Philosophy Now Forum

A fact is considered magical when what lies behind it is shrouded in mystery.
Conversely, a fact stops being magical when the mystery is revealed.

The process of unraveling the mystery is the activity of science.

It is important, however, in my opinion to take note that the mystery is clarified by science by always paying attention to other magical facts.
It is always the magic that allows the scientific process.

By clarifying the mystery, science pushes the magic further.
But it is impossible for it to completely eliminate it, because it is founded on the very same magic.

The serious misunderstanding of this age of ours is, on the other hand, considering the magic definitively defeated.
This is a mere illusion of those who have not fully understood what science is.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Oct 04, 2022 7:09 pm Only from my frame of mind, those such as Pagans tend to focus on Nature only when it is bountiful and aesthetically beautiful. Mother Nature. The emphasis, for example, on Native Americans and Aboriginals and their own "spiritual" attachment "to the land".

Going all the way back to those communities who practiced animal and human sacrifices in order to please or to appease the Gods of Nature.

But: the main reason they did that was because nature could also be brutally savage.

From my frame of mind, this "spiritual" component revolves more around a psychological defense mechanism. Being able to ground your "soul" in something you are able to anchor I to. Something that reconfigures the individual as an "utterly tiny and insignificant speck of existence" in the staggering vastness of all there is given the brute facticity of an essentially meaningless and purposeless existence into "somehow" being "at one" with the universe.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Oct 04, 2022 8:38 pm There are so many pagan and indigenous relations to nature and most I've run across defnitely understood that nature is dangerous also. But we did evolve in nature.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Oct 04, 2022 8:38 pm To say that those such as Pagans focus on nature only when it is bountiful and beautiful gives me the sense that you haven't met many pagans IRL but are going on the few that show up in forums like this one, and perhaps even then not getting the complexity of their relations to and understanding of nature.

Yes, as I noted above, "from my frame of mind". And my frame of mind here, like yours and Maia's was acquired existentially...largely from personal experiences. And my own close encounters with Pagans and aboriginal communities came [admittedly] mostly from books and television and movies. Think The Wicker Man and Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. Or The Emerald Forest and At Play in the Fields of the Lord. I've never had any actual personal interactions with them.

That's the whole point here for me of rooting value judgments of this sort in dasein. As opposed to, theologically, philosophically, scientifically etc., attempting to establish how all truly rational human beings ought to respond to Nature. And even this assumes human autonomy.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Oct 04, 2022 8:38 pmBut what I mean is, it should feel right in ways that an asphalt street and stone and metal buildings and plastic and other items and cars and their sounds and exhaust and all the EM radiation will not. One can take this into all sorts of spiritualies, but I recognize that my body feels more at home when there is less of these things around me. This doesn't mean I want civilization to fall, but I recognize that my body, which in fact is very much like the bodies that had as their niche what we would now call wilderness, belongs in some way in what we call nature these days.

Again, these sort of insights are, to me, derived largely from dasein. "I" in the world of value judgments interacting with others in the is/ought world. And my own main interest in "magic relating to electro-magnetism" would always come back to the parts where someone might attempt to bring that itself around to my own most absorbing philosophical question:

"How ought one to live and to interact with others -- morally, politically, spiritually -- in a world that is both teeming with contingency, chance and change and in conflicting goods?"

And Maia and I have had numerous exchanges about that over at ILP and in emails. And I accept that our own personal experiences were very, very different. And that as a result of this and of how we construe dasein differently, our communication breaks down time and again. But since I have great respect for her intelligence, I would never react to her as some do...dismissing her as some kind of foolish dupe of, say, the mystics?

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:45 pm

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:38 pm

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:16 am

As a migrant farm worker perhaps he also experienced the effects of intensive farming for profit.

Climate change is another very good example of human hubris. Namely, the idea that we, as humans, can actually influence the earth's climate. Climate change is both real, and natural, in my opinion.

So you believe in magic, but not climate change (which is, in fact, being caused by humans). No surprises there.

Simply stating it doesn't make it true.

It is well known to archaeologists that climate has changed many times, and was much warmer in Neolithic times than it is now, for example.

Well, there is the decades of scientific research which says that human-caused climate change is happening now.

