnected responses as they occur to me.
steve:
WYSIWYG cannot be right otherwise David Copperfield, Derren Brown and countless children's party entertainers would be out of business. It is very easy to fool one's senses.
Also, because our perceptions depend to a large degree on our experience there must be zillions of things out there that we have not perceived and, maybe, are incapable of perceiving. I am thinking immediately of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Also, although we are able to detect the effects of gravity we have yet to 'Perceive' what it is.
Re- London and last night's event. Yes, we might have been with someone who has a photographic memory but we would still need to take their view on trust because neither you nor I will have had the same experience. We are making a big assumption that there is an objective reality and some people have access to it. It might be a reasonable assumption in some cases but it is an assumption nonetheless.
Martin:
I don't know how you can be sure that our experiences are similar. All one can do, I think, is relate others' accounts to one's own experience and observations. It is from this that we can draw conclusions. How often do you hear in conversation things like, ' I don't understand him,' or, 'I cannot understand how she could have done such a thing.' ETc.
Re-artistic standards. We decide what they are through some very complex social interactions. By and large what pleases those who have most influence in these matters becomes good art. The more people that are in on the decision-making the more the regression to the norm, so that is how history sorts out one from another. There is no objective standard. Some people, for example, cannot stand Shakespeare. I do not like Wagner, much to the bafflement of some of my friends. Is Wagner a superior composer of opera than, say, Verdi? Not in my book but my opinion is probably a minority view among the cognoscenti.
Bill:
Completely agree with your suggestion that there are as many Londons as there are people who have visited the place. In fact, I would argue that it is wider than that because even people who have never been there have heard of it and will have formed impressions.
I can't comment on telepathy because I know nothing about the subject.
Oscar the death cat, mentioned above by Biskieboo, has been immortalised in verse here:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_smith/2007/07/cats_and_docs.html
....or maybe "immortalised" isn't the right word.... ;-}
Boltonian writes: "Completely agree with your suggestion that there are as many Londons as there are people who have visited the place. In fact, I would argue that it is wider than that because even people who have never been there have heard of it and will have formed impressions."
Dear Boltonian:
Note that a distinction is often made between primary and secondary constructions.
The Londons being created right this moment by all who are physically present within its boundaries (these Londons are all primary constructions) are not the same as those being created within the minds of others not physically present.
Your primary reality, then, is restricted by the limits of your physical perception (but note that this includes stars and galaxies billions of light years away, as you can see those).
Although such an understanding can be experimentally (and personally, or "subjectively") verified, dealing with "objective reality" is much more difficult than many might suppose.
This doesn't mean there is no such thing, however, as many ardent New Agers assume.
Bill
Boltonian: you question "I don't know how you can be sure that our experiences are similar." This is not exactly what I was saying when I wrote "Biology/genetics gives us every reason to assume that our fundamental perceptions are not different from anyone else's."
What I mean is that the basic apparatus, the proteins and the genes that code for them etc are the same and work in the same way, connecting to the central nervous system in the same way. Threfore we should not propose theoretical differences that ignore this knowledge. Of course someone might be short sighted, hard of hearing etc so that there may well be some differences in the information received, but we cannot sensibly propose that the internal perception of green and sweet for one person, might register the same as red and sour for someone else. How perceptions relate to our history of life experience can easily give rise to wide differences so that the same perception can be pleasant for one person but disagreeable to another.
To account for a liking or a dislike of salt, for example, does not require any assumption that the mechanism of registering saltiness is in any way different in the two cases.
Longsword: dualism creates enormous problems, especially with regard to interactions, but basically one of existence or non-existence has to take priority.
The history of dualism may be interesting, but it does not constitute an argument. in any case it is fairly apparent that in medievil scholasticism the spiritual world had primacy over the material world. Incidentally, I don't think your analogies with Physics help your point of view.
Martin:
I think we are violently agreeing here - my emphasis is slightly more sceptical than yours. I think I put it something like this in an earlier post:
'Because were are genetically almost indistinguishable we must assume that our experiences bear some resemblance from one person to another; but it is an assumption nonetheless.'
