The Weakness of the Progressive Mind

[Nick_A]

Atia

How exactly do you know that you aren't just making up all this Source/Good/objective value business?

I’m not making this stuff up but just showing how repulsive Plato’s distinction between knowledge and opinion has become in modern culture. It gets in the way of arguments over subjective values and the glorification of fragmentation.

It really will be up to students to keep this basic distinction open and the value of contemplation about the relationship between knowledge and opinion.


Science Fan

Nick A: Sorry, there Nick, but if you are going to arbitrarily state that any values you do not like, or that religion has a long sordid history standing against, are subjective, while values you arbitrarily support are objective, then the discussion is over, because it is entirely pointless. It's also question begging.

You are closed to Plato’s distinction between knowledge and opinion. Objective values remain in the domain of knowledge while subjective values are argued in the domain of opinions. To better clarify what I mean, here is a brief explanation of the relationship between knowledge and opinion. Beauty is in the realm of knowledge while things perceived to be beautiful are in the realm of opinion. The distinction is opposed by the progressive mind. Opening to it admits a Source and a quality of consciousness beyond the indoctrination of the secular mind.

Here is a brief outline of the distinction between knowledge and opinion explained by Plato. As you can see, knowledge exists at a higher level of reality than opinions. Objective values are an expression of a higher level of reality than subjective values. The religious mind is drawn to contemplation of knowledge while the progressive mind is drawn to fragmentation or opinions. A balanced human being attempts to place opinions into a higher conscious perspective closer to knowledge. The weakness of the progressive mind is in its denial of a balanced human being. It prefers to believe that its opinions are the source of knowledge.

http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/w ... utline.htm

Outline of Plato's contrast of knowledge and opinion in the Meno

1. Knowledge is a mental faculty/power that allows us to apprehend "being" (i.e., reality).
2. Ignorance is the opposite of knowledge.

Conclusion from 1 & 2:
3. Opinion is subject to error, but knowledge is not.

Conclusion from 2 & 3:
4. Opinion differs from knowledge
5. Different faculties involve different "spheres" (areas they govern).

Conclusion from1 & 5:
6. Opinion involves a different faculty, and has a different subject-matter.
7. Particular objects are subject to "opposite names."
For example: The same house is beautiful to one person, ugly to another, and the same person is at one time young, at another time old.

Conclusion from 6 & 7:
8. Particulars are in the region between being and not-being.

Conclusion from 6 & 8:
9. Particulars are the subject-matter of opinion.

Conclusion from 3, 6, & 9:
10. Eternal and immutable natures are the subject-matte of knowledge.

[Atla]

Atia

How exactly do you know that you aren't just making up all this Source/Good/objective value business?

I’m not making this stuff up but just showing how repulsive Plato’s distinction between knowledge and opinion has become in modern culture. It gets in the way of arguments over subjective values and the glorification of fragmentation.

It really will be up to students to keep this basic distinction open and the value of contemplation about the relationship between knowledge and opinion.

How do you know Plato's distinction between knowledge and opinion, and his Theory of Forms, wasn't utter nonsense? There is nothing suggesting today that he was right, looks like it's made up.

[commonsense]

What is your idea of the ideal society?

An ideal society is one where its members are free to live ethically.

But why live ethically? If you consider all the money being made through corruption, why live ethically? Might is right. If you cannot explain why people would live ethically then the rest of your post becomes meaningless.

The question I chose to answer was specific,…

What is your idea of the ideal society?

…as was my answer:

An ideal society is one where its members are free to live ethically.

And you say:

...explain why people would live ethically

Because it is my idea of an ideal society .

[commonsense]

Hi Commonsense
What is your idea of the ideal society? Does its government serve its citizen’s need to become themselves as individuals or does the ideal society consist of citizens trained to serve the dictates of the government as a dependent collective? Once we decide this question, it is easier to decide if the progressive mind is a weakness or a strength.

An ideal society is one where its members are free to live ethically.

We should also consider whether the religious mind is a weakness or a strength. I have indicated that both the progressive and the religious minds are assets as well as deficits.

On further reflection, I’d say the religious mind is an oxymoron and should not have been considered a strength by any account.

The mind is of the cognitive realm. Religion is a matter of deep feeling, of faith, of the affective realm.

