Pedantic Struggles: The All Encompassing Philosophy Thread™

[BurtReynolds]

As an egoist who is not convinced the external world even exists, let me assure you that no one looks more inward than I do.

(Spoiler: That's where God is.)

Yes, but you are only an illusion. God exists in the space between.

We've been over this. Illusion appearing to what?

And stop trying to change the subject, you two!

Think of what you refer to as the "self" as a muse or a dream to inspire what you call "God", your function is to power dreams, to throw a wrench into things, to act out possibilities. You are the dream and the dreamer, but without the space between there would be nothing.

Why do I have to think of myself as any of those things? Why don't I just think of myself as what I am: me. It's the only thing I have immediate, direct, immanent knowledge of. I am that thing. I is what is. Are there other things? I dunno. Probably. There is some sort of noumenal "not-I" outside me (I was being a little flippant when I said I don't believe in an objective world). But I only have direct knowledge of my own subjective (actually pre-subjective, pre-conceptual) self, even though I can't actually say much about what that is. And any attempt to describe and communicate what I am is doomed to failure, because I would have to resort to language/concepts and phenomena to do it. That false "self" which I can communicate is not me, but only a phenomenal image that i experience through the senses or feelings. It's a collection of concepts, not the thing in itself.

Am I some muse? Some dream of something else? Some function? I dunno. Neither do you or anyone else. That's just pure religious nonsense. Otherworlds and higher purposes and secret hidden gods aren't knowable, and anyone that claims they exist is trying to sell you something, or trying to dominate you.

I don't think we are actually disagreeing about this. my only complaint is that you keep insisting that what is is something outside of us, but if anything, it's the opposite. We are it. There isn't some outside, other thing that we are merely objects or illusions of. We are the gods that are experiencing the illusions.

And again, an illusion is experienced by something. And an illusion doesn't itself experience anything. If you disagree, then we aren't agreeing on what the word "illusion" means, and there isn't anything else to talk about. I am what is experiencing, whether what I am experiencing is illusion or not. I can't be an illusion by any definition of the word I know of. Maybe you are. Maybe you are just a figment of my imagination, or a computer simulation, or a p-zombie, or some other selfless, unexperiencing object that is appearing to me. I can never know one way or the other, because a self can only have direct knowledge of itself. I can only know you as what you appear to be, through my sensory information. As an object. But a self isn't an object. It's a subjective experiencer.

And if god is just everything then we have a meaningless and tautological statement on our hands. Just say everything is everything if that's so meaningful to you. Not sure how it could be tho!

Yeah maybe. So I'm a Spinozist basically (at least today). Spinoza was, famously, Einstein's favorite philosopher, and a lot of people consider him an atheist, both his enemies at the time and his fans today. But I don't think that's true.

There is some debate about whether he was a pantheist (God is everything), or a panENtheist, which is sort of an "everything plus". Maybe God is just my word for this "everything +". It allows for everything I can't conceive of, or the ineffable and incommunicable that I have direct knowledge of (like the SELF), but which isn't captured by any material conceptual models of reality.

I think many modern atheist types default to some form of reductionist materialism, and anoint the physical model as a new god, when it's ultimately a conceptual illusion, albeit a very useful one. They mistake the map for the territory. It's convenient and useful, but can't get at the truth because it's ultimately language/conceptual. It's not the thing in itself.

Anyway I think God is a more useful concept than we moderns give it credit for, and it annoys me when these new atheist types have the same conception of God as some backwoods, bible thumping literalist. Both of these types are utterly useless.

I'm too tired to go on...

[Dev]

As an egoist who is not convinced the external world even exists, let me assure you that no one looks more inward than I do.

(Spoiler: That's where God is.)

Yes, but you are only an illusion. God exists in the space between.

We've been over this. Illusion appearing to what?

And stop trying to change the subject, you two!

Think of what you refer to as the "self" as a muse or a dream to inspire what you call "God", your function is to power dreams, to throw a wrench into things, to act out possibilities. You are the dream and the dreamer, but without the space between there would be nothing.

