Philosophy Now Forum

Nick_A wrote:...

Just think: the Earth as part of the solar system revolves around the sun. The sun in turn revolves around its place in the Milky Way. The Milky Way in turn revolves around the cycle of galaxies and the galaxies revolve around the Source of the universe. ...

You really need to get up to speed on where Cosmology is actually at as you appear stuck in the past. Nothing is revolving around a 'something' they are all 'revolving' around each other according to mass and the universe is not revolving at all(or at least as far as we can tell.)
https://www.quora.com/Does-the-universe ... d-anything

Our universe revolves around the source of multiverses. Multiverse revolves around the Absolute. ...

Blatant metaphysics with no evidence for it at all.

How insulting for all those believing they are the center of universal meaning and purpose as opposed to just a small part of an inconceivable process.

If you can't conceive it then how on earth do you think you know what you are saying is true?

The idea of humans being the center of universal meaning has come from you theists as you needed something to replace your 'God's' focus upon once it was shown the Earth was not the centre. Although the irony is that from the latest Cosmology you could get that we are the 'centre' in a sense.

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 06, 2018 7:12 pm

Nick_A wrote:... Socrates was killed primarily because he proved no one knew what piety is and he was corrupting the youth of Athens by creating doubt. This is obviously too intolerable to be allowed. Has it changed? No. ...

Although he could have just left?

https://www.cam.ac.uk/news/socrates-was ... as-charged

The irony of course is that you are exacty proposing to put in place a religious metaphysic that will brook no impiety or doubt.

You are a secularist and for you the greatest legal and moral obligation is to serve the state. In terms of the state both Socrates' and Jesus' death are justified. Socrates was a seeker of objective truth so for him his greatest obligation was to serve the awakening needs of Man. The state must oppose it as absurd.

For the seculariust, the value of death is what serves the state or personal egotism. Abortion is a good example. Its purppse is to serve the dictates of the state and the egoistic motives of a woman.

However for a seekers of truth like Socrates and Simone Weil death serves the need for truth. For Socrates to run contradicted his aim to achieve a worthwhile death that served the need for awakening from the earthly struggle of opinions and open to the universal world of knowledge beginning with the “forms.”

There is a movement violently being opposed by secularism which is concerned with how to open conscious awareness to the degree that a person experiences the superficiality of what is being personally lost by being controlled by the shadows on the wall. The whole goal of secularism as I’ve experienced it is to create politically correct attachments. Indoctrination takes the place of opening to the truth of our psychological slavery.

The greatness of those like Socrates and Simone Weil is illustrated by the inability to classify them. They cannot be put into one of those boxes called collectives progressives are so fond of creating. Socrates is Socrates and Simone is Simone. Is it any wonder that they must be at best considered misguided, suspicious and at worst condemned by devoted secularists?

You are caught up with creating and fighting Gods while I’m interested in how to consciously open to the human condition where a person can begin to transcend secularism where the earth is the center of meaning into universalism where Man's conscious evolutionary possibility has its potential within a universal structure rather than limited to an earthly perspective.

Yes for you Socrates’ and Simone Weil’s death are meaningless. Maybe that is because you underestimate human conscious potential and content to have your values created by pragmatism and loyalty to the state.

Nick_A wrote:...
You are a secularist and for you the greatest legal and moral obligation is to serve the state. ...

You live in a world of fantasy and blinkers.

In terms of the state both Socrates' and Jesus' death are justified. Socrates was a seeker of objective truth so for him his greatest obligation was to serve the awakening needs of Man. ...

Which involved doubting a metaphysic such as yours.

The state must oppose it as absurd.

The 'state' as you call it is the expression of the public but since you are a Yank you have this weird view of states.

For the seculariust, the value of death is what serves the state or personal egotism. ...

Socrates exactly killed himself for his ego and it was easier to do given his age, whereas others of his time took to their legs.

Abortion is a good example. Its purppse is to serve the dictates of the state and the egoistic motives of a woman. ...

Spoken like one who doesn't have to give birth and care for the child. Not sure about what goes on in your godforsaken country but over here we legalised it to stop the many deaths of the woman at the hands of back-street butchers and quacks.

However for a seekers of truth like Socrates and Simone Weil death serves the need for truth. For Socrates to run contradicted his aim to achieve a worthwhile death that served the need for awakening from the earthly struggle of opinions and open to the universal world of knowledge beginning with the “forms.”

We really have no idea what Socrates thought but Plato's forms are to solve the problem of universals and it was contested then and now.

