Philosophy Now Forum

as the son of a newspaper man, I grew up with the 6
questions that must answered in every article or
newscast ever made.... this is the bottom line in
all media reporting...

who, what, when, where, how and why...

all questions of existence requires an answer to one of these
6 questions..

who: who are we? who am I? who is right?

what: what does it mean to be human? what is the goal/point of
existence....

when: when should we be honest? when am I going to die?

where: where is justice in this world? where can I make a difference?

How: how is evil possible? How am I to live?

and of course, my favorite one, why: why should I engage with
being good and not evil? why was Job tortured in the bible?

and of course, there are as many questions in these 6, more than
there are stars in the universe....

I seek to find my answers within these 6 questions...as we all do,
but to some, some, they already have answers.. given to them
by their society and delivered by the indoctrinations/education
of that society... one of those answers, delivered by the society/state,
is... yes, Virginia, there is a god.. and within getting a set/already
given answer, has one to feel/believe that they ''know" or have the truth....
why search for answers if one thinks they already have the truth?
it is a rare soul that continues to seek after ''receiving" the truth..

one of the 6 questions might be this, How is having the absolute truth,
possible? as I have stated before, I don't believe in the "absolute",
that there is no such thing as "absolute".... and in seeking the
"absolute", one is actually seeking a metaphysical answer....
for the word, ''absolute" in most, but not all cases, is another
word for god/divine... but in reality, I can't find a "true" or real
answer for what is ''absolute", what in the universe is "absolute?"
and in my dictionary:

Absolute: free from imperfection: complete, perfect..

and in my handy-dandy thesaurus, is this: a Synonym for
absolute.. complete, full, infinite, pure, outright, unadulterated....
and in the Antonyms: bounded, conditional, limited, incomplete,
qualified, uncertain.....

so, what word actually best describes the universe? the Antonym
of absolute or the Synonym of absolute? of course, it is the Antonym...

human beings spend their whole lives seeking the absolute,
the absolute being complete, pure, infinite, full... we try to escape from
the Antonym of absolute...bounded, conditional, limited,
uncertain.....

this universe, our existence is not governed by the absolute,
but we are governed by our limited and bounded existence,
with our limited and bounded senses and intellect and
emotions...... the question is raised, how can we human beings,
by being so bounded and limited by our senses and intellect,
even be aware of the absolute?

if existence has a point, meaning, it must be found within our
limited and bounded resources, intellect, senses and abilities....

given our limitations, we can't even pretend to be able to
know the absolute or the unlimited.....so given this statement,
that we exist within a bounded, limited universe, as limited, bounded
entities...what does this mean to us? Can we even begin to seek out
the absolute/unlimited universe? Or "must we stay in our lane"
and work out what existence means to us, as bounded, limited
beings...

we cannot find metaphysical answers given our own physical,
mental, and emotional limitations... for what is the very point
of the metaphysical, beyond the physical...and how do we
reach the unlimited with limited resources and senses?
we can't.....however one such method offered up to reach
the unlimited, the absolute, is by intuition...

Intuition: the ability to understand something immediately, without
the need for conscious reasoning...but I can't see how, as we are
limited, bounded in all other matters, how does intuition
get us someplace we can't reach in any other manner?
what makes intuition so special that it can get to
metaphysical properties, that we can't get to any other way?
we are limited and bound in all other ways/manners except
this one particular manner, intuition? that strikes me
as a rather odd exception to our limitations/human
constraints that exist for everything else but intuition?

what other questions of existence that must give us pause?

that we human beings must be saved, or we must take
as the goal/purpose of existence, to be engaged
with the metaphysical answers of god, heaven, angels,
demons, or the ever popular answer of spending eternity
contemplating god.... that is a nightmare I wish to avoid
at all cost... spending eternity in hell is preferable to
spending eternity contemplating god...yikes....

but there are those who claim that our existence is
best spent in search of these metaphysical answers like
god or heaven....

but as a limited, bounded human being, that only has
access to my own limited reasoning and knowledge
and understanding, what can I think about in terms
of the point/reason for existence, that is allowed
by my own limitations?