Why do I have to think of myself as any of those things? Why don't I just think of myself as what I am: me. It's the only thing I have immediate, direct, immanent knowledge of. I am that thing. I is what is. Are there other things? I dunno. Probably. There is some sort of noumenal "not-I" outside me (I was being a little flippant when I said I don't believe in an objective world). But I only have direct knowledge of my own subjective (actually pre-subjective, pre-conceptual) self, even though I can't actually say much about what that is. And any attempt to describe and communicate what I am is doomed to failure, because I would have to resort to language/concepts and phenomena to do it. That false "self" which I can communicate is not me, but only a phenomenal image that i experience through the senses or feelings. It's a collection of concepts, not the thing in itself.

Am I some muse? Some dream of something else? Some function? I dunno. Neither do you or anyone else. That's just pure religious nonsense. Otherworlds and higher purposes and secret hidden gods aren't knowable, and anyone that claims they exist is trying to sell you something, or trying to dominate you.

I don't think we are actually disagreeing about this. my only complaint is that you keep insisting that what is is something outside of us, but if anything, it's the opposite. We are it. There isn't some outside, other thing that we are merely objects or illusions of. We are the gods that are experiencing the illusions.

And again, an illusion is experienced by something. And an illusion doesn't itself experience anything. If you disagree, then we aren't agreeing on what the word "illusion" means, and there isn't anything else to talk about. I am what is experiencing, whether what I am experiencing is illusion or not. I can't be an illusion by any definition of the word I know of. Maybe you are. Maybe you are just a figment of my imagination, or a computer simulation, or a p-zombie, or some other selfless, unexperiencing object that is appearing to me. I can never know one way or the other, because a self can only have direct knowledge of itself. I can only know you as what you appear to be, through my sensory information. As an object. But a self isn't an object. It's a subjective experiencer.

And if god is just everything then we have a meaningless and tautological statement on our hands. Just say everything is everything if that's so meaningful to you. Not sure how it could be tho!

Yeah maybe. So I'm a Spinozist basically (at least today). Spinoza was, famously, Einstein's favorite philosopher, and a lot of people consider him an atheist, both his enemies at the time and his fans today. But I don't think that's true.

There is some debate about whether he was a pantheist (God is everything), or a panENtheist, which is sort of an "everything plus". Maybe God is just my word for this "everything +". It allows for everything I can't conceive of, or the ineffable and incommunicable that I have direct knowledge of (like the SELF), but which isn't captured by any material conceptual models of reality.

I think many modern atheist types default to some form of reductionist materialism, and anoint the physical model as a new god, when it's ultimately a conceptual illusion, albeit a very useful one. They mistake the map for the territory. It's convenient and useful, but can't get at the truth because it's ultimately language/conceptual. It's not the thing in itself.

Anyway I think God is a more useful concept than we moderns give it credit for, and it annoys me when these new atheist types have the same conception of God as some backwoods, bible thumping literalist. Both of these types are utterly useless.

I'm too tired to go on...

so to be clear everything plus is actually material plus?

I think this is where we diverge and it's a non-starter for me. I don't see materialism as reductionist or conceptual but objective and would add that our science of the material world is obviously incomplete.

there's just no evidence of anything plus out there and I feel no need to postulate it. why would you? because it feels good or comforts you?

[BurtReynolds]

As an egoist who is not convinced the external world even exists, let me assure you that no one looks more inward than I do.

(Spoiler: That's where God is.)

Yes, but you are only an illusion. God exists in the space between.

We've been over this. Illusion appearing to what?

And stop trying to change the subject, you two!

Think of what you refer to as the "self" as a muse or a dream to inspire what you call "God", your function is to power dreams, to throw a wrench into things, to act out possibilities. You are the dream and the dreamer, but without the space between there would be nothing.