There is a movement violently being opposed by secularism which is concerned with how to open conscious awareness to the degree that a person experiences the superficiality of what is being personally lost by being controlled by the shadows on the wall. The whole goal of secularism as I’ve experienced it is to create politically correct attachments. Indoctrination takes the place of opening to the truth of our psychological slavery. ...

How have you experienced it?

The greatness of those like Socrates and Simone Weil is illustrated by the inability to classify them. They cannot be put into one of those boxes called collectives progressives are so fond of creating. Socrates is Socrates and Simone is Simone. Is it any wonder that they must be at best considered misguided, suspicious and at worst condemned by devoted secularists?

Is 'collective progressive' not a box which you appear inordinately fond of? You can philosophically classify Socrates, as described by Plato, but it'd depend upon which aspect of Philosophy under consideration but I doubt you'd be much interested in such things as Philosophy is not your game. Weil was a disabused Marxist who turned to Religious mysticism to satisfy herself. Both were basically suicidal egoists at the end.

You are caught up with creating and fighting Gods while I’m interested in how to consciously open to the human condition where a person can begin to transcend secularism where the earth is the center of meaning into universalism where Man's conscious evolutionary possibility has its potential within a universal structure rather than limited to an earthly perspective. ...

I've told you elsewhere, the Earth as the centre of meaning is a theist conception which was done away with by the astronomers.

Actually I'm interested in Epistemology, Phil of Mind and pedagogies with the aim of helping people to think, hence I liked Philosophy when I encountered it. You on the other hand are interested in imposing your religious metaphysic with apparently the aim of producing the second-coming to take your troubles away.

Yes for you Socrates’ and Simone Weil’s death are meaningless. ...

Where did I say they were meaningless? I just said they weren't killed or murdered by some 'State' as they had the choice and chose to die.

Maybe that is because you underestimate human conscious potential and content to have your values created by pragmatism and loyalty to the state.

You are an idiot and have clearly never bothered to actually read Plato's Socrates.

Arising_uk

Obviously you have no interest in the purpose of the quality of deaths experienced by those like Socrates and Simone much less Jesus Christ so I'll leave that alone but you did write some things worth commenting upon:

I've told you elsewhere, the Earth as the centre of meaning is a theist conception which was done away with by the astronomers.

For all those who believe we live within a conscious universe the earth or planetary level is the level of reality within which mechanical evolution can pass into conscious evolution - animal Man can become conscious man. So in that sense the earth is the level of reality or center of meaning which connects mechanical reaction to conscious action.

Actually I'm interested in Epistemology, Phil of Mind and pedagogies with the aim of helping people to think, hence I liked Philosophy when I encountered it. You on the other hand are interested in imposing your religious metaphysic with apparently the aim of producing the second-coming to take your troubles away.

You seem concerned with dualism or literal thought limited to two influences "affirmation and denial" You want to teach people to think like a computer while I'm concerned with what it means to reason as a human being. You completely ignore the third dimension of thought. Yet it is the third dimension of thought which reveals the value of philosophy.

Your "teaching people to think" is what is used to justify spirit killing in universities.

Simone Weil explains the third dimension of thought.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/06/2 ... ve-of-god/

............What makes the abyss between twentieth-century science and that of previous centuries is the different role of algebra. In physics algebra was at first simply a process for summarizing the relations, established by reasoning based on experiment, between the ideas of physics; an extremely convenient process for the numerical calculations necessary for their verification and application. But its role has continually increased in importance until finally, whereas algebra was once the auxiliary language and words the essential one, it is now exactly the other way round. There are even some physicists who tend to make algebra the sole language, or almost, so that in the end, an unattainable end of course, there would be nothing except figures derived form experimental measurements, and letters, combined in formulae. Now, ordinary language and algebraic language are not subject to the same logical requirement; relations between ideas are not fully represented by relations between letters; and, in particular, incompatible assertions may have equational equivalents which are by no means incompatible. When some relations between ideas have been translated into algebra and the formulae have been manipulated solely according to the numerical data of the experiment and the laws proper to algebra, results may be obtained which, when retranslated into spoken language, are a violent contradiction of common sense.

Weil argues that this creates an incomplete and, in its incompleteness, illusory representation of reality — even when it bisects the planes of mathematical data and common sense, such science leaves out the unquantifiable layer of meaning:

If the algebra of physicists gives the impression of profundity it is because it is entirely flat; the third dimension of thought is missing.

That third dimension is that of meaning — one concerned with notions like “the human soul, freedom, consciousness, the reality of the external world.” (Three decades later, Hannah Arendt — another of the twentieth century’s most piercing and significant minds — would memorably contemplate the crucial difference between truth and meaning, the former being the material of science and the latter of philosophy.)

You are concerned with the duality of science; not the triune perspective philosophy offers essential to feel objective meaning and the love of wisdom.