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:20 pm

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:45 pm

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:38 pm

So you believe in magic, but not climate change (which is, in fact, being caused by humans). No surprises there.

Simply stating it doesn't make it true.

It is well known to archaeologists that climate has changed many times, and was much warmer in Neolithic times than it is now, for example.

Well, there is the decades of scientific research which says that human-caused climate change is happening now.

Scientists often find what their funders and employers want.

Walker wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 6:43 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Oct 04, 2022 7:09 pm
Wow! How to explain this...

Well, the next one on my list is Eric Hoffer.

Interesting. Even though you have no proof of that, I’ll take you at your word and as such, I have some thoughts pertaining to that actual event, which shall go unspoken.

Well, it is the truth but, sure, so is the fact that on the internet we can claim that anything such as this is true.

Same with dowsing and magic and electro-magnetism. We have our own personal experiences with them. Or we just claim to have had them. That's why from my frame of mind it's not what we say we believe or know is true but the extent to which we are able to demonstrate that...to convince others that, in fact, objectively it true for all rational men and women. And then, for some, the belief that if something is rational, that also makes it virtuous and moral and ethical too. Ayn Rand and her "metaphysical" ilk.

Walker wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 6:43 amHoffer did physical work, his early life is a bit mysterious. His relationship with nature was adversarial, which is interesting because he had a deep understanding of the way things are. He leaned towards paving paradise.

As opposed to other perspectives: https://youtu.be/2595abcvh2M

Walker wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 6:43 amWe can experience the great outdoors with only the surroundings and the stars touching our senses, and we do this while nature watches us … and schemes how to eat us up. Nature has time on its side, but we have technology, so we can experience a sort of relationship with nature that will end when we return to civilization inside the walls. What’s more, awareness that the nature experience will eventually end in civilization where we can relax attention away from the hostile forces of nature, flavours the nature experience itself, and distorts it.

Cue Genesis and capitalism and the fierce debates regarding climate change. Only I tend to go back to the part where these conflicting goods are rooted subjectively in dasein. On the other hand, if the liberals are right about climate change and the planet really does become all but uninhabitable for millions and millions around the globe? Only here that is all still "years in the future".

Walker wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 6:43 amThere is a great spirituality in experiencing nature, but it’s not the kind most folks care to experience. To be close to nature is to be closer to death, to survive that requires sobriety. It’s the spirituality of sobriety, made real by outwitting death in nature. In nature that requires much attention including vigilance, including the dualistic activity of thought, planning, adaptation, and even invention, all which attunes one to what's going on, all of which is actually what folks should be referencing with the saying, “chopping wood and hauling water.”

Again, as noted above, the Mel Gibson film Apocalypto. Different renditions of that.

It starts by basically depicting an indigenous community that many would construe to be a classic example of the "noble savages". Think the inhabitants of the Emerald Forest. But then the amoral nihilists [the capitalists of their day] invade the village and destroy it. They take dozens of villagers [men and women] on a trek to an entirely different indigenous community. This one is far more advanced -- the Mayans? the Aztecs? -- but disease has ravaged the land and nature is pummeling them left and right. So they use the captured villagers as human sacrifices to the Gods.

Then, at the end of the film, a man his wife and their son [who survived the destruction of the village] are witness to the arrival of the Spanish conquerors.

The next "historical" component.

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:23 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:20 pm

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:45 pm

Simply stating it doesn't make it true.

It is well known to archaeologists that climate has changed many times, and was much warmer in Neolithic times than it is now, for example.

Well, there is the decades of scientific research which says that human-caused climate change is happening now.

Scientists often find what their funders and employers want.

I'm amazed at the anti-intellectual and anti-scientific attitudes in these forums.

The work of thousands of intelligent, thoughtful, ethical, educated people simply dismissed with the wave of a hand.

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:45 pm

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:23 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:20 pm Well, there is the decades of scientific research which says that human-caused climate change is happening now.

Scientists often find what their funders and employers want.

I'm amazed at the anti-intellectual and anti-scientific attitudes in these forums.

The work of thousands of intelligent, thoughtful, ethical, educated people simply dismissed with the wave of a hand.

It's a bandwagon, a trend, even a moral panic. Just like eugenics was a hundred years ago.

Few people seem familiar with just how much the climate has fluctuated in the past.

