popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 21, 2025 6:47 am
The Earth renews itself constantly. Sorry if I used the wrong word. As to the individual, we are not self-made; we are context-shaped. To a degree, you are correct; cultures are a defining context within the larger context of the natural world. Therefore, culture itself is defined by nature, whether it is in harmony with nature or in violation of it. The self is a mirror of its environment, not its master. Our physiology is not self-directed; it is environmentally attuned. I think you're mistaken about systems; all things are systems, and not many of them are man-made. There's a gap for a god! My apologies for the sloppiness.
Of course, we are shaped by our environment -- an environment shaped by culture. We also invent our culture, albeit in minor ways (our language, for example, has been invented long since). The self mirrors our environment, but it can also master it. As a simple example, we can build a house to shelter us from the storm. In modern, stratified, and specialized society, we do few of these things unaided. But for much of human existence, if you wanted shelter, you built a house. Our physiology is also sometimes self-directed. WE can exercise, or diet, or overeat, or replace body parts with prosthetics.
Societies are reactions to the harshness of the physical world. I agree that society, as an environment, is shaped by culture and that this, for mankind, is a defining property, even as it is once removed from the natural world. That removal, however, is in degree; the foundation of a society is, in fact, the natural world, just as your own being belongs to the natural world. Your reactions to it become causes for the changing conditions of the world. It is how you belong to the world. There is one thing an organism cannot do, and that is NOT react to its environment. Your body is your mind's first idea, your interface to the world of objects as object yourself. When you speak of controlling your own physiology, you must ask yourself what the motive is for that reaction; if it is motivated, it is a reaction, not an action. Actions are for the gods! For you, there is but one cause, and that is the world and its objects. You need to get rid of the idea that human behaviors are actions; all organisms are reactive organisms, including mankind. It is also helpful to remember that there is no such thing as an independent existence. Everything in the world is tied to everything else in the world. If you are familiar with the Hindu net of Indra, it is a beautiful expression of this reality. It is a net of jewels, and every jewel within the net reflects all the other jewels within the net. As the world itself is interdependent and interrelational, but due to the tradition of colonialism, the world is discordant and in chaos.
Colonialism is a good example of clash of cultures.
Indra's net is a beautiful image which expresses how reality is one big law with a multiplicity of facets or aspects. However Indra's net expresses what is actual not what is ideal: it's descriptive or reality i.e. ontological, not normative.
Hinduism contains strands that can be interpreted as deterministic, but it is not centrally or uniformly fatalistic.
Most classical schools and major texts affirm agency, ethical responsibility, and transformative action. Indra's net is such that every action affects each other action, so what you do affects what everyone else does; this indicates agency and duty to act wisely, not fatalism. Interdependence is not fatalism.
Of course, we are shaped by our environment -- an environment shaped by culture. We also invent our culture, albeit in minor ways (our language, for example, has been invented long since). The self mirrors our environment, but it can also master it. As a simple example, we can build a house to shelter us from the storm. In modern, stratified, and specialized society, we do few of these things unaided. But for much of human existence, if you wanted shelter, you built a house. Our physiology is also sometimes self-directed. WE can exercise, or diet, or overeat, or replace body parts with prosthetics.
Societies are reactions to the harshness of the physical world. I agree that society, as an environment, is shaped by culture and that this, for mankind, is a defining property, even as it is once removed from the natural world. That removal, however, is in degree; the foundation of a society is, in fact, the natural world, just as your own being belongs to the natural world. Your reactions to it become causes for the changing conditions of the world. It is how you belong to the world. There is one thing an organism cannot do, and that is NOT react to its environment. Your body is your mind's first idea, your interface to the world of objects as object yourself. When you speak of controlling your own physiology, you must ask yourself what the motive is for that reaction; if it is motivated, it is a reaction, not an action. Actions are for the gods! For you, there is but one cause, and that is the world and its objects. You need to get rid of the idea that human behaviors are actions; all organisms are reactive organisms, including mankind. It is also helpful to remember that there is no such thing as an independent existence. Everything in the world is tied to everything else in the world. If you are familiar with the Hindu net of Indra, it is a beautiful expression of this reality. It is a net of jewels, and every jewel within the net reflects all the other jewels within the net. As the world itself is interdependent and interrelational, but due to the tradition of colonialism, the world is discordant and in chaos.
Colonialism is a good example of clash of cultures.
Indra's net is a beautiful image that expresses how reality is one big law with a multiplicity of facets or aspects. However Indra's net expresses what is actual not what is ideal: it's descriptive or reality i.e. ontological, not normative.
Hinduism contains strands that can be interpreted as deterministic, but it is not centrally or uniformly fatalistic.
Most classical schools and major texts affirm agency, ethical responsibility, and transformative action. Indra's net is such that every action affects each other action, so what you do affects what everyone else does; this indicates agency and duty to act wisely, not fatalism. Interdependence is not fatalism.
