Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:25 pm**

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 4:15 pm

First, it is Man who has moral sense and thinks things through.

Man is a free will with natural rights, yes.

As far as I know there are no other creatures with any similar sense.

Yes, most, probably all, other life are not free wills and do not have natural rights.

However, there are creatures with sense, and also with behavior that is comparable, even if remotely, with our moral behavior. Conscious life shares a commonality.

And we treat them humanely. It's a matter of sympathy/empathy, not morality.

The statements I made -- about rights -- do not depend on an animal's having or not having moral judgment.

So, in context, are worthless.

The recognition of rights extends from man to animal, from man to ecosystem, from many to the creation.

No. You're mistakin' rights (in context, a moral matter) with humaneness and stewardship. The first, as I say, is a matter of sympathy, not morality. The second is a matter of pragmatism, not morality.

I said that all creatures and all ecosystems and the creation itself -- if Man has rights -- have rights as well.

And I say only free will have natural rights. Most if not all animals are not free wills; they're bio-automata. The ecosystem is a heat exchange as is the whole of Creation. We, free wills, matter: everything else is our backdrop, our stage, our resource, our world. Ours.

It is an arbitrary designation to refer to creatures as robots or automatons.

No. It's a distinction based on observed, derived, and surmised fact.

One cannot assign rights to man and fail to understand that rights are -- naturally -- extended to the very platform of life: the created world.

Man assigns nuthin'. We are the beneficiaries of having been made free wills. Fido drew the short straw: too bad, so sad.

What I say here is true.

No. You're wrong or flat-out lying.

No counter-arguments will be accepted.

Then you best stop readin' me cuz I intend to keep countering.

Zip it!

Get bent!

I said that it is possible, when seen from a certain angle, that when a man chooses to place the world surrounding him on a plane of valuation that even exceeds his own, that it may well be a sign of higher consciousness. To read into this self-denigration is to assign a negative value where a positive one is more apt.

Your exact words: On one level it is a sign of higher consciousness if Man subtracts rights from himself and assigns them to natural creatures and ecosystems.

It's manure no matter how you present it.

People who oppose me make me very very angry.

I don't care.

To say nothing of people who oppose Revealed Truth.

You've revealed no truths.

The man who destroys forests because he does not have foresight and awareness of ecological interconnectedness is a fool.

He's a fool becuz he squanders resources. No more or less.

Take as an example the rather famous Japanese respect for the land, the forests, the natural systems.

Not my culture, guy.

I am on the verge of a violent and tyranical episode and will soon curse EVERYONE if they do not see things my way!

You ought consult the wiccans about rebound.

but the man who sees his way to preservation of natural systems, and for harmony and beauty, is of a higher sort.

He's a wiser catetaker, an extender of resource, yes.

Very much on the contrary this spirit and attitude arises because the man in question has risen to a greater height within consciousness.

More manure. All it takes is a dab of common sense and a bit of restraint. Ascension is not required.

Indeed consciousness is defined in that way.

No. That's conscientiousness.

The brute or the idiot who wantonly destroys the very ground that has produces him and sustains him is a -- well, you get the picture.

I do. I really don't think you do: you muddy the waters too much.

End.of.story.

Yours? Mebbe. Mine? Not friggin' likely.

Posted: **Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:45 pm**

henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:25 pm
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 4:15 pm

First, it is Man who has moral sense and thinks things through.
Man is a free will with natural rights, yes.

As far as I know there are no other creatures with any similar sense.
Yes, most, probably all, other life are not free wills and do not have natural rights.

However, there are creatures with sense, and also with behavior that is comparable, even if remotely, with our moral behavior. Conscious life shares a commonality.
And we treat them humanely. It's a matter of sympathy/empathy, not morality.

The statements I made -- about rights -- do not depend on an animal's having or not having moral judgment.
So, in context, are worthless.

The recognition of rights extends from man to animal, from man to ecosystem, from many to the creation.
No. You're mistakin' rights (in context, a moral matter) with humaneness and stewardship. The first, as I say, is a matter of sympathy, not morality. The second is a matter of pragmatism, not morality.

I said that all creatures and all ecosystems and the creation itself -- if Man has rights -- have rights as well.
And I say only free will have natural rights. Most if not all animals are not free wills; they're bio-automata. The ecosystem is a heat exchange as is the whole of Creation. We, free wills, matter: everything else is our backdrop, our stage, our resource, our world. Ours.

It is an arbitrary designation to refer to creatures as robots or automatons.
No. It's a distinction based on observed, derived, and surmised fact.

One cannot assign rights to man and fail to understand that rights are -- naturally -- extended to the very platform of life: the created world.
Man assigns nuthin'. We are the beneficiaries of having been made free wills. Fido drew the short straw: too bad, so sad.

What I say here is true.
No. You're wrong or flat-out lying.

No counter-arguments will be accepted.
Then you best stop readin' me cuz I intend to keep countering.