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:23 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:20 pm

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:45 pm

Simply stating it doesn't make it true.

It is well known to archaeologists that climate has changed many times, and was much warmer in Neolithic times than it is now, for example.

Well, there is the decades of scientific research which says that human-caused climate change is happening now.

Scientists often find what their funders and employers want.

Of course, here the crucial factor is time. It is still some years off in the future before, one way or another, one side or the other will be proven right. And until coastal cities start disappearing under water and the severity of weather events -- storms and droughts and floods -- explodes off the charts, both sides can still insist the other side is wrong.

And while some scientists do in fact find what their "funders and employers want" that's precisely the point say those on the left. That's exactly how capitalism works. It's almost always the bottom line "here and now" rather than the consequences of that "there and then".

Though surely none of this has much to do with magic and electro-magnetism.

Imagine, however, if the Earth was now into the next Ice Age. Wouldn't almost everyone be clamoring to burn all the fossil fuels we could get our hands on? Anything to warm the planet up?

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:58 pm

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:23 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:20 pm Well, there is the decades of scientific research which says that human-caused climate change is happening now.

Scientists often find what their funders and employers want.

Of course, here the crucial factor is time. It is still some years off in the future before, one way or another, one side or the other will be proven right. And until coastal cities start disappearing under water and the severity of weather events -- storms and droughts and floods -- explodes off the charts, both sides can still insist the other side is wrong.

And while some scientists do in fact find what their "funders and employers want" that's precisely the point say those on the left. That's exactly how capitalism works. It's almost always the bottom line "here and now" rather than the consequences of that "there and then".

Though surely none of this has much to do with magic and electro-magnetism.

Imagine, however, if the Earth was now into the next Ice Age. Wouldn't almost everyone be clamoring to burn all the fossil fuels we could get our hands on? Anything to warm the planet up?

Coastal cities have sunk into the sea in the past. Dunwich, for example, was once a thriving port in the middle ages, but is now under the North Sea. The climate changes.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:52 pm Yes, as I noted above, "from my frame of mind". And my frame of mind here, like yours and Maia's was acquired existentially...largely from personal experiences. And my own close encounters with Pagans and aboriginal communities came [admittedly] mostly from books and television and movies. Think The Wicker Man and Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. Or The Emerald Forest and At Play in the Fields of the Lord. I've never had any actual personal interactions with them.

Exactly. And that is what I suspected. So, my point in raising this was to say, hey, look, I have quite a bit of direct personal experience with these people and I think Maia does also. So, if you generalize about people you have little direct experience of, and your indirect experience is based on fiction, perhaps your frame of mind could shift. This doesn't mean you should take our words for it. However you might make less sweeping, if qualified, statements.

Or will we read again in a few years....'from my frame of mind' Pagans are like X again? Can your frame of mind change? When you hear that others who have direct experience do not share your evaulation, does that have an effect?

IOW you read what I said and it seemed to have no effect at all. Yeah, you guys have a frame of mind, I have mine. I have mine and it hasn't changed. I appreciate the honesty about how you arrived at your frame of mind. I think you might agree it's not a particularly good foundation for an assessment.

You then go on to psychoanalyze the people who have these beliefs.

So, based on films, you have drawn some conclusions about these people, and then go on to say why they think the way they do. Remember when I reacted by psychoanalyzing your and your motives. How you reacted that you weren't even sure yourself about these so how could I know so much about you?

Here based on some films you generalize about and psychoanalyze a very diverse set of groups of people.

Why is that ok? On an epistemological level. Why aren't you even more cautious.

It's one thing to recognize that how one should relate to nature is value based and it is tough or impossible to know which way of relating all rational people should. An ought question.

It's another thing to take on an IS issue: the psychological motivations for believing things in people you have no direct experience of based on some fictional films you've seen.

Yes, you qualify yourself with 'from my frame of mind'. But given how little you know, why would you even put decide to share a psychological theory based on so little? And to place your frame of mind on this IS issue as seemingly implicitly of the same value as other frames of mind based on direct experience and in my case also academic and professional work?

Or are you merely being wildly speculative? And given the history of the way Euroamericans (I assume you are one of these) have related to indigenous and pagan cultures, might it not be more realistic and properly humble not to just sum up the psychology of people you have not met nor seemingly looked into much, even if you qualify this as from your frame of mind.