Yes, and the reason it is not linear is that every reaction becomes a cause, and a cause has multiple effect reactions, and so it goes around and around. Everything is both cause and reaction, impression and reflection, as in the net of Indra
Beyond Fire: A Reasonable Faith
Like winter potatoes kept hidden and whole, this view of the unseen preserves life, calm, and wholeness without fear or punishment.
In old Germanic belief, hell (hel / haljō) was simply the hidden, suspended place of the dead — cold, buried, and preserved. It wasn’t about fire or punishment, but about keeping life whole. Embracing this pre-Christian perspective today helps us approach life and death with clear reason and calm contentment, seeing the unseen world as natural, orderly, and free from fear.
Societies are reactions to the harshness of the physical world. I agree that society, as an environment, is shaped by culture and that this, for mankind, is a defining property, even as it is once removed from the natural world. That removal, however, is in degree; the foundation of a society is, in fact, the natural world, just as your own being belongs to the natural world. Your reactions to it become causes for the changing conditions of the world. It is how you belong to the world. There is one thing an organism cannot do, and that is NOT react to its environment. Your body is your mind's first idea, your interface to the world of objects as object yourself. When you speak of controlling your own physiology, you must ask yourself what the motive is for that reaction; if it is motivated, it is a reaction, not an action. Actions are for the gods! For you, there is but one cause, and that is the world and its objects. You need to get rid of the idea that human behaviors are actions; all organisms are reactive organisms, including mankind. It is also helpful to remember that there is no such thing as an independent existence. Everything in the world is tied to everything else in the world. If you are familiar with the Hindu net of Indra, it is a beautiful expression of this reality. It is a net of jewels, and every jewel within the net reflects all the other jewels within the net. As the world itself is interdependent and interrelational, but due to the tradition of colonialism, the world is discordant and in chaos.
Colonialism is a good example of clash of cultures.
Indra's net is a beautiful image that expresses how reality is one big law with a multiplicity of facets or aspects. However Indra's net expresses what is actual not what is ideal: it's descriptive or reality i.e. ontological, not normative.
Hinduism contains strands that can be interpreted as deterministic, but it is not centrally or uniformly fatalistic.
Most classical schools and major texts affirm agency, ethical responsibility, and transformative action. Indra's net is such that every action affects each other action, so what you do affects what everyone else does; this indicates agency and duty to act wisely, not fatalism. Interdependence is not fatalism.
Yes, and the reason it is not linear is that every reaction becomes a cause, and a cause has multiple effect reactions, and so it goes around and around. Everything is both cause and reaction, impression and reflection, as in the net of Indra
You get the wholeness and interdependent meaning of Indra's net, But I don't think you quite get the idea that man is free to change ,and has a duty to change, the overall trajectory .
Colonialism is a good example of clash of cultures.
Indra's net is a beautiful image that expresses how reality is one big law with a multiplicity of facets or aspects. However Indra's net expresses what is actual not what is ideal: it's descriptive or reality i.e. ontological, not normative.
Hinduism contains strands that can be interpreted as deterministic, but it is not centrally or uniformly fatalistic.
Most classical schools and major texts affirm agency, ethical responsibility, and transformative action. Indra's net is such that every action affects each other action, so what you do affects what everyone else does; this indicates agency and duty to act wisely, not fatalism. Interdependence is not fatalism.
Yes, and the reason it is not linear is that every reaction becomes a cause, and a cause has multiple effect reactions, and so it goes around and around. Everything is both cause and reaction, impression and reflection, as in the net of Indra
You get the wholeness and interdependent meaning of Indra's net, But I don't think you quite get the idea that man is free to change, and has a duty to change, the overall trajectory.
You need to expand on that, Belinda. I really don't get it. Where man is free to change, all things change, but that he has a duty to change, to whom or to what does he owe that duty?
Yes, and the reason it is not linear is that every reaction becomes a cause, and a cause has multiple effect reactions, and so it goes around and around. Everything is both cause and reaction, impression and reflection, as in the net of Indra
You get the wholeness and interdependent meaning of Indra's net, But I don't think you quite get the idea that man is free to change, and has a duty to change, the overall trajectory.
You need to expand on that, Belinda. I really don't get it. Where man is free to change, all things change, but that he has a duty to change, to whom or to what does he owe that duty?
The moral duty of man is owed to himself. Like we owe a moral duty to farm animals to have scope to express their natural instincts so we owe to ourselves as men the duty to be as good men as we can be.
Socrates and Jesus, though worlds apart, converge on a single moral insight:
virtue is the disciplined shaping of one’s character toward truth, goodness, and love.
You get the wholeness and interdependent meaning of Indra's net, But I don't think you quite get the idea that man is free to change, and has a duty to change, the overall trajectory.
You need to expand on that, Belinda. I really don't get it. Where man is free to change, all things change, but that he has a duty to change, to whom or to what does he owe that duty?
The moral duty of man is owed to himself. Like we owe a moral duty to farm animals to have scope to express their natural instincts so we owe to ourselves as men the duty to be as good men as we can be.