Dualistic spirit killing has become dominant and an essential method for indoctrination into dualistic secularism.

We have chosen our paths and I am happy to be part of the minority which is open to the third dimension of thought.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Nov 07, 2018 1:00 amFor all those who believe we live within a conscious universe the earth or planetary level is the level of reality within which mechanical evolution can pass into conscious evolution - animal Man can become conscious man.

You think very small, imagining "conscious man" to be the final and ultimate product of the universe's processes.

So, let's say that "conscious man" arrives in the fairly near future, with the universe 13.8 billion years old. So is "conscious" man just going to continue being a better conscious man over the ensuring billions of years? What of the other thousand billion or so years in the rest of the the universe's stelliferous life? Just better "men"?

Many futurists see life just one billion years more advanced would be as different from humans as humans are from bacteria. That's just one billion. What of the other possible trillion (thousand billion)?

For context, to appreciate the scale of the universe's potential lifespan:

1 second is 1 second
1 million seconds is 12 days
1 billion seconds is 30 years
1 trillion seconds is 30,000 years

Whatever the universe is brewing, given its physical and temporal scale, claiming that its final products will be remotely about any kind of men or their machines - even extraordinarily conscious ones - is thinking far too narrowly, a bit like the Oglaroonians:

Douglas Adams wrote:Natives to the small forest world of Oglaroon, Oglaroonians, have taken what is a fairly universal trait among sentient species (to cope with the sheer infinite vastness of the universe by simply ignoring it) to its ultimate extreme. Despite the entire planet being habitable, Oglaroonians have managed to confine their global population to one small nut tree, in which they compose poetry, create art, and somehow fight wars. The consensus among those in power that any trees one might observe from the outer branches are merely hallucinations brought on by eating too many oglanuts, and anyone who thinks differently is hurled out of the tree, presumably to his death.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Nov 06, 2018 5:30 pmThe attraction of our being to "remember" objective meaning and purpose is what invites universalism.

Universalism, as with everything else that's human or humanly defined is a matter of degree.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Nov 06, 2018 5:30 pm If there is nothing but subjective meaning and purpose, why bother contemplating anything beyond secular pragmatism?

Beacause meaning and purpose includes many thought patterns, not just secular pragmatism.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Nov 06, 2018 5:30 pm Look what speculation about a greater reality did to Jesus and Socrates? It just led to expressions of secular intolerance and they were killed so why bother.

Jesus was killed by the Romans because he stupidly caused a ruckus in the Temple at a very delicate time not because of any greater reality you imagine he was privy to.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Nov 06, 2018 5:30 pm However, I'd like to ask a personal question. Since you do not believe in human objective meaning and purpose much less universal, why are you attracted to philosophy as the love of wisdom? Just create your own reality and be done with it. Without objective meaning, that is wisdom. What is there to ponder?

I'm not attracted to philosophy as "a love of wisdom" which presupposes we already know what it is or consists of and delimits any further quests or questions philosophy is prone to ask. Especially so if wisdom seeks absolutes in the form of "human objective meaning and purpose". No such thing! It's a total dead end...a conclusion you have made evident.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Nov 06, 2018 5:30 pm Are you really attracted to philosophy or putting ourselves and our species within a higher conscious perspective in order to experience objective meaning or just the psychology of self justifiction?

Interesting! Haven't you consistently employed the "psychology of self justifiction" in everyone of your arguments? Are you sure you are practicing philosophy or just espousing your own theories without further scrutiny?

Greta wrote: ↑Wed Nov 07, 2018 1:24 am

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Nov 07, 2018 1:00 amFor all those who believe we live within a conscious universe the earth or planetary level is the level of reality within which mechanical evolution can pass into conscious evolution - animal Man can become conscious man.

You think very small, imagining "conscious man" to be the final and ultimate product of the universe's processes.

So, let's say that "conscious man" arrives in the fairly near future, with the universe 13.8 billion years old. So is "conscious" man just going to continue being a better conscious man over the ensuring billions of years? What of the other thousand billion or so years in the rest of the the universe's stelliferous life? Just better "men"?

Many futurists see life just one billion years more advanced would be as different from humans as humans are from bacteria. That's just one billion. What of the other possible trillion (thousand billion)?