Zip it!
Get bent!

I said that it is possible, when seen from a certain angle, that when a man chooses to place the world surrounding him on a plane of valuation that even exceeds his own, that it may well be a sign of higher consciousness. To read into this self-denigration is to assign a negative value where a positive one is more apt.
Your exact words: On one level it is a sign of higher consciousness if Man subtracts rights from himself and assigns them to natural creatures and ecosystems.

It's manure no matter how you present it.

People who oppose me make me very very angry.
I don't care.

To say nothing of people who oppose Revealed Truth.
You've revealed no truths.

The man who destroys forests because he does not have foresight and awareness of ecological interconnectedness is a fool.
He's a fool becuz he squanders resources. No more or less.

Take as an example the rather famous Japanese respect for the land, the forests, the natural systems.
Not my culture, guy.

I am on the verge of a violent and tyranical episode and will soon curse EVERYONE if they do not see things my way!
You ought consult the wiccans about rebound.

but the man who sees his way to preservation of natural systems, and for harmony and beauty, is of a higher sort.
He's a wiser catetaker, an extender of resource, yes.

Very much on the contrary this spirit and attitude arises because the man in question has risen to a greater height within consciousness.
More manure. All it takes is a dab of common sense and a bit of restraint. Ascension is not required.

Indeed consciousness is defined in that way.
No. That's conscientiousness.

The brute or the idiot who wantonly destroys the very ground that has produces him and sustains him is a -- well, you get the picture.
I do. I really don't think you do: you muddy the waters too much.

End.of.story.
Yours? Mebbe. Mine? Not friggin' likely.

Praise the Lord!

Posted: **Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:46 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:05 pm Actually, one can. One can say that man has rights, but rocks don't.

A specific rock may be seen as having no rights. But I assure you that the ground under your feet -- the Earth -- very definitely has rights. However, to say that, to believe and to know it, does depend on achieving a metaphysical recognition that this is so. As I say I believe that awareness is perhaps more a choice that someone makes. And I (now) place far greater emphasis on man's choices as reflecting, or not reflecting, the metaphysical truths that stand on a higher plane than the sort of god that you define. I regard your image of god as a lower-level symbol set -- a demiurge.

Posted: **Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:51 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:05 pm Well, if any "rights" are going to be "extended from man to animal," they will be purely imputed by man. The ecosystem has no claims of its own at all...indifferent nature does not care even if the whole Earth perishes. It collapses whole stars and planets all the time.

This is of course true. There is no doubt about it.

For that reason rights extend from Man to the creation, and they are very definitely imputed by man. When Man does this, he does it because he has advanced to a plane of awareness where acting in this way -- seeing and understanding in this way -- are the inevitable result of achieving a higher level of awareness.

Is this view defensible? I mean, will the assertion convince you? That I doubt.

Posted: **Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:58 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:05 pm So your first job will have to be to prove that man has "rights." And those "rights" will obviously not extend further than the agency that assures us of them.

There is no way to *prove* that. And you have no proof of any sort. You have anecdotes that you refer to slavishly. This is what I have taken away from months of conversation with you and in relation to you.

Not in any sense meant offensively. Just matter-of-factly.

In my view -- one result of this long-ass conversation -- is that there are some truths, some understandings, that are arrived at exclusively on an inner plane, and which are truths that can be suggested to others, but not proven in the way you'd wish you could prove every truth-claim that you make.One either arrives at them, or one doesn't.

This doubles back to something Mentioned years back: one's sense of knowledge (or gnosis). Not in the Gnostic sense though, but as what one understands to be true.

I am trying to tie my assertions, made in relation to Harry's expressed values, which I believe I understand and can respect, into the larger conversation we have had generally focused on *Christianity*.

Posted: **Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:02 pm**

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:46 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:05 pm Actually, one can. One can say that man has rights, but rocks don't.
A specific rock may be seen as having no rights. But I assure you that the ground under your feet -- the Earth -- very definitely has rights.

Nope, for two reasons: one, we haven't established how you prove that man has rights, and any rights attributed to the Earth, you say, are derivative of those. But secondly, there's no obvious deduction from "man has rights" to "something that's not man has rights."

However, to say that, to believe and to know it, does depend on achieving a metaphysical recognition that this is so. As I say I believe that awareness is perhaps more a choice that someone makes.

It's not an "awareness" unless the thing of which you are "aware" is true and real. Otherwise, it's a delusion -- or worse, a made-up ideology in which we have no good reason to believe at all.

Posted: **Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:02 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:05 pm Actually, one can. One can say that man has rights, but rocks don't. One can say that man has rights and bears don't. There's no automatic or logical leap from the first claim to the second. So you'd have to make some gesture to show that what you're claiming is true, because it certainly does not have to be accepted.

Sure, and I understand how your mind is functioning within its realized tenets. If that is sufficient for you, how can I argue against it?