Kropotkin

but in my inquires in the above thread, I have spoken
about the individual, me, and my own thoughts,
as limited as they are and my senses, limited as they are,
and my reasoning, more limitations....and my intellect,
yah, you get the point....

so what is one possibility for us as human beings to overcome
our limitations? we are limited as is another human being is
limited, but we have slightly different limitations.... another
human being might have excellent hearing, a sense that is
well developed.. but I was born with a hearing lose and today,
I am deaf.... I am very limited in my senses, especially in
hearing....but perhaps I have other senses that the other
person might not have or is reduced...for example, I may
have better eyesight than the other person....so, what is
an excellent solution to our problem? I cannot hear but
the other person can, they cannot see, but I can, so
I see for the other person and they hear for me....
we help each other in limitations of our own senses....
and this idea works for all areas in our lives...
I am limited in my ability to do math, but others,
they have that ability... and so, they do the math
for me, and I do my strong suit, reasoning or logic
or philosophy for them....and suddenly we
discover the point, the reason behind the state/
society/civilizations.... as we are individually limited,
we are less so collectively...for some are able to do math
and some are able to protect and serve, and some are
able to fix cars...and in return to these abilities that
I do not have, I think about history or philosophy....
or we have different skill set and we use it to advance
the cause of others.. and they use their skill set to help
me advance my own cause... so, for example, we have
schools.. and teachers in those schools...and because
of their skill set, they can teach stuff that I cannot..
math, or science or ART... things I am not very good at...
but I aid them within my own skill set.. I am very good
at being a front end manager at a grocery store....
a skill set some have and some don't and some just
don't care either way....I benefit others through my own
particular skill set...and they benefit me through their own skill set...
this is the state/society/culture/civilization in a nutshell...

we are limited, bounded beings, and through our own use
of our own particular skill set, we benefit the society/state/culture...
and other, by their own skill set, benefit the society/state....

and therein lies the belief of the liberal in the benefits of
collective actions... I may not be able to do math, but you can..
we can benefit each other...use our own skill set to help, aid
and move the society/state forward...

the conservative however holds to a different idea..
that within the collective lies untruth...
or as Kierkegaard said,

"The crowd is untruth"

but we can only survive as individuals, within the collective, the crowd....
but as limited, bounded humans, we need others to use their strengths,
their abilities to overcome my own limitations, my own bounded self...

the conservative does not hold to the strength of the collective,
the strength of the crowd.. the conservative praises the individual,
the one...but for the conservative, how do they work out or
explain how within our own partial, limited self, can we
reach beyond that to achieve something....
I am limited and you are limited, so how do we achieve or
reach our goals? therein lies the value of the conservative
belief in god, their belief in the metaphysical....
as god is everywhere and allows everything, I don't need
to be able to do everything.... god will carry me over
through my limitations, my bounded nature... I cannot,
cannot be free of sin, by myself, but god can forgive me
and free me from sin.....the conservative values the absolute,
god in our existence...that is how we overcome our partial,
limited nature.... we depend on god to overcome our
limited intellect, our limited senses, our limited resources....

so liberals overcome their limitations with the help of
the state/society and conservative overcome their limitations
through the help of god....

one of the things that conservatives believe in, is the capitalistic idea,
that private vices aid us in the public good.....the very point of capitalism
is that by engaging in our own private vices, of greed and lust and anger,
we benefit our society/state.... exactly how these private vices aid/help
the state/the society is never actually explained.... it is taken for
granted that private vices help us with the public good....

this is another way that the conservative holds to the individual as
the path to being saved....we are stronger individually then
we are collectively... for within ''the crowd lies untruth"...
but experience, shows us differently...