For context, to appreciate the scale of the universe's potential lifespan:

1 second is 1 second
1 million seconds is 12 days
1 billion seconds is 30 years
1 trillion seconds is 30,000 years

Whatever the universe is brewing, given its physical and temporal scale, claiming that its final products will be remotely about any kind of men or their machines - even extraordinarily conscious ones - is thinking far too narrowly, a bit like the Oglaroonians:

Douglas Adams wrote:Natives to the small forest world of Oglaroon, Oglaroonians, have taken what is a fairly universal trait among sentient species (to cope with the sheer infinite vastness of the universe by simply ignoring it) to its ultimate extreme. Despite the entire planet being habitable, Oglaroonians have managed to confine their global population to one small nut tree, in which they compose poetry, create art, and somehow fight wars. The consensus among those in power that any trees one might observe from the outer branches are merely hallucinations brought on by eating too many oglanuts, and anyone who thinks differently is hurled out of the tree, presumably to his death.

You think very small, imagining "conscious man" to be the final and ultimate product of the universe's processes.

I Agree. Time is relative. A day in the life of the sun could include many generations of Man on earth. The universe is evolving but on a scale of time that is inconceivable for us.

What made you think that conscious Man should be considered the highest form of conscious evolution? Because a caterpillar can change its being to become a butterfly doesn't make the butterfly the highest form of being on the earth. Conscious Man which already exists has a place within the universal scale of being. Fallen Man on earth has the potential to return to its arising, not become God.

Dubious

Interesting! Haven't you consistently employed the "psychology of self justifiction" in everyone of your arguments? Are you sure you are practicing philosophy or just espousing your own theories without further scrutiny?

The purpose of the Socratic dialogue as intended by Socrates is to expose contradictions so a person can verify they know nothing.. Socrates raised questions rather than provide answers. It is a way for a person to experience their ignorance and bypass dualistic thought in order to open to conscious contemplation so as to reconcile the contradiction from a higher perspective. What you call theories are just my means for raising contradictions so as to invite speculation on the depth of the ideas given to us by those like Plato and Plotinus. Over the years I've come to experience to my horror that these ideas are hated since they threaten the prestige of those called secular experts. They have caused immeasurable harm so I side with the minority keeping the great ideas alive for those who profit from them in their being.

You may appreciate this article since it deals with the problem of experiencing our insignificance when we are used to being significant even if only with our subjective feelings of self worth.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/does ... -1.3235860

Astronauts looking down on the “pale blue dot” where we live have commonly reported a kind of epiphany known as the “overview effect”. From space, the sort of troubles and preoccupations that once seemed important evaporate in a wider context.

But down on Earth, not all of us are so invigorated when we reflect on our place in the universe. “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless,” noted the physicist Steven Weinberg.

Our knowledge of the origins of the cosmos, while still limited, makes the existence of an all-seeing, compassionate God seem implausible. What’s more, it can make our everyday affairs appear pathetically trivial................

What must it be like for a person convinced of their self importance within their Ptolemy secular world which gives them their feeling of self worth, all of a sudden be struck with their insignificance within a universe beyond our comprehension? How can we have any objective meaning within something so vast? A person can only find their significance as an insignificant part of a process. A body cell may be insignificant but if we didn't have body cells, we wouldn't exist. Can a body cell become a brain cell? Can animal Man become conscious Man? Something within the being of Man is attracted to an intelligence which far exceeds what we are capable of. Once a person truly experiences their insignificance within a universal perspective, it is hard to ignore and return to obsessions with superficiality. Of course the spirit killers will try to destroy the impulse but it will continue in many regardless of their best efforts at destruction.

A great many acorns must be eaten or decay to feed the ground before one can become an oak. Maybe it is the same with Man? Maybe the majority follow the process of dust to dust before a Man consciously evolves. We don't know.

You think very small, imagining "conscious man" to be the final and ultimate product of the universe's processes.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Nov 07, 2018 3:05 amWhat made you think that conscious Man should be considered the highest form of conscious evolution?

This comment ↓

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Nov 07, 2018 1:00 amFor all those who believe we live within a conscious universe the earth or planetary level is the level of reality within which mechanical evolution can pass into conscious evolution - animal Man can become conscious man.

.

Nick_A wrote:Because a caterpillar can change its being to become a butterfly doesn't make the butterfly the highest form of being on the earth. Conscious Man which already exists has a place within the universal scale of being. Fallen Man on earth has the potential to return to its arising, not become God.

No, it just makes a butterfly further along the track of life than the caterpillar from which it came.

I don't see any "fallen Man", rather just slow and uneven maturation. Meanwhile, "conscious Man" is well on the way to following dinosaurs and trilobites as great dynasties to ultimately gave way to greater ones.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Nov 07, 2018 5:17 am You may appreciate this article since it deals with the problem of experiencing our insignificance when we are used to being significant even if only with our subjective feelings of self worth.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/does ... -1.3235860

I have read the very interesting article as designated. I'm not certain if it was meant for me or Greta to whom it seems more contextually related...as far as I can tell.