But I will say, and I do say, that bears have rights. And the rocks under your feet (i.e. the Earth) has rights. And this awareness either rises up in you or it does not.

When it does not, then you are like that unconscious rock. The crux of my argument is there. That we are destined to be more than just rocks, and more than just automata. To be 'man' in my way of seeing things is to operate at another level.

And how that *level* of awareness is honed therefore is the most important thing about existing, being alive and being a man.

This is all going into the 17th chapter of my 17-week email course!

Posted: **Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:04 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:02 pm we haven't established how you prove that man has rights

You mean the right to assign value? the right to discern how to act well in life?

I am less interested in proving that man has *rights* -- that seems to be Henry's department mostly -- than I am in declaring that if many has rights of any sort so do all created things and creatures.

Note: If you use the word *nope* again I will impale a fat little Christian child on a pike and allow army ants to devour her!

Posted: **Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:04 pm**

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:51 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:05 pm Well, if any "rights" are going to be "extended from man to animal," they will be purely imputed by man. The ecosystem has no claims of its own at all...indifferent nature does not care even if the whole Earth perishes. It collapses whole stars and planets all the time.
This is of course true. There is no doubt about it.

For that reason rights extend from Man to the creation,

Non-sequitur. Again, that man has rights -- which you haven't yet shown he does, so far as I can see -- does not show he either can or has extended those to creation.

Is this view defensible? I mean, will the assertion convince you? That I doubt.

If you made it rational, it might. But for the present, it's just something you're asking me to believe for no reason at all.

Posted: **Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:08 pm**

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:02 pm But I will say, and I do say, that bears have rights. And the rocks under your feet (i.e. the Earth) has rights. And this awareness either rises up in you or it does not.

You mean that you believe something in the complete absence of reasons?

It just "rises up in you"?

Posted: **Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:09 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:04 pm
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:51 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:05 pm Well, if any "rights" are going to be "extended from man to animal," they will be purely imputed by man. The ecosystem has no claims of its own at all...indifferent nature does not care even if the whole Earth perishes. It collapses whole stars and planets all the time.
This is of course true. There is no doubt about it.

For that reason rights extend from Man to the creation,
Non-sequitur. Again, that man has rights -- which you haven't yet shown he does, so far as I can see -- does not show he either can or has extended those to creation.

Is this view defensible? I mean, will the assertion convince you? That I doubt.
If you made it rational, it might. But for the present, it's just something you're asking me to believe for no reason at all.

Naw, that argument falls flat.

You believe a thousand utterly irrational things which you cannot defend rationally. We've been over all that.

I can't prove to you any of the points I have been making. I might be able to influence you to see things differently, or to expand your awareness, but offer you the equivalent of a Euclidian proof? I do not think it possible.

Posted: **Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:11 pm**

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:04 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:02 pm we haven't established how you prove that man has rights
You mean the right to assign value?

No. I mean any human rights at all.

I am less interested in proving that man has *rights* -- that seems to be Henry's department mostly -- than I am in declaring that if many has rights of any sort so do all created things and creatures.

Well, if you are not interested in man's rights, you certainly can't "extend" them to other things. And if you did, the move would still not be justified by anything you've shown yet.

Posted: **Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:12 pm**

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:09 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:04 pm
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 5:51 pm
This is of course true. There is no doubt about it.

For that reason rights extend from Man to the creation,
Non-sequitur. Again, that man has rights -- which you haven't yet shown he does, so far as I can see -- does not show he either can or has extended those to creation.

Is this view defensible? I mean, will the assertion convince you? That I doubt.
If you made it rational, it might. But for the present, it's just something you're asking me to believe for no reason at all.
Naw, that argument falls flat.

I'm not offering you an "argument." I'm just pointing out the holes in yours, that you need to plug if you want to appeal to rational people.

Posted: **Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:12 pm**

The ecosystem has no claims of its own at all...indifferent nature does not care even if the whole Earth perishes. It collapses whole stars and planets all the time.

Posted: **Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:20 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:08 pm You mean that you believe something in the complete absence of reasons? It just "rises up in you"?

In fact that could very well be the case -- in matters pertaining to the tenets that I am dealing with and talking about.

But the terms you use here are rhetorically corrupt, as is often the case with you.

We know that in relation to the Earth and the Universe that nature does not care -- one way or the other. But Man cares. And he does so without any a priori reasons. It is part of his nature -- at least that seems clear to me.

I am interested in those examples of men who arrive at what I term *higher awareness*, and I believe that they do not arrive at those places of understanding through mathematical reasoning or cobbling units of information together. It seems to happen through other means and processes.

The question : what makes a person grow, and what diminishes a person's growth (in these areas I define) that interest me.

To argue any of this before a man who I often, but certainly not always, regard as a classic fool, holds no interest for me. You know what you know, you believe what you believe, and you will (likely) stay in that position for the rest of your incarnation.

That is all that I need to know really. This making sense?

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