Philosophy Now Forum

Henry Quirk wrote:

“ owl - The novelist is not the novel, the photo is not the photographer and the sculpture is not the sculptor because the novelist, the photographer and the sculptor are not omnipresent, one of the attributes ascribed to divinity, along with omniscience and omnipotence.”

HQ - Are you sayin' becuz God is omnipresent (not sumthin' I necessarily attribute to God, by the way [there's nuthin' in my deism that sez God is everywhere]) He has no choice but to be one with Creation? Being also all-knowing and all-powerful (two other attributes I don't necessarily ascribe to God), it seems to me God can choose to be where He likes.
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owl- He can choose to be where he likes but if He is all there is, He is where He is. It is easy to see why someone would choose Deism. It is having the best of both worlds, being a believer without any relationship to the Godhead. C.S. Lewis, when he thought of Christ’s saying: I and my Father are One, it gave him pause that maybe Christ’s consciousness was everywhere too (Omnipresent) and Lewis’ ego had company, a very uncomfortable thought that he, even as devote a Christian as he was, had to come to terms with, although he knew he could still live according to his ego tendencies without interference from the Godhead.

owl - People create from something.

HQ - Yes. We, being finite, must scrounge for our materials. God, being God, it seems to me, can call into being any material He likes.

owl - De Sade’s bodily fluids is an interesting example of something someone has by proxy.

HQ - I'm not sure what you mean by proxy. As I reckon it: The film's De Sade was his own. but his will was blunted by his enemies. He was stripped of the materials he used to create. Ingeniously, he literally made use of his own substance to set his thoughts down, to give those thoughts an independence. “
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owl- What is meant by proxy is derivative from something, not self-created. DeSade’s thoughts were his own, it is without question that they were other than say, for example, Thomas Aquinas’ thoughts. Still, unless we believe in determinism, their respective thought processes took different directions and had different outputs, although thought and thought processes are neutral until identified with and given direction.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 6:22 pm age,

I do NOT believe ANY thing, which INCLUDES which on you value least NOR most.

In other words: you, as I say, lack the capacity, the reason, the common sense, to even guess which of these four -- a toothpick, my coffee mug, my car, my kid, my self -- would be most important to me and which would be least.

Well that is one of the more ABSURD and STUPID ASSUMPTIONS and CLAIMS, which you have made here,
that ONCE AGAIN is just completely AND utterly Wrong and Incorrect.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 6:22 pm Of the 4: my kid is, by far, the most important, while the toothpick is the least.

Knowing this, can you tell me why I value my kid above all other things (and people)?

OBVIOUSLY, ONLY YOU KNOW the EXACT REASONS WHY you value, and not value, what you do. So, WHY do you, SUPPOSEDLY, value, LOL, "your kid" more?

(LOL This one is STILL completely BLIND to its own CONTRADICTIONS and self-defeating claims and proposals here.)

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 6:22 pm I don't think you can. Your head is not built for it.

What you are doing here, ONCE AGAIN, is just ATTEMPTING TO DEFLECT from YOUR claims that you have some sort of 'right' to SHOOT DEAD human beings if they just touch "your stuff" or just enter "your property"

But please proceed. .

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 6:26 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 5:54 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 4:04 pm

*nah, you're just a salesman

**doubtful

***I did ask again; the link is embedded and accessible thru the little ↑.

Henry, I looked for your, "question." I found one here:

After a mornin' of tradin' on the black & gray markets you come home to find your wife dead. Her throat is slashed open as is her belly. Your house is ransacked. It's obvious this ain't suicide.

What do you?

If that's the question, I've already explained why I do not answer hypotheticals. There is no context and no way for me to know enough to make in informed choice.

It is a mistake to take the most unlikely possibility as the basis for establishing a principle. Even if such an event happened, it would be exceptional. Pick something that's likely to happen, allow me to determine the context, and I will say what I think I might do if things were exactly as described.

*Really, Henry, what were you trying to get at?

*Never mind. I think you and age are of a kind. Like her, you're rational, literal, machine-like.

This is a PHILOSOPHY FORUM, so if you do NOT mean what you ACTUALLY write AND, literally, say here, then do NOT be so surprised that you are NOT being understood FULLY.

simplicity wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 8:30 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 8:15 pmIndividualism was a response to technological advances and subsequent splintering of traditional communities and their values. It was neither good not bad, but depended on circumstances. However it seems to be here to stay so we should build on its good points.

It's like everything else in life, you need to find the proper balance between individualism and community. Too much power invested in community and you have tyranny...

WHY do so many of 'you', human beings, ASSUME this wrong and False claim here?

Even your OWN words here refute themselves.

simplicity wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 8:30 pm too much in individualism and you have fragmentation.
In Western society, we now have both. Too much government and corporate control...too many individuals refusing to take personal responsibility. Worst of both worlds.

Sculptor wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:27 pm

Age wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 7:51 pm

Sculptor wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:58 am

I DON'T HAVE ANY BELIEFS.