Why do I have to think of myself as any of those things? Why don't I just think of myself as what I am: me. It's the only thing I have immediate, direct, immanent knowledge of. I am that thing. I is what is. Are there other things? I dunno. Probably. There is some sort of noumenal "not-I" outside me (I was being a little flippant when I said I don't believe in an objective world). But I only have direct knowledge of my own subjective (actually pre-subjective, pre-conceptual) self, even though I can't actually say much about what that is. And any attempt to describe and communicate what I am is doomed to failure, because I would have to resort to language/concepts and phenomena to do it. That false "self" which I can communicate is not me, but only a phenomenal image that i experience through the senses or feelings. It's a collection of concepts, not the thing in itself.

Am I some muse? Some dream of something else? Some function? I dunno. Neither do you or anyone else. That's just pure religious nonsense. Otherworlds and higher purposes and secret hidden gods aren't knowable, and anyone that claims they exist is trying to sell you something, or trying to dominate you.

I don't think we are actually disagreeing about this. my only complaint is that you keep insisting that what is is something outside of us, but if anything, it's the opposite. We are it. There isn't some outside, other thing that we are merely objects or illusions of. We are the gods that are experiencing the illusions.

And again, an illusion is experienced by something. And an illusion doesn't itself experience anything. If you disagree, then we aren't agreeing on what the word "illusion" means, and there isn't anything else to talk about. I am what is experiencing, whether what I am experiencing is illusion or not. I can't be an illusion by any definition of the word I know of. Maybe you are. Maybe you are just a figment of my imagination, or a computer simulation, or a p-zombie, or some other selfless, unexperiencing object that is appearing to me. I can never know one way or the other, because a self can only have direct knowledge of itself. I can only know you as what you appear to be, through my sensory information. As an object. But a self isn't an object. It's a subjective experiencer.

And if god is just everything then we have a meaningless and tautological statement on our hands. Just say everything is everything if that's so meaningful to you. Not sure how it could be tho!

Yeah maybe. So I'm a Spinozist basically (at least today). Spinoza was, famously, Einstein's favorite philosopher, and a lot of people consider him an atheist, both his enemies at the time and his fans today. But I don't think that's true.

There is some debate about whether he was a pantheist (God is everything), or a panENtheist, which is sort of an "everything plus". Maybe God is just my word for this "everything +". It allows for everything I can't conceive of, or the ineffable and incommunicable that I have direct knowledge of (like the SELF), but which isn't captured by any material conceptual models of reality.

I think many modern atheist types default to some form of reductionist materialism, and anoint the physical model as a new god, when it's ultimately a conceptual illusion, albeit a very useful one. They mistake the map for the territory. It's convenient and useful, but can't get at the truth because it's ultimately language/conceptual. It's not the thing in itself.

Anyway I think God is a more useful concept than we moderns give it credit for, and it annoys me when these new atheist types have the same conception of God as some backwoods, bible thumping literalist. Both of these types are utterly useless.

I'm too tired to go on...

so to be clear everything plus is actually material plus?

I think this is where we diverge and it's a non-starter for me. I don't see materialism as reductionist or conceptual but objective and would add that our science of the material world is obviously incomplete.

there's just no evidence of anything plus out there and I feel no need to postulate it. why would you? because it feels good or comforts you?

- Show me where in the scientific model that accounts for the tenets of science. You can't. They have to be assumed. They come from somewhere else. Outside the model. Nothing can justify itself.

- Show me where in the physical model that accounts for subjectivity as such. Or the experience of the color red. It does not, and CANNOT, account for subjectivity, because the assumption of an objective viewpoint (ie., a "God's eye view") is necessary for the model to work at all. It must necessarily cut out this fundamental aspect of existence. Only a fool would believe that the fact that he experiences something is what is not real, and that he should only believe in some foreign model that can never been known to exist with certainty.

- There can't be any evidence of qualia except for your own subjective experience. It can't be communicated, and thus it can't be represented in any model of reality, but if you experience qualia, you know beyond possibility of doubt that it exists.

- Science and physics are of course incredibly useful, but they are not actual, 1-to-1 with the truth, but only rough conceptual representations, and can never be anything more than that.

- No, everything is not reducible to a conceptual framework of billiard balls or waves bouncing around in space. This is religious thinking. This is scientism. Your God is a false one.

