Philosophy Now Forum

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 3:04 pmThe central issue? How life, being and our existence here is defined.

It would be curious if Belinda, Dubious, BigMike, IC, Henry, Alexiev, VA, Flash and all others were to offer a paragraph with their Operative Description.

Seems to me we all have, in one way or another. But, mebbe, I misunderstand what you mean. Can you offer a paragraph with your own Operative Description, as an example?

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 3:23 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 3:04 pmThe central issue? How life, being and our existence here is defined.

It would be curious if Belinda, Dubious, BigMike, IC, Henry, Alexiev, VA, Flash and all others were to offer a paragraph with their Operative Description.

Seems to me we all have, in one way or another. But, mebbe, I misunderstand what you mean. Can you offer a paragraph with your own Operative Description, as an example?

Don't hold your breath, henry.

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 3:47 pm Don't hold your breath, henry.

Well, at least we have yours...

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Nov 29, 2024 6:06 pmHere’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

...yes?

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 4:01 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 3:47 pm Don't hold your breath, henry.

Well, at least we have yours...

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Nov 29, 2024 6:06 pmHere’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

...yes?

That's exactly right.

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 4:05 pmThat's exactly right.

Question is: is that what AJ is talkin' about as an operative description?

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 4:57 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 4:05 pmThat's exactly right.

Question is: is that what AJ is talkin' about as an operative description?

I don't know. Let's just sit back and see what he says, if anything at all.

My "operative description" according to AJ is probably to be culled from the herd so as to promote healthier and more manly breeding stock among the males.

Why am I in this world? How did I end up here? I don't want to live anymore.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 3:23 pm Seems to me we all have, in one way or another. But, mebbe, I misunderstand what you mean. Can you offer a paragraph with your own Operative Description, as an example?

The question I posed is in the spirit of Thomas Carlyle’s:

But the thing a man does practically believe (and this is often enough without asserting it even to himself, much less to others); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 6:02 pm My "operative description" according to AJ is probably to be culled from the herd so as to promote healthier and more manly breeding stock among the males.

Why am I in this world? How did I end up here? I don't want to live anymore.

No, Gary, that is really what your own view, which is ultimately a very powerful mood that overtakes you, determines for you.

The larger part of that — according to what you yourself reveal — is due to mental health.

What I recommend for a man in your position is unusual: serve those who are “whole” and who can progress in this life as you have indicated you cannot.

You say “My life is worthless”. And you always bring your problem to the fore of all conversations here.

Having contemplated your situation what occurs to me as the most creative strategy as the best option is just what I say: serve someone, a couple, a family (?) who can do and is doing what you cannot (do, be, realize).

My operative description in that really determining, inner and intuited sense, is my awareness (belief, feeling, understanding) that I have come into a world (world: a sphere of existence among what I sense are innumerable worlds of varying sorts with different qualities and destinies) through a sort of descension. I.e. from an existence on a non-material plane to one in this particular flesh-and-blood world where all of us reside.

I could of course say more but that is the basic outline.

In an “ultimate” sense that is my determining understanding that I “practically lay to heart”.

And that view (which is a dawning view, not fully understood and sometimes not believed (consciously) does seem to influence my “vital relations to this mysterious Universe, and (my) duty and destiny” here.

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 12:10 pmDubious, when you wrote 'fiction' do you refer to or include 19th century novels and their legacy into the present day?
You do yourself an injustice if you claim that novels are nothing but entertainment; some are, some aren't.

I agree. Some are and some aren't. The century is immaterial. A great novel is what it is regardless of time. If that weren't true, even though they are not novels but still stories, Shakespeare would have become a footnote a long time ago.

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 12:10 pmThere are all sorts of fictions. Let's define our terms. Let's also equip school children and adults with the critical ability to distinguish truth from falsehood----That's the question! Not fact or fiction ,but instead truth or falsehood.

What is critical to that ability is whether truth remains fixed or manifests itself as an operational variable whose lifespan is limited.

Much depends on what level truth is discussed. There's a cusp where the physical and the metaphysical conjoin.

Obviously then, it is functionally impossible for me to “believe in” or accept BigMike’s entire operative and determining platform.

I definitely have an agency that his imprisoning conceptual structures cannot allow.

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 6:45 pm There's a cusp where the physical and the metaphysical conjoin.

Huh?!?

::: pinching myself :::

WTF? Is that Dubious writing?!?

(Weird shit is happening, people!)

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 6:02 pm Why am I in this world?

...a question with its own reply if you never ask it.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 6:02 pmHow did I end up here?

Response by Philip Larkin...

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 6:02 pmI don't want to live anymore.

...and it gets worse the longer you don't do anything about it.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 6:43 pmMy operative description...is...I have come into a world...through a sort of descension. I.e. from an existence on a non-material plane to one in this particular flesh-and-blood world where all of us reside.

Forgive me, AJ: I had to cut away the filigree.

Your views aligns with my own: I am spirit and substance, co-equal; in the world but not entirely of the world.

Like you, I could say more (and, in fact, already have), about being a free will; about having a natural moral claim to myself; about being capable of, and subject to, moral judgement; and about the Creator, Arbiter, and Measure of all things, but, really, there's no point in castin' out pearls in this place.

Obviously then, it is functionally impossible for me to “believe in” or accept BigMike’s entire operative and determining platform.

I definitely have an agency that his imprisoning conceptual structures cannot allow.

Agreed.