Is it possible to you that God could exist?

If no, then what does the word 'God' mean or refer to, to you?

But if no, then what does the word 'God' mean or refer to, to you?

Your Honest answer and clarification here will be much appreciated.

God is equivalent to Gandalf except Gandalf's character is far more consistent, since it is authored by one being.
Gandalf is literally and figuratively more authentic.

So, if God, to you, is a fictional character, then OBVIOUSLY it could NOT exist, as a REAL thing. Therefore, your Honest answer would have been a 'No'.

Now, WHY do you even have discussions with "others" about fictional characters in regards to them existingbor not?

This, well to me anyway, appears to on the very edge of complete absurdity AND insanity.

owl- He can choose to be where he likes but if He is all there is, He is where He is.

Henry: if He is all there is. And if He's not?

OBVIOUSLY, ONLY YOU KNOW the EXACT REASONS WHY you value, and not value, what you do. So, WHY do you, SUPPOSEDLY, value, LOL, "your kid" more?

If your head was human you'd know.


YOUR claims that you have some sort of 'right' to SHOOT DEAD human beings if they just touch "your stuff" or just enter "your property"

Nope. I never said I have, nor hinted at my havin', a right to shoot folks dead if they just touch my stuff or just enter my home.

Age wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:00 am Even your OWN words here refute themselves.

How do my own words refute themselves?

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:42 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 6:26 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 5:54 pm
Henry, I looked for your, "question." I found one here:



If that's the question, I've already explained why I do not answer hypotheticals. There is no context and no way for me to know enough to make in informed choice.

It is a mistake to take the most unlikely possibility as the basis for establishing a principle. Even if such an event happened, it would be exceptional. Pick something that's likely to happen, allow me to determine the context, and I will say what I think I might do if things were exactly as described.

*Really, Henry, what were you trying to get at?

*Never mind. I think you and age are of a kind. Like her, you're rational, literal, machine-like.

Why can no one on this forum address ideas without dragging in personalities. That's certainly, "irrational," --and puerile.

I do not recall dragging in personalities EVER. But, if ANY one thinks that I have, then please feel free to point out and show where.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:42 pm I suppose that is inevitable for one who prefers the irrational, fictional, and arbitrary.

But, at least you've answered my question of how you arrived at your idea that there is a God. Thank you!

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:48 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 8:15 pm The trouble with power hierarchies ruling modern social democracies is although theoretically the electorate can change them at regular intervals, the intervals are not short enough.

I think that analysis is wrong. I think Jordan Peterson's is right, instead.

Today, at least in the West, social hierarchy is not an expression of power, but of competence. The competent rise to the top, regardless of their "race" or "gender" or even their moral proclivities.

" rise to the 'top' " in relation to what, EXACTLY?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:48 pm Now, political hierarchy, that's more an expression of power...and propaganda. But hierarchies within society, say, business, trade, medicine or education, are driven by competence not by power. The smart and able, not the merely powerful, tend to rise to the top.

Individualism was a response to technological advances and subsequent splintering of traditional communities and their values. It was neither good not bad, but depended on circumstances. However it seems to be here to stay so we should build on its good points.

Individualism (which, as you note, has good and bad aspects) is also a luxury.

It's an expression of the fact that so many social and personal problems have been solved, and we all have so much financial well-being and so many options that we can afford to be individualistic, and don't have to huddle in desperate tribes in order to survive at all...which is what has happened in most of human history, and certainly was the case prior to the Industrial Revolution.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 2:22 am OBVIOUSLY, ONLY YOU KNOW the EXACT REASONS WHY you value, and not value, what you do. So, WHY do you, SUPPOSEDLY, value, LOL, "your kid" more?

If your head was human you'd know.

Here is ANOTHER EXAMPLE of when one can NOT or will NOT just answer an extremely simple CLARIFYING question.

Who, or what, is the 'you', which supposedly owns or has a "head".

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 2:22 am YOUR claims that you have some sort of 'right' to SHOOT DEAD human beings if they just touch "your stuff" or just enter "your property"

Nope. I never said I have, nor hinted at my havin', a right to shoot folks dead if they just touch my stuff or just enter my home.

Age wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 3:36 am " rise to the 'top' " in relation to what, EXACTLY?

The hierarchy in question, Age.

Hierarchy isn't intrinsically bad. It just means that some things are better than others at something. Some people are better writers or athletes or quantity surveyors than others are. That's not big deal, and nothing to cry about; inequality is a reality of life, and can only be eliminated in situations in which nobody does anything specially worthwhile...which is not a desirable outcome.

owl of Minerva wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:12 pm
The postman rang but he did not KNOW the postman rang, because he was ABSENTMINDED, as he was immersed in a philosophical conundrum, so the postman rang again.

There is no self to experience the absence of itself, nor the presence of itself.

The sense of 'Self' is a byproduct of experience, born of experiential properties like sensations, feelings, and perceptions and concepts.