Socrates and Jesus, though worlds apart, converge on a single moral insight:
virtue is the disciplined shaping of one’s character toward truth, goodness, and love.
Morality is a product of society; in isolation, morality would make no sense. This again is a context that defines. Humanity outside the context of society and culture is a crude beast. How from the net of Indra do you draw this, unless the net itself represents, through its mutual reflections, a metaphor for society and culture?
You need to expand on that, Belinda. I really don't get it. Where man is free to change, all things change, but that he has a duty to change, to whom or to what does he owe that duty?
The moral duty of man is owed to himself. Like we owe a moral duty to farm animals to have scope to express their natural instincts so we owe to ourselves as men the duty to be as good men as we can be.
Socrates and Jesus, though worlds apart, converge on a single moral insight:
virtue is the disciplined shaping of one’s character toward truth, goodness, and love.
Morality is a product of society; in isolation, morality would make no sense. This again is a context that defines. Humanity outside the context of society and culture is a crude beast. How from the net of Indra do you draw this, unless the net itself represents, through its mutual reflections, a metaphor for society and culture?
Indra's net is an image that describes what is the case .Indra's net is not about what should be.
Your question , which I answered(And thanks for asking the question, was "but that he has a duty to change, to whom or to what does he owe that duty?"
My answer was and remains virtue ethics, i.e. man owes a duty to himself to be an agent for change.
Morality, for virtue ethics, is not that morality should arise from societal need to keep man cooperating instead of killing each other, but virtue ethics is that man owes it to himself to be all he can be. Good social behaviour comes under the umbrella of man being all he can be to be a good human being.
The moral duty of man is owed to himself. Like we owe a moral duty to farm animals to have scope to express their natural instincts so we owe to ourselves as men the duty to be as good men as we can be.
Socrates and Jesus, though worlds apart, converge on a single moral insight:
virtue is the disciplined shaping of one’s character toward truth, goodness, and love.
Morality is a product of society; in isolation, morality would make no sense. This again is a context that defines. Humanity outside the context of society and culture is a crude beast. How from the net of Indra do you draw this, unless the net itself represents, through its mutual reflections, a metaphor for society and culture?
Indra's net is an image that describes what is the case .Indra's net is not about what should be.
Your question , which I answered(And thanks for asking the question, was "but that he has a duty to change, to whom or to what does he owe that duty?"
My answer was and remains virtue ethics, i.e. man owes a duty to himself to be an agent for change.
Morality, for virtue ethics, is not that morality should arise from societal need to keep man cooperating instead of killing each other, but virtue ethics is that man owes it to himself to be all he can be. Good social behaviour comes under the umbrella of man being all he can be to be a good human being.
Change is a necessity, but I do get your meaning; change is not always for the good.
Morality is a product of society; in isolation, morality would make no sense. This again is a context that defines. Humanity outside the context of society and culture is a crude beast. How from the net of Indra do you draw this, unless the net itself represents, through its mutual reflections, a metaphor for society and culture?
Indra's net is an image that describes what is the case .Indra's net is not about what should be.
Your question , which I answered(And thanks for asking the question, was "but that he has a duty to change, to whom or to what does he owe that duty?"
My answer was and remains virtue ethics, i.e. man owes a duty to himself to be an agent for change.
Morality, for virtue ethics, is not that morality should arise from societal need to keep man cooperating instead of killing each other, but virtue ethics is that man owes it to himself to be all he can be. Good social behaviour comes under the umbrella of man being all he can be to be a good human being.
Change is a necessity, but I do get your meaning; change is not always for the good.
But that is a truism which was not and is not my meaning. I described and explained my meaning as well as I can.
If you do not understand virtue ethics so be it. I don't demand that anyone understand anything.
At least we agree that Indra's net is beautiful , and well suited as an image of the ultimate position of determinism -----determinism as an infinite number of reflections .
Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Nov 25, 2025 9:39 pm
Indra's net is an image that describes what is the case .Indra's net is not about what should be.
Your question , which I answered(And thanks for asking the question, was "but that he has a duty to change, to whom or to what does he owe that duty?"
My answer was and remains virtue ethics, i.e. man owes a duty to himself to be an agent for change.
Morality, for virtue ethics, is not that morality should arise from societal need to keep man cooperating instead of killing each other, but virtue ethics is that man owes it to himself to be all he can be. Good social behaviour comes under the umbrella of man being all he can be to be a good human being.
Change is a necessity, but I do get your meaning; change is not always for the good.
But that is a truism which was not and is not my meaning. I described and explained my meaning as well as I can.
If you do not understand virtue ethics, so be it. I don't demand that anyone understand anything.
I can only understand a virtue ethic as an ought to be. But it is there, or it is not; isn't it more of a directive to the desirable?
At least we agree that Indra's net is beautiful, and well suited as an image of the ultimate position of determinism -----determinism as an infinite number of reflections.
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