at every step within the human experience is the collective
work of all of us... schools is not done within an individual
aspect, school is a collective all the students together, learning
together... business is not done individually, but is done collectively...
In my store, we work together to achieve the mission statement of
the company... we do not work alone.... and within the church,
we don't pray at home, alone, no, we go to a public place and
worship as a group, together...all of us, together, not
individually, the organization of the state is done collectively,
we don't collect taxes or police the state or pick up garbage
individually, we do so collectively.. as a group...

it is through the state/through the society that we can
achieve what is possible for us...we can only see or find out
what is possible for us, within a collective, social actions/behavior....
is baseball or football or hockey done individually? and look at the
sports that are done individually, golf, chess, track/field....
these particular sports are not as popular as our collective
sports like basketball or football.... we seek out what is collective,
not what is done individually....we could just drink ourselves silly
in our homes, but we don't, we go and join others in the social
activity of being in a bar..... bars and restaurants, are not individual,
alone activities.... they are social events, meant to be done as a group...
we go to baseball games within a large number of people.. we go
to concerts collectively, we see plays collectively, and we go to museums
together.... the human actions we engage in, are not done individually,
but collectively.... sex is best done with more than ourselves...

in every aspect of our lives, is a collective, togetherness that
dominates our entire life... and who exactly wants to die alone?
even in death, we still want to be a part of someone, or within
a group... in terms of punishment, our worst punishment is to
those who we isolate, given solitary confinement...... to be alone,
to be truly alone goes against everything a human being does or is....

all aspects of or live is done with others, engaging in
togetherness, being with others.....the human being is a collective
being, not an individual being....the conservative is simply wrong....

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Sun Apr 23, 2023 6:21 pm as the son of a newspaper man, I grew up with the 6
questions that must answered in every article or
newscast ever made.... this is the bottom line in
all media reporting...

who, what, when, where, how and why...

all questions of existence requires an answer to one of these
6 questions..

who: who are we? who am I? who is right?

what: what does it mean to be human? what is the goal/point of
existence....

when: when should we be honest? when am I going to die?

where: where is justice in this world? where can I make a difference?

How: how is evil possible? How am I to live?

and of course, my favorite one, why: why should I engage with
being good and not evil? why was Job tortured in the bible?

and of course, there are as many questions in these 6, more than
there are stars in the universe....

I seek to find my answers within these 6 questions...as we all do,
but to some, some, they already have answers.. given to them
by their society and delivered by the indoctrinations/education
of that society... one of those answers, delivered by the society/state,
is... yes, Virginia, there is a god.. and within getting a set/already
given answer, has one to feel/believe that they ''know" or have the truth....
why search for answers if one thinks they already have the truth?
it is a rare soul that continues to seek after ''receiving" the truth..

one of the 6 questions might be this, How is having the absolute truth,
possible? as I have stated before, I don't believe in the "absolute",
that there is no such thing as "absolute".... and in seeking the
"absolute", one is actually seeking a metaphysical answer....
for the word, ''absolute" in most, but not all cases, is another
word for god/divine... but in reality, I can't find a "true" or real
answer for what is ''absolute", what in the universe is "absolute?"
and in my dictionary:

Absolute: free from imperfection: complete, perfect..

and in my handy-dandy thesaurus, is this: a Synonym for
absolute.. complete, full, infinite, pure, outright, unadulterated....
and in the Antonyms: bounded, conditional, limited, incomplete,
qualified, uncertain.....

so, what word actually best describes the universe? the Antonym
of absolute or the Synonym of absolute? of course, it is the Antonym...

human beings spend their whole lives seeking the absolute,
the absolute being complete, pure, infinite, full... we try to escape from
the Antonym of absolute...bounded, conditional, limited,
uncertain.....

this universe, our existence is not governed by the absolute,
but we are governed by our limited and bounded existence,
with our limited and bounded senses and intellect and
emotions...... the question is raised, how can we human beings,
by being so bounded and limited by our senses and intellect,
even be aware of the absolute?

if existence has a point, meaning, it must be found within our
limited and bounded resources, intellect, senses and abilities....

given our limitations, we can't even pretend to be able to
know the absolute or the unlimited.....so given this statement,
that we exist within a bounded, limited universe, as limited, bounded
entities...what does this mean to us? Can we even begin to seek out
the absolute/unlimited universe? Or "must we stay in our lane"
and work out what existence means to us, as bounded, limited
beings...

we cannot find metaphysical answers given our own physical,
mental, and emotional limitations... for what is the very point
of the metaphysical, beyond the physical...and how do we
reach the unlimited with limited resources and senses?
we can't.....however one such method offered up to reach
the unlimited, the absolute, is by intuition...

