Yesterday I enjoyed the first home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner I’ve had in many years. To be successfully single (which I like to think I am these days, having settled into a comfortable retirement) one must learn to let “the holidays” wash over the mind like the proverbial water off the proverbial duck’s back.
It helps to be a severe introvert. For us, holiday gatherings can be fraught, even vaguely threatening. Which makes a successful social outing like this metaphorical gravy. With actual gravy, in this case.
And the best part: Friday leftovers!
Part of the Thanksgiving tradition involves giving thanks for how we ignobly stole this land from the people who got here first… Oops. Sorry to kill the gravy buzz, but it does have to be said upfront that this holiday does have some unfortunate connotations. Fortunately, if that’s the right word, our observance of this holiday is as disconnected from its origins as Christmas is for many of those who vigorously celebrate it.
So, really, it’s mostly about the turkey. And fixin’s. My kinda holiday because I’ve always been a “meat and potatoes” man. And bread. To me bread is the literal bread of life. Despite its putative dangers, I’d rather be dead than not have bread. You’ll pry my bread out of my cold dead hands. Etc.
Getting back to giving thanks, science-y geeks like the opportunity to point out a cool science-y thing we should all be thankful for. Like atoms or gravity. I jumped on the wagon (we don’t have an official band, yet) a couple of years ago highlighting Unicode as something we should all give a moment of thanks for.
If it weren’t for the fact that it’s been done and done and done, I’d write about being thankful for water. (A search for [giving thanks for water] turns up over two billion hits, many of them religious, but many scientific.) I’d write about how truly interesting this common, and seemingly simple, substance is, but that would be common and too simple.
Despite its ubiquitous and necessary presence in our lives, we’re still learning new things about it. And “wetness” is a whole topic of its own. Just this year, scientists discovered yet another new form of ice (adding to the more than 20 types already known). It was articles about the new ice — which they made by hitting ordinary ice with chilled steel balls — that got me thinking water would be a good science-y giving thanks topic.
Except for the over two billion hits. I don’t like crowds. (And if, as is famously said, “three’s a crowd”, then two billion plus is downright transcendental.)
A water thingy.
But I can’t help pointing out some of the major highlights of water. Such as that we even exist in the first place because it does. And go on existing because it does. We consider it one of the major factors necessary for life.
And we’re made of the stuff, on average 60% of the human body is water. (Some organs have more, the lungs are over 80% water, but bones are about 30%.) Our home’s surface is about 70% water — we get the other 30% (a ratio that may change in our disfavor in the near future). There is even water in the air. Depending on the humidity, sometimes an uncomfortable amount.
It’s a universal solvent — a rare life enabling one — and a major factor in weather and weathering. As common as it is, here and in space, it’s rare in that its common solid (frozen) form floats on its liquid form. If that were not so, fish in lakes would die every winter as the water froze from the bottom up, with nothing to stop the entire lake from freezing. Instead, ice floats, and the insulation of the layer of ice on top prevents the entire lake from freezing. Just one more way the properties of water enable the life we know.
So, it’s cool, and we should give a moment of thanks for 3.26ײ⁰ gallons here on Earth (and the even more unimaginable amount in space).
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We went from “major motion picture” to “major motion picture event“, which makes me feel sad for all those leftover minor motion pictures that don’t manage to be events. I try to have your backs. I like leftovers.
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P-K4, P-Q4,
P-Q4, P-K3,
QB-B4, N-KR3
In the greater scheme, this little chessboard image is about as trivial as it gets. Almost any computer chess game today is vastly more powerful (and likely better looking) than what this image represents.
But for me, it represents the completion of something leftover since I first got into programming, back 1977. Not that I’ve been working on it all this time, but previous attempts all stalled and got put back in the fridge.
The snack I’ve wanted is something that uses old-style chess moves (such as, “P-K4”) to manage a virtual chessboard. Most chess software uses row-column moves (such as “e2-e4”), which is unambiguous and easy to parse. The old-style notation appears ambiguous but uses context to disambiguate moves. A move such as “P-K4” (pawn to king four) requires that the board only allow for a single pawn that can move to king four. If more than one piece can make the move, it must specify which piece — for instance, “KP-K4” (king pawn to king four).
This means the move parser must model the chessboard and be able to search it for pieces that qualify for an ambiguous move. Which means finding possible pieces and testing whether they can legally make the move specified. It’s an interesting problem to solve. First parse the input text, then see if the move has one, and only one, legal candidate for the move. (Then make the move and wait for the other player to input a move.)
Actually, the last round of attacking this solved it, but as so often happens, with the challenges solved, I lost interest and move on to something new. Always intending to return to dot the eyes and cross the tees. Yet equally always finding new projects to distract me.