Selfing is a 'mental activity' which is illusory. Reality has no mind to retain an image of itself. All images are the ''known'' imagination of the imageless.

The mind cannot turn towards its essential nature in the way that it turns towards an object. In order to know itself the mind has to relax its attention from objects and allow its attention to sink back into itself. It doesn’t go forward towards itself but rather sinks backwards, or inwards, or self-wards, into its own essence, awareness itself.

Awareness is like the empty space that gives an object a seemingly independent existence , which in reality is only infinite space appearing as an in-finite object.

This pure empty awareness can NEVER experience itself as the object known to it, because an object is only a transitory finite appearance within what is always and ever infinite, unchanging and mindless.

I really cannot fathom for the life of me, why this simple realisation, is so difficult to understand for some people.

A ''postman'' is an object known by the only knowing there is which is awareness. Awareness cannot know itself, it cannot split into two and become knower and known........because the 'known' can know nothing of itself, in and of itself, as it's very existence is awareness itself all alone. Awareness is everything and nothing simultaneously.


The trees in the forest are not informing themselves they are alive, or that they want to live forever, or that they do not want to die. The trees are just simply being, for no reason or purpose.

It's the same reality for all physical matter, it's just simply being. Only the mind is born...not reality. And the mind is knowledge, which is imagination, which is thought, which is nothing, appearing as something.

simplicity wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 2:29 am

Age wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:00 am Even your OWN words here refute themselves.

How do my own words refute themselves?

Firstly, thank you tremendously for asking a CLARIFYING question, BEFORE you wrote down ANY ASSUMPTION, which you may have had.

Your own words refute themselves here because they say the opposite of what you were saying and meaning, and because they prove themselves wrong or false.

You said and wrote: Too much power invested in community and you have tyranny...

If some thing is being 'invested in', then it is for the gain or benefit of that thing. So, for example, if ANY thing is being 'invested in' 'community', then it would be for the benefit of gain of that 'community'.

Therefore, if 'tyranny' is the result or outcome, then what was being 'invested' in would have ACTUALLY been 'tyranny' and NOT 'community' at all.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 4:02 am

Age wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 3:36 am " rise to the 'top' " in relation to what, EXACTLY?

The hierarchy in question, Age.

So, 'social', correct?

If yes, then what do you judge the "rise to the top" on, EXACTLY. Just saying "social" does NOT really say ANY thing AT ALL.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 4:02 am Hierarchy isn't intrinsically bad.

Never said, nor even assumed, it was.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 4:02 am It just means that some things are better than others at something.

If this is what the 'hierarchy' word means to you, then so be it. But this is NOT necessarily the meaning found in dictionaries.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 4:02 am Some people are better writers or athletes or quantity surveyors than others are.

OBVIOUSLY, but who or what EXACTLY is better at 'social' then another (whatever) is?

What 'social hierarchy' EXACTLY were you thinking about when you wrote the above here.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 4:02 am That's not big deal, and nothing to cry about;

So, someone JUST asks you a CLARIFYING QUESTION and you JUMP straight into making an ASSUMPTION and CONCLUDING that is true.

I was NOT "crying" I was just asking you a CLARIFYING QUESTION, and that is all.

There is NO wonder WHY 'you', human beings, are continually bickering and fighting with each "other". Whenever one ASSUMES some thing, and then BELIEVES that that is true, then they are NOT OPEN to what thee ACTUAL Truth IS, and will fight FOR their OWN ASSUMPTION or BELIEF, and fight AGAINST ANY one who says otherwise.

Just asking someone for clarification or clarity is NOT "crying". And, whatever you ASSUME was a "big deal" was ALL of your OWN MAKING.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 4:02 am inequality is a reality of life, and can only be eliminated in situations in which nobody does anything specially worthwhile...which is not a desirable outcome.

You have gone SO FAR OFF TRACK now that it never ceases to amaze me just how FAR Wrong, False, and/or Incorrect ASSUMPTIONS and BELIEFS will lead 'you', people, ASTRAY.

Now, when and IF you will explain which 'social' has "risen to the top" of the 'social hierarchy', then we can BEGIN to LOOK AT and DISCUSS your words.

But what is VERY CLEAR are your JUDGMENTAL views of "others", and your BELIEF that your views are "at the top", and that one of your views is that "christianity" is "at the top" of the 'social hierarchy'.

Also, what EXACTLY are you basing YOUR CLAIM on that "inequality is a reality of life"?

And, what NONSENSE is, " 'inequality' can ONLY be eliminated in situations in which nobody does anything specially worthwhile "?

If someone does something, like STOPPING 'inequality', then, to some, that is ACTUALLY something, literally and specially, worthwhile.

Your conclusion is ABSOLUTELY ABSURD, and then 'trying to' back up and support that ABSURD conclusion with, "which is not a desirable outcome", is just FURTHER ILLOGICAL and NONSENSE.

Besides all of this you are just 'trying to' DEFLECT from answering my CLARIFYING QUESTION specifically AND FULLY.