So, the progressive mind works from the relativist point of view. Thoughts and actions are expedient, efficacious, situational and contextual in nature, even fleeting.

On the other hand, religious values are to be viewed as absolute. They are not subject to the fleeting nature of time.

But time changes everything. The changeless, the constant, the absolute can only exist in a state without time. Since religious values transcend the uncertainties of earthly existence, they exist in a vacuum.

Flexibility is a sine qua non for societies that will flourish under the vicissitudes of human existence. By that claim, such is the case for a free society.

An ideal society is one where its members are free to live ethically.

But why live ethically? If you consider all the money being made through corruption, why live ethically? Might is right. If you cannot explain why people would live ethically then the rest of your post becomes meaningless.

Nick_A,
Allow me to rephrase for the sake of meaning.

We should consider whether the religious mind is a weakness or a strength.

The religious mind is an oxymoron.

Religion is a matter of deep feeling, of faith, of the affective realm.

The mind is of the cognitive realm.

Religious values are absolute. They are not subject to the fleeting nature of time.

But time changes everything. Religious values exist in a state without time. They exist in a theoretical state alone. That is the weakness of religious values.

[Nick_A]

Atia

How exactly do you know that you aren't just making up all this Source/Good/objective value business?

I’m not making this stuff up but just showing how repulsive Plato’s distinction between knowledge and opinion has become in modern culture. It gets in the way of arguments over subjective values and the glorification of fragmentation.

It really will be up to students to keep this basic distinction open and the value of contemplation about the relationship between knowledge and opinion.

How do you know Plato's distinction between knowledge and opinion, and his Theory of Forms, wasn't utter nonsense? There is nothing suggesting today that he was right, looks like it's made up.

I don't think Plato or Socrates intended to be believed. Instead they invited pondering. But what is pondering and how does it differ from analysis?

"Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance." ~ Plato

We can neither blindly believe or deny it. But we can ponder it. The modern collective doesn't respect pondering. It wants quick answers and supports the fragmentation which supplies partial truths. That is why it is up to the young to remember the value of pondering so as not to become indoctrinated snowflakes. If modern culture can ever grow to value the difference between knowledge and opinion it will open new paths to appreciating the difference between the source of facts and the source of objective values.

[Nick_A]

Commonsense

Religious values are absolute. They are not subject to the fleeting nature of time.

But time changes everything. Religious values exist in a state without time. They exist in a theoretical state alone. That is the weakness of religious values.

The initial religious value is that there is a conscious source for creation. Can it be true in a way that is beyond human reason? Is it a strength or a weakness when it is passionately denied? Is it a strength or a weakness when it is impartially pondered rather than analysed?

[Atla]

I don't think Plato or Socrates intended to be believed. Instead they invited pondering. But what is pondering and how does it differ from analysis?

"Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance." ~ Plato

We can neither blindly believe or deny it. But we can ponder it. The modern collective doesn't respect pondering. It wants quick answers and supports the fragmentation which supplies partial truths. That is why it is up to the young to remember the value of pondering so as not to become indoctrinated snowflakes. If modern culture can ever grow to value the difference between knowledge and opinion it will open new paths to appreciating the difference between the source of facts and the source of objective values.

The problem isn't with pondering in general. The problem is that there is no sign that a realm of perfect, eternal, unchanging forms exists, so there is no sign that knowledge (what Plato meant by knowledge) would originate from this realm.

Yet you take this for granted. How do you know you aren't just making it all up?

[Science Fan]

Plato wanted no private property, and children to be raised communally, and not by their parents. If anyone thinks he had some access to objective moral standards, think again.

[commonsense]

The initial religious value is that there is a conscious source for creation. Can it be true in a way that is beyond human reason? Is it a strength or a weakness when it is passionately denied? Is it a strength or a weakness when it is impartially pondered rather than analysed?

Here’s the problem I encounter with your post: whatever you are trying to suggest by asking your questions is trivial. To wit:

You ask if the statement--that the initial religious value is that there is a conscious source for creation—can be true outside of reason.

Clearly yes.
The statement can be true without reason (i.e. without thought).

But what does it matter?
The statement can also be false without thought.

You ask if it is a strength or a weakness to deny passionately that the statement is true.

It is either.
If the statement is true, it would be a weakness to deny it.
If the statement is false, it would be a strength to deny it.