[BurtReynolds]

We experience a completely unique reality that has never existed before in every new moment of duration - things arranged in such a way that has never existed before and will never exist again, experienced from a completely unique perspective in the universe, and yet there is nothing outside of what currently exists!? Balderdash! Balderdash and gibberish!

[Dev]

As an egoist who is not convinced the external world even exists, let me assure you that no one looks more inward than I do.

(Spoiler: That's where God is.)

Yes, but you are only an illusion. God exists in the space between.

We've been over this. Illusion appearing to what?

And stop trying to change the subject, you two!

Think of what you refer to as the "self" as a muse or a dream to inspire what you call "God", your function is to power dreams, to throw a wrench into things, to act out possibilities. You are the dream and the dreamer, but without the space between there would be nothing.

Why do I have to think of myself as any of those things? Why don't I just think of myself as what I am: me. It's the only thing I have immediate, direct, immanent knowledge of. I am that thing. I is what is. Are there other things? I dunno. Probably. There is some sort of noumenal "not-I" outside me (I was being a little flippant when I said I don't believe in an objective world). But I only have direct knowledge of my own subjective (actually pre-subjective, pre-conceptual) self, even though I can't actually say much about what that is. And any attempt to describe and communicate what I am is doomed to failure, because I would have to resort to language/concepts and phenomena to do it. That false "self" which I can communicate is not me, but only a phenomenal image that i experience through the senses or feelings. It's a collection of concepts, not the thing in itself.

Am I some muse? Some dream of something else? Some function? I dunno. Neither do you or anyone else. That's just pure religious nonsense. Otherworlds and higher purposes and secret hidden gods aren't knowable, and anyone that claims they exist is trying to sell you something, or trying to dominate you.

I don't think we are actually disagreeing about this. my only complaint is that you keep insisting that what is is something outside of us, but if anything, it's the opposite. We are it. There isn't some outside, other thing that we are merely objects or illusions of. We are the gods that are experiencing the illusions.

And again, an illusion is experienced by something. And an illusion doesn't itself experience anything. If you disagree, then we aren't agreeing on what the word "illusion" means, and there isn't anything else to talk about. I am what is experiencing, whether what I am experiencing is illusion or not. I can't be an illusion by any definition of the word I know of. Maybe you are. Maybe you are just a figment of my imagination, or a computer simulation, or a p-zombie, or some other selfless, unexperiencing object that is appearing to me. I can never know one way or the other, because a self can only have direct knowledge of itself. I can only know you as what you appear to be, through my sensory information. As an object. But a self isn't an object. It's a subjective experiencer.

And if god is just everything then we have a meaningless and tautological statement on our hands. Just say everything is everything if that's so meaningful to you. Not sure how it could be tho!

Yeah maybe. So I'm a Spinozist basically (at least today). Spinoza was, famously, Einstein's favorite philosopher, and a lot of people consider him an atheist, both his enemies at the time and his fans today. But I don't think that's true.

There is some debate about whether he was a pantheist (God is everything), or a panENtheist, which is sort of an "everything plus". Maybe God is just my word for this "everything +". It allows for everything I can't conceive of, or the ineffable and incommunicable that I have direct knowledge of (like the SELF), but which isn't captured by any material conceptual models of reality.

I think many modern atheist types default to some form of reductionist materialism, and anoint the physical model as a new god, when it's ultimately a conceptual illusion, albeit a very useful one. They mistake the map for the territory. It's convenient and useful, but can't get at the truth because it's ultimately language/conceptual. It's not the thing in itself.

Anyway I think God is a more useful concept than we moderns give it credit for, and it annoys me when these new atheist types have the same conception of God as some backwoods, bible thumping literalist. Both of these types are utterly useless.

I'm too tired to go on...

so to be clear everything plus is actually material plus?

I think this is where we diverge and it's a non-starter for me. I don't see materialism as reductionist or conceptual but objective and would add that our science of the material world is obviously incomplete.

there's just no evidence of anything plus out there and I feel no need to postulate it. why would you? because it feels good or comforts you?