I mean, shouldn't one even refrain from forming a theory? I can see saying 'I get the impression...' or even 'my prejudice is.....'
'but given my lack of experience or knowledge.....'

and so on.

From my frame of mind, this "spiritual" component revolves more around a psychological defense mechanism. Being able to ground your "soul" in something you are able to anchor I to. Something that reconfigures the individual as an "utterly tiny and insignificant speck of existence" in the staggering vastness of all there is given the brute facticity of an essentially meaningless and purposeless existence into "somehow" being "at one" with the universe.

Because from my frame of mind this smacks of the same kind of condescending judgments made by colonists and invaders. Without the violence, etc. And yes, many of those colonists and oppressors would not have qualified with phrases like 'from my frame of mind'. But why present this frame of mind and take it seriously?

You seem to take the flimsiest of impressions very seriously. And then basically tell other people about their psychology, both individuals and in this case very large groups of people, whole cultures.

And yet you are so split yourself you are not even sure about your own motives and psychology.

IOW a strength of knowing about what you call dasein is that one knows that one's attitudes are affected by one's particular culture, personality, experiences, knowledge base, etc. But a weakness can be the kind of weakness often associated (and correctly) with postmodernism. Hey, that's my view, there are lots of views. This is mine. And nothing changes that view, because, hey, they're all views. That can be defensible when it comes to ought issues. But it can be a real problem when it comes to IS issues. You get to say anything because you say its your point of view. So, you never have to defend your point of view, while at the same time expecting Maia, say, to defend hers.

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 6:04 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:58 pm

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:23 pm

Scientists often find what their funders and employers want.

Of course, here the crucial factor is time. It is still some years off in the future before, one way or another, one side or the other will be proven right. And until coastal cities start disappearing under water and the severity of weather events -- storms and droughts and floods -- explodes off the charts, both sides can still insist the other side is wrong.

And while some scientists do in fact find what their "funders and employers want" that's precisely the point say those on the left. That's exactly how capitalism works. It's almost always the bottom line "here and now" rather than the consequences of that "there and then".

Though surely none of this has much to do with magic and electro-magnetism.

Imagine, however, if the Earth was now into the next Ice Age. Wouldn't almost everyone be clamoring to burn all the fossil fuels we could get our hands on? Anything to warm the planet up?

Coastal cities have sunk into the sea in the past. Dunwich, for example, was once a thriving port in the middle ages, but is now under the North Sea. The climate changes.

Yeah, but back then there weren't a ton of scientists around noting that it all revolved around the burning of fossil fuels.

Sure, if you are able to convince yourself that this has little or nothing to do with human behavior...that it's all about Nature and climate, so be it. Just note that others disagree. And while the fossil fuel industry is awash in money revolving around the very nature of the capitalist political economy, not all scientists weighing in here are merely following the money themselves.

Then this part:

"Why did Dunwich fall into the sea?

In the Anglo-Saxon period, Dunwich was the capital of the Kingdom of the East Angles, but the harbour and most of the town have since disappeared due to coastal erosion."

Isn't erosion more a weather phenomenon?

And then the part when the next Ice Age does all but cripple vast chunks of "civilization" as we know it...is that just nature doing its thing? Spiritually or otherwise.

Then this part: https://astronomy.com/news/2019/04/the- ... ball-earth

Here, nature turns the whole planet itself into one gigantic "snowball".

Hard to imagine many human beings surviving the next rendition of that.

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:45 pm

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:38 pm

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:16 am

As a migrant farm worker perhaps he also experienced the effects of intensive farming for profit.

Climate change is another very good example of human hubris. Namely, the idea that we, as humans, can actually influence the earth's climate. Climate change is both real, and natural, in my opinion.

So you believe in magic, but not climate change (which is, in fact, being caused by humans). No surprises there.

Simply stating it doesn't make it true.

It is well known to archaeologists that climate has changed many times, and was much warmer in Neolithic times than it is now, for example.