Agree about dualism. I cannot find any evidence that it has much validity other than, 'What else can it be?' sort of arguments. It is a bit like ID - because Darwinian evolution is not a perfect or complete theory therefore the world must have been designed. One does not follow from the other. We have very few answers but that does not mean we should just make something up that cannot (at this moment) be disproved and call it the truth.
If I could impolitely join in some v interesting discussions.
Wrt scholasticism and 'dualism', I must tentatively and slightly nervously - yikes - disagree with MartinRDB and Boltonian - or at least suggest a few complicating things worth bearing in mind.
While I understand why (v broadly speaking) scholastic attempts to describe and discern things might be described as 'dualistic', I also think it can be v unhelpful. In this kind of context, 'dualism' recalls (to my mind) most strongly some sort of Cartesian take: i.e. (I think this would be a fair term) substance dualism.
The scholastic form of 'dualism' was v different. I am no philosopher let alone some sort of Gilson when it comes to doing the history of philosophy (esp for this period), but thinkers like Aquinas et al were surely not substance dualists. Rather, their (inherited - but not passively) categories - for instance, form and matter - seem to address different aspects of being (rather than different kinds of being in themselves, as in the Cartesian mind and body). Indeed, it is the interaction between, say, form and matter which is necessary for a singular thing to be. I think Longsword touches on this when speaking about act/potentiality and the shift to late scholasticism/early modern thought:
"Decadence emerged when this polarity of vital thought was reduced to an "either/or" logic rather than a "both/and" logic."
(In contemporary philosophy of mind, neo-thomists - for want of a better designation - do not easily fall into either the materialist or dualist categories, as those 'schools' - with vital differences within as well as between them - have been conventionally developed).
I hope I have not been too vague. Medieval philosophers were - as MartinRDB rightly points out - concerned with the 'spiritual' (though a caveat might be that this is not exactly the same thing as what might be taken as 'spiritual' today: I don't use this as a category that is intimately entwined with, say, the 'mystical').
The 'spiritual' is an equivocal term: undoubtedly devout thinkers like Aquinas were, in terms of praxis, very much interested in the 'spiritual'. (There's a story that after some sort of spiritual experience, Aquinas thereafter was disinclined to write another word - to be fair, he'd already written quite a few). But, at a more conceptual (or more specifically - and hopefully a, for once, relevant use of one of my fave words - ontological) level, I'm not wholly convinced that medieval thinkers gave primacy to the spiritual over the material: their metaphysics is much more holistic than that (and bearing in mind the caveat on 'spiritual').
Incidentally, I find Boltonian's ID comparison most unfair! (I disagree that the comparison reveals much - obviously not sociologically nor conceptually, but it's a moot point).
Just to mark out some of the 'buoys' in this discussion: do we agree (or not) that if there is no 'objective reality' (i.e. some sort of real existence of things regardless of our perceiving them to be in existence), then we don't have much scope for conceiving of other beings - specifically, other humans - as 'objectively' existing in their own right?
ChooChoo:
Not much time just now, so a very quick response.
1) There are no private conversations here and discussion is welcomed.
2)Disagreement is not only tolerated but encouraged. How would we learn anything otherwise?
3) Dualism. I admit to thinking of Cartesian dualism - what I know of the Scholastics comes to me via Russell. It is not a school I know too much about.
4) You have disagreed rather than refuted my comparison with ID. What I meant to imply was that dualism has about the same level of evidence. It is not an exact analogy, merely an illustration.
5) If you have a spiritual experience and try to describe it to me and I have experienced nothing like what you describe how can I relate to it? I will draw certain (provisional) conclusions, because we (I speak for myself) are comfortable with endings and explanations but not with loose ends and mystery.
Must dash now - hope to catch up later.
What do others think?
Just a brief message of support for Biskieboo, who got some pretty nasty and uncalled for comments on the CiF Oscar thread from you-know-who.... ;-} There are ways of disagreeing without being that objectionable....
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