I’ve been on a serious project bender lately, in part dedicated to finally going back and finishing these leftovers before they spoil. With good results. With, in fact, results so good they surprise me a bit. Funny how, at least sometimes, old challenges don’t age well, but one’s experience and ability to meet them does.
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A leftover note from a leftover conversation about morality:
As some say about consciousness, does it matter if moral behavior is “real” (that is, heartfelt) rather than due to external factors, such as law or social pressure? Does “duck theory” — walks like, talks like, etc. — work for consciousness and morality? Many argue that what appears conscious is conscious. Can we also argue that what appears moral is moral (despite possibly immoral motivation)?
Consequentialists would almost certainly argue yes. In terms of social value, moral behavior has a good result regardless of motivation. And deontologists would support going along with the rules.
Which goes some way to explain why I’m less sympathetic towards consequentialism and deontology than virtue ethics, which are about personal values.
Plus, my spiritual beliefs suggest that motivation (and personal values) matters a great deal.
As for consciousness, I think what’s going on internally does matter. But I suspect that any system able to demonstrate consciousness convincingly over time (a “Rich Turing Test”) would have to, in fact, be conscious internally. I’m not convinced that a genuine consciousness can be simulated.
That said, it’s generally a bad idea to second guess what science or technology cannot do someday.
§
Here’s a leftover topic I can’t work into the leftover theme (and yet just did):
I’ve recently read more than one (so, at least two) article(s) about the value of awe and that we should try to open ourselves to experiencing it more often. One of them was what got me thinking about the wonders of water.
A friend recently suggested that awe is rare, and I agree that the kind of deep, moving, profound awe we sometimes experience during momentous events is indeed all too rare. But there is a kind of ordinary everyday awe we can experience much more frequently.
Even simple things such as water can lead to a small sense of awe. I think it has a lot to do with being in touch with your childhood sense of wonder, when everything was mysterious, something to learn about. And making yourself jump out of your ruts from time to time. Change something up.
Not one of us can ever learn it all, so there is always more to learn than any lifetime can fulfill. That alone should give one a sense of awe. So many mysteries to explore, from new books to new physics. (I used to enjoy learning new programming languages — used to try to do one per year. I seem to have fallen into a rut lately sticking with Python. Might be time to rectify that.)
That we exist — against what prima facie seem incredible odds — is pretty awesome (in the literal sense), so waking up every morning ought really to give one at least a tiny frisson of awe. That others — especially dogs — exist is pretty awesome, too.
Alas, it’s too easy to get used to — immune to — these everyday miracles.
Because what else could you call this awesome failure of universal entropy, this incredible beating of the odds, that results in my writing this and you reading this… but a miracle?
§ §
Stay awed and thankful, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.
∇
Logos con carne 
November 24th, 2023 at 2:37 pm
Pro-tip I learned from hosts yesterday: Rather than cooking a whole turkey, buy individual legs, thighs, and breasts to suit the tastes of those you’re feeding. Plus, much shorter cooking time.
Neat idea, I thought, and hereby pass on to readers.
December 17th, 2023 at 4:48 pm
Finally getting around to reading this post.
There’s one downside to doing individual turkey parts—the stuffing. It’s gotta go in the bird or else it’s just not quite stuffing. I know some people are squeamish about that, but I say, “Live dangerously!” (within reason).
I’m with you on the virtue ethics, and I think it’s the best explanation, even if it tends to be vague. As for the others, I tend to see each ‘ism’ as having a place in certain circumstances. Even the ‘duck theory’—the opposite of Kantian ethics—could be useful when, for example, you’re trying to write laws or get children on the playground to stop beating each other up. It probably doesn’t concern you what motivates people to behave in a certain way so long as they do it. Or it isn’t possible to ascertain what motivates people, so there’s no point in thinking about it.
Glad to hear you got to enjoy a home cooked meal! Have you considered getting together with friends for a Thanksgiving potluck?
December 19th, 2023 at 10:11 am
No worries, I’ve been seriously MIA since some time in November, so I can hardly complain! Combination of things: (doing stuff on the) computer burnout; seasonal meh (I really hate the short days); blog ennui; and maybe something with my health (mostly a need to get off the couch and out walking again). In any event, I seem to have withdrawn into a sort of shell lately. Trying to chip my way out starting today (delayed from yesterday, delayed from last week; sigh). But at least I’ve been off the PC enough for the burnout to subside. Hoping to get a couple of posts out this week. Haven’t posted at all this month and only three in November.
You’re right that stuffing that was cooked in the turkey is distinctly different. The “stuffing” (I suppose we call it “dressing”?) my host made was pretty good. Baked, so there was a crusty top, which I do like, but missing the turkey juices actual stuffing picks up. Way better than Stove Top, which I used to eat fairly often (because I really love “stuffing” — basically kind of a spicy bread with additives, and I’m such a bread guy).