Good idea then. Let's just ignore it and do nothing and keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere because the world 'used to be warmer/colder at various times' It's actually not that hard to change the climate of a planet. We might not be able to control the weather but we most certainly can alter the climate, and are. What do you think would happen if we had a nuclear war? Or would that be just a 'natural phenomenon' too that we don't need to worry about? At the time that the asteroid caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs and megafauna humans were just small rat-like creatures (many still are). How well do you think modern humans would have survived that catastrophic and very SUDDEN climate change?
Your ridiculous superstition and delusional beliefs might seem 'cute' to some, but they are in fact anything but harmless. The world is full of delusional, superstitious, anti-science fuckwits who are doing their best to stuff things up for everyone.
You will find plenty of allies on here amongst the religious arseholes who stink up this forum. Morons like Walker and IC.
Since you mistrust 'science' so much then you should get off your computer. Stop using technology. Don't go to the doctor. Don't use electricity........

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:19 pm

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 6:04 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:58 pm

Of course, here the crucial factor is time. It is still some years off in the future before, one way or another, one side or the other will be proven right. And until coastal cities start disappearing under water and the severity of weather events -- storms and droughts and floods -- explodes off the charts, both sides can still insist the other side is wrong.

And while some scientists do in fact find what their "funders and employers want" that's precisely the point say those on the left. That's exactly how capitalism works. It's almost always the bottom line "here and now" rather than the consequences of that "there and then".

Though surely none of this has much to do with magic and electro-magnetism.

Imagine, however, if the Earth was now into the next Ice Age. Wouldn't almost everyone be clamoring to burn all the fossil fuels we could get our hands on? Anything to warm the planet up?

Coastal cities have sunk into the sea in the past. Dunwich, for example, was once a thriving port in the middle ages, but is now under the North Sea. The climate changes.

Yeah, but back then there weren't a ton of scientists around noting that it all revolved around the burning of fossil fuels.

Sure, if you are able to convince yourself that this has little or nothing to do with human behavior...that it's all about Nature and climate, so be it. Just note that others disagree. And while the fossil fuel industry is awash in money revolving around the very nature of the capitalist political economy, not all scientists weighing in here are merely following the money themselves.

Then this part:

"Why did Dunwich fall into the sea?

In the Anglo-Saxon period, Dunwich was the capital of the Kingdom of the East Angles, but the harbour and most of the town have since disappeared due to coastal erosion."

Isn't erosion more a weather phenomenon?

And then the part when the next Ice Age does all but cripple vast chunks of "civilization" as we know it...is that just nature doing its thing? Spiritually or otherwise.

Then this part: https://astronomy.com/news/2019/04/the- ... ball-earth

Here, nature turns the whole planet itself into one gigantic "snowball".

Hard to imagine many human beings surviving the next rendition of that.

The point about Dunwich, or indeed the Neolithic optimum, is that climate changes without the need for fossil fuel emissions. But the long term trend is definitely that the earth is cooling down, since its formation. If we can find a way of slowing this down, this is probably a good thing.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:20 pm

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:45 pm

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:38 pm

So you believe in magic, but not climate change (which is, in fact, being caused by humans). No surprises there.

Simply stating it doesn't make it true.

It is well known to archaeologists that climate has changed many times, and was much warmer in Neolithic times than it is now, for example.

Good idea then. Let's just ignore it and do nothing and keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere because the world 'used to be warmer/colder at various times' It's actually not that hard to change the climate of a planet. We might not be able to control the weather but we most certainly can alter the climate, and are. What do you think would happen if we had a nuclear war? Or would that be just a 'natural phenomenon' too that we don't need to worry about? At the time that the asteroid caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs and megafauna humans were just small rat-like creatures (many still are). How well do you think modern humans would have survived that catastrophic and very SUDDEN climate change?
Your ridiculous superstition and delusional beliefs might seem 'cute' to some, but they are in fact anything but harmless. The world is full of delusional, superstitious, anti-science fuckwits who are doing their best to stuff things up for everyone.
You will find plenty of allies on here amongst the religious arseholes who stink up this forum. Morons like Walker and IC.
Since you mistrust 'science' so much then you should get off your computer. Stop using technology. Don't go to the doctor. Don't use electricity........

I'm not anti-technology. I'm simply anti being dependent on it.

'Anti thinking' more like, and 'anti having a brain'. Perhaps your 'earth spirits' will help you if you need medication or surgery...