You ask if it is a strength or a weakness to ponder the statement impartially rather than to analyze it.

Whether the statement is pondered or analyzed makes no difference.
Pondering will be a weakness if it results in the denial of a true statement, and a strength if it results in the denial of a false statement.
The same is the case for analysis.

It sounds as though you had important points either to declare or imply, but whatever they may have been, they are worthless.

[Nick_A]

I don't think Plato or Socrates intended to be believed. Instead they invited pondering. But what is pondering and how does it differ from analysis?

"Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance." ~ Plato

We can neither blindly believe or deny it. But we can ponder it. The modern collective doesn't respect pondering. It wants quick answers and supports the fragmentation which supplies partial truths. That is why it is up to the young to remember the value of pondering so as not to become indoctrinated snowflakes. If modern culture can ever grow to value the difference between knowledge and opinion it will open new paths to appreciating the difference between the source of facts and the source of objective values.

The problem isn't with pondering in general. The problem is that there is no sign that a realm of perfect, eternal, unchanging forms exists, so there is no sign that knowledge (what Plato meant by knowledge) would originate from this realm.

Yet you take this for granted. How do you know you aren't just making it all up?

Atia

If Einstein was right, there are universal indications that a quality of intelligence exists that transcends anything Man is capable of. Is there any reason to say he made all this up? Einstein wrote:

Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.

The scientists’ religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.

There is no logical way to the discovery of elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.

[Nick_A]

Commonsense

Whether the statement is pondered or analyzed makes no difference.
Pondering will be a weakness if it results in the denial of a true statement, and a strength if it results in the denial of a false statement.
The same is the case for analysis.

According to you then, the value of the process is determined by the conclusion. Plato wrote that Man is a being in search of meaning. This means that we lack meaning. Pondering a contradiction provides a path to the objective verifiction of the source of human meaning.

There is no logical way to the discovery of elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance. Einstein

Is there any reason that the process is meaningless because it may lead to different conclusions?

[Nick_A]

Plato wanted no private property, and children to be raised communally, and not by their parents. If anyone thinks he had some access to objective moral standards, think again.

You are caught up with arguing subjective values. The topic of the thread indicates that the weakness of the progressive mind is that it is closed to the quality of conscious contemplation necessary for the potential to inwardly experience the path to eternal values. People can always debate subjective values but the topic of the thread asserts that it is weakness because it proves that we are closed to the experience of the source and the reality of objective values

[Nick_A]

The progressive mind does not have the ability to create a quality of metaxu which will benefit human being. Without opening to the awakening nourishment of grace, metaxu can only reflect the hypocrisy of human nature

Metaxu is described in Wiki as:

Metaxu: "Every separation is a link."

The concept of metaxu, which Simone Weil borrowed from Plato, is that which both separates and connects (e.g., as a wall separates two prisoners but can be used to tap messages). This idea of connecting distance was of the first importance for Weil's understanding of the created realm. The world as a whole, along with any of its components, including our physical bodies, are to be regarded as serving the same function for us in relation to God that a blind man's stick serves for him in relation to the world about him. They do not afford direct insight, but can be used experimentally to bring the mind into practical contact with reality. This metaphor allows any absence to be interpreted as a presence, and is a further component in Weil's theodicy.

Simone Weil describes a human being as being analogous to a plant. The roots of the plant gets its nourishment from the ground while the leaves get theirs from the sun. when balanced the whole plant is nourished from two sources: above and below. Leaving the benefits of higher influences through the light of grace aside for the moment, just consider our roots. They are bettered by a more qualitative metaxu that provides the means for a greater interaction between people as well as inviting contemplation as to our relationship with higher consciousness.

The ground in this analogy is culture. We are fed on the inside from our culture or metaxu. The citizens within a society are connected by culture or "metaxu." In this way the quality of culture influences the quality of its citizens.

So the question becomes what betters a culture's metaxu?

The answer is values. A free society to persist needs a culture that supports the willingness to participate in the obligations necessary to guarantee human rights.

Only shared obligations valued in a culture's metaxu will sustain a free society. Once a culture abandons its allegiance to values and cheapens its metaxu, it must sacrifice its freedoms. What should be voluntary will be taken over by the state for the worse.