- Show me where in the scientific model that accounts for the tenets of science. You can't. They have to be assumed. They come from somewhere else. Outside the model. Nothing can justify itself.

- Show me where in the physical model that accounts for subjectivity as such. Or the experience of the color red. It does not, and CANNOT, account for subjectivity, because the assumption of an objective viewpoint (ie., a "God's eye view") is necessary for the model to work at all. It must necessarily cut out this fundamental aspect of existence. Only a fool would believe that the fact that he experiences something is what is not real, and that he should only believe in some foreign model that can never been known to exist with certainty.

- There can't be any evidence of qualia except for your own subjective experience. It can't be communicated, and thus it can't be represented in any model of reality, but if you experience qualia, you know beyond possibility of doubt that it exists.

- Science and physics are of course incredibly useful, but they are not actual, 1-to-1 with the truth, but only rough conceptual representations, and can never be anything more than that.

- No, everything is not reducible to a conceptual framework of billiard balls or waves bouncing around in space. This is religious thinking. This is scientism. Your God is a false one.

The scientific model is an attempt to deduce the material world. Deduction may not be perfect but it should get at the truth in some degree too.

Each subjective experience has an objective material reality. I think you should seriously consider this possibility. So to be clear, for a strict materialist like me, there is definitely a physical model for all subjective experience.

Science is just a theory for me not a religion. The only thing I see definite evidence of is a physical world and that ought to be true for everyone. You are obviously the religious one, postulating ideas you have no evidence of.

[BurtReynolds]

Again, there can't be evidence. Not because it doesn't exist, but because evidence only pertains to the phenomenal sensory information, conditioned by our concepts or language, and the self is prior to that, and in fact necessary for any of that to exist in the first place. I can only appeal to you to reflect and recognize that you are a subjective experiencer, a unity of perceptions, assuming that you are a thing similar to me. And science can in no way deal with this very necessary and very real aspect of reality.

[Dev]

Again, there can't be evidence. Not because it doesn't exist, but because evidence only pertains to the phenomenal sensory information, conditioned by our concepts or language, and the self is prior to that, and in fact necessary for any of that to exist in the first place. I can only appeal to you to reflect and recognize that you are a subjective experiencer, a unity of perceptions, assuming that you are a thing similar to me. And science can in no way deal with this very necessary and very real aspect of reality.

So basically phenomenology? Subjective being can't escape limits of knowledge, perception and projection and conclude anything objective?

[BurtReynolds]

He's doing it

He's just like me fr, while the rest of you choose to remain in the dark.

[BurtReynolds]

For reference: https://x.com/beyoncegarden/status/1890827665021571394

[BurtReynolds]

[E.H. Ruddock]

They make a mean butter burger

[BurtReynolds]

Written around 1913, seems true for today as well.

[Bi_3]

Along with Derrida, one of the great villains of the field:

[Dev]

Along with Derrida, one of the great villains of the field:

Foucault was always beloved by people I thought stupid but I liked the Derrida I read.

[BurtReynolds]

Foucault (or just the French in general) is a pretty good illustration of why not everyone should be allowed to read Nietzche.
See also: Bataille, Sartre.

[BurtReynolds]

[BlakeWB]

Just ordered all three of the Buddhism for Philosophers series—ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. I’m expanding my study of comparative philosophy and really exploring Indian sources. The Brahmanical vein is so expansive and daunting. Looking to Buddhism for some helpful contrast.

[BurtReynolds]

Welcome to the bored, new account!

[Dev]

Zizek rules

[BlakeWB]

Does anyone have any favorite pre-Socratics? Diogenes Laertius’ volume on them is a go-to source even if some of the veracity of its historicity is in doubt. The quasi-religious bent of that crop of folks never fails to be interesting to me—particularly Pythagoras’s strange cult of personality.

But Heraclitus and Parmenides seem to be the biggest influences on subsequent ontology.

Also—Zizek is a marvel. I find him hard to pin down, but that’s a big part of his appeal.