Intuition: the ability to understand something immediately, without
the need for conscious reasoning...but I can't see how, as we are
limited, bounded in all other matters, how does intuition
get us someplace we can't reach in any other manner?
what makes intuition so special that it can get to
metaphysical properties, that we can't get to any other way?
we are limited and bound in all other ways/manners except
this one particular manner, intuition? that strikes me
as a rather odd exception to our limitations/human
constraints that exist for everything else but intuition?

what other questions of existence that must give us pause?

that we human beings must be saved, or we must take
as the goal/purpose of existence, to be engaged
with the metaphysical answers of god, heaven, angels,
demons, or the ever popular answer of spending eternity
contemplating god.... that is a nightmare I wish to avoid
at all cost... spending eternity in hell is preferable to
spending eternity contemplating god...yikes....

but there are those who claim that our existence is
best spent in search of these metaphysical answers like
god or heaven....

but as a limited, bounded human being, that only has
access to my own limited reasoning and knowledge
and understanding, what can I think about in terms
of the point/reason for existence, that is allowed
by my own limitations?

Kropotkin

I tell you my light answers to your questions.

- Who we are?

I think asking "who are we?" it is an error that results from being sure that our "I" is a verifiable entity with objectives that correspond to our particular nature.

From my point of view, the useful question is "What are we?"


- What does it mean to be a human being?

In my opinion, being a human being means nothing from the point of view of the universe. The meanings reflect the scale of importance that each thing has with respect to ourselves. As we suppose that everything will affect us.

- When should one be honest?

Whenever it's convenient for us.

- Where is there justice in this world?

There is no justice in the world. I think that we consider that human decisions are unfair when they cause us displeasure because we interpret that those decisions were abusive and can affect us on this or another occasion or because empathy makes us feel bad about it.

One may not distinguish injustices but that has nothing to do with the possibility that there are abusive circumstances that go unnoticed by us.

- Why is there evil?

The evil is just a label with which we describe the circumstances in which we interpret that someone causes suffering unnecessarily.

- God exists?

For an idea to form in my mind (for example, the existence of God) reality must provide me with information that points to such existence. Of all the information that I should consider to determine the existence of an entity, I should only consider relevant the one whose source can be traced back to an event in which a human being directly interacted with what is proposed to exist.

Thus, I can assume the existence of dinosaurs because I interacted with an article produced by a paleontologist who interacted with the information produced by another paleontologist who in turn interacted with the fossil that resulted from the interaction between the calcium in a bone of that animal and the minerals that replaced it. There is a continuous chain between my idea of a dinosaur and the original animal that represents my idea.

That is why I am an atheist. In my mind the idea "god exists" does not exist. Reality did not justify the formation of that idea in my brain.

- Why should one be good?

You don't choose to be good. You are only as good as your emotions allow you to be. The final judgment that validates each of your reasons results from what emotions each of those reasons provokes in you. You would think that your reason, in turn, would validate those emotions, but when evaluating those second reasons, you also react emotionally.

So simple it is, oui?

No, it's not! I'm reliving an experience that I had ... involved profuse sweating, an arrhythmia, and a long stay in the krankenhaus.

But, mon ami, this goes in there and that over here and voila!

It feels wrong! Why is a dog chirping?

Oh that! You need to go back to that house ... red bricks, oak trees, lawns, white fence, Mr. Blumenthal.

Aaah! The first thing in the morning!