Can a free society sustain itself with a cheapened metaxu inviting it to rot from within? I don’t believe so. Our descent into fragmentation has inspired a cheapened metaxu obvious to anyone who watches media. Consider what our entertainment dollar is spent on and the cheapened metaxu becomes obvious

Is there any way to improve societal metaxu? No, so it will just get worse until people stop supporting it. Can it happen before hitting bottom?

[Greta]

You ask about objective values. You won’t understand but I’ll post some food for thought for all those open to the question. Read the first paragraph. You will side with the relativists while I side with Plato. I can’t explain what you are closed to. Yet as a society opens to the contemplation of objective values, it becomes less superficial and more meaningful. The question becomes how to do it in a collective atmosphere in which the ideal of fragmentation makes people hostile to depth.

https://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201 ... alues.html

Yes, Plato strikes me as correct in terms of the practical running of a society but largely wrong in terms of ontology.

What is beautiful to you is not to me, and vice versa. What is beautiful to humans might be terrifying for other species. The blue sky is beautiful to us. An orange, polluted sky is not, but if you ignore the dirt factor, a polluted sunset can be no less artistically sweet as a healthy blue sky.

Truth ... that depends on the definition and extent. I understand that there is even a relative element to mathematics due to the axioms on which maths is based, but that would be coming close to an objective truth.

"Good" is clearly subjective, depending n one's interests, and the intimate link between destruction and renewal muddies those waters further.

The weakness of the religious mind is the acceptance of preferred options without sufficient evidence to make such a decision, and thus no longer considering other options.

Both Greta and dubious do not appear to distinguish between subjective values created by man and objective values which are realities or ideas existing within the Source or what Plato called the Good.

The progressive mind expressed by Dubious and Greta is limited to arguing interpretations of subjective values.

If you are to claim that those who think differently to you have a critical lack of appreciation of objective values, then you must make clear what you believe "objective values" to be. I asked and you replied - truth, beauty and the good. So far, so good.

Then then systematically questioned your claim that these are objective values.

You failed to respond and fell immediately into digression. Thus, you have not clearly stated your case of the OP in the first instance.

You posit truth, beauty and the good as though they were as fundamental to our reality as the laws of physics. Where was the truth, beauty or the good in dense, hot plasma of the early universe? They seemingly existed only as potentials (now manifest) - but not as an actuality (unless there's a whole lot going on in plasma that we don't know about).

If one was to take the Abrahamic view that God is the truth, then God (good, beauty and truth) was there amongst all the hot plasma, infusing it all from its "fundamental dimension", guiding it to its current destination.

Esoteric lore often posits that angels and demons exist on an astral plane in other dimensions, and that these entities are thought to infuse our own dimensions (unbeknown to those with "limited" secular minds). It's a similar view to that which posited bacteria and viruses as evil spirits. When you think about it, noxious microbes are very much like evil spirits, just that the little "demons" respond more to chemistry than an exorcist's entreaties. Ditto zeitgeists can seem as though they are the product of angels and demons, but it's perhaps best now to recognise the metaphors used to describe the human relationship with growth and entropy.

[Atla]

Atia

If Einstein was right, there are universal indications that a quality of intelligence exists that transcends anything Man is capable of. Is there any reason to say he made all this up? Einstein wrote:

Actually I didn't ask what Plato or Einstein thought, I asked how you know it.

Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.

The scientists’ religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.

There is no logical way to the discovery of elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.

Of course there is reason to doubt Einstein's words, at least how you interpret them. Saying that anyone seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced of a great spirit, is simply totally not true.

Besides Einstein probably spoke of the remarkable orderliness and apparent fine-tuning of our universe, not some eternal realm outside the universe. HIS religious feelings came from this great harmony of apparent natural laws.

But today there is a logical way to these discoveries, not just intuition: the Anthropic principle + multiverse theory. Einstein famously tried to debunk QM, but String theory based on QM has lead to multiverse views. And the MWI is being accepted by several leading physicists now, also describing a multiverse.

Combine that with an Anthropic principle, which describes an extended evolution that goes way beyond this planet and this universe. In other words it is necessary for us to see a kind of world we see.

(Not saying it's necessarily correct, just that there is easily an alternative in science to some one-universe-spirit now.)

So where is the realm of eternal values?