Virtue ethics does seem to cover the most territory but requires instilling those virtues in the first place (which isn’t always easy — and shows once more the importance of a good education in critical thinking). Rules are important until one has those values (as with children, for instance), and ultimately morality is about consequences (to others and to the self). As you say, they all have their place, and I don’t think any one particular approach is sufficient. I agree all play a part!
There’s a quote that’s been going through my mind lately: “You are to yourself your thoughts. You are to others your actions.” The subjective/objective dualism. To the point here, it shows the difficulty in distinguishing someone else’s actions as from the heart or just following the rules. And, yeah, from a social point of view, does it even matter?
Worse, if we accept human selfishness as generally unfixable, can virtue ethics ever be our main approach? Seems we’re still childish enough to need rules. Will we always be, or will we eventually grow up and not need them so much anymore? Recent history would suggest to me the answer is no, but perhaps what I see as a slide back to medieval thinking is just part of the “two steps forward, one step back” climbing sand dunes sort of thing and we’ll step even further forward eventually.
Not sure what a Thanksgiving potluck would look like, but interesting idea! Most of my friends have kids — and often those kids have their own kids — and have their own T-day traditions. May 24th would be the “antipodal” date… maybe a Spring Potluck would be the ticket!
December 19th, 2023 at 12:04 pm
I definitely go through those times of needing to step away from the computer. It can be very refreshing.
I hear you on the crunchy top. That’s why I make sure the stuffing sort of spills out of the bird so it gets that nice crunch, and then once the dinner is over I’ll move the stuffing into a casserole and rebake the next day to get even more crunchies.
The older I get the more I think Aristotle was right: virtue is a habit. It sounds so strange to put it that way, but when you think about virtue in the Greek way, it makes more sense. Each must find the proper balance, whatever that means, to be the best we can be. Virtue is both inner and outer, and it’s hard to see the inner being significantly different from the outer, which makes forming good habits so crucial. But yeah, from a social perspective the outer is what counts.
I suspect we will always need rules because people don’t really change much.
The potluck idea is definitely worth a try. That way no one gets stuck making the whole meal. For my writing group we always do a potluck, though after one time when we all turned up with some sort of potato dish we started doing a more coordinated potluck. Which I guess takes the luck out of it.😆
December 19th, 2023 at 5:03 pm
Oh, I like the idea of rebaking the stuffing. Nice idea! So much better with crunch. (I’ve realized that, as far as irresistible snacks go, it’s crunch that attracts me far more than sugar.)
“Virtue as a habit” — what a great way to think of it, I like it! I can tie that to how I always signal when making a turn, even if there’s no one to signal to. Enforce the habit, so it’s natural behavior and ever present.
The Navajo (per the Tony Hillerman books) have a central philosophy of being in balance and harmony with nature and others. They view criminal or anti-social behavior as a kind of madness, the cure for which is bringing that person back into harmony. A way of life with virtue ethics built deeply into it. (There seems to me much to admire about the Navajo Way.)
Ha, yeah, coordination sounds like a good idea for an actual potluck. It seems to work okay with parties when people bring snacks (I ended up with a lot of bags of potato chips last time, though). But if we’re thinking “meal” then you’d definitely want all your bases covered.
December 19th, 2023 at 5:12 pm
The Navajo sound very similar to the Greeks in that regard, then. The word in Greek from which we derive the word “idiot” is “idiotes”, meaning a private individual, with an emphasis on personal rather than shared or public. It also means ignorant or illiterate. The idea being that we are in our very nature social animals, and anyone who isn’t is not living according to their true nature and is therefore an “idiot” = ignorant.
Good luck on the pot…not-so-luck!
December 19th, 2023 at 5:32 pm
That does sound similar! Maybe one of those ancient Greeks joined the migration to the New World. 😄
There ya go, we’ll call it a Planned-Pot Dinner!
(I’m reminded of parties at work with sign-up sheets for what you were bringing.)
November 24th, 2023 at 6:21 pm
Wyrd, you ask: “Can we also argue that what appears moral is moral (despite possibly immoral motivation)?” I certainly agree with your appreciation of virtue ethics and join you with an emphatic “no” to the question. You rightly claim that “motivation (and personal values) matters a great deal.”
Yes, indeed. I agree. But, according to the grandfather of virtue ethics, Aristotle himself, right motivation is not the only missing variable to right action. Virtue ethics is more complicated. The philosopher analogizes it to hitting the bullseye on a target—there are many variables to consider and to get right—any one of which can pull you off target. As Aristotle himself says: “Hence also it is no easy task to be good…but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for everyone, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble.” (Book II, Nicomachean Ethics, translated by W. D. Ross)
November 25th, 2023 at 9:21 am
I quite agree on every point! Except for the difficulty in creating just rules in the first place, deontology seems the easiest system. Consequentialism can get tricky in trying to decide what form of “greater good” applies, but virtue ethics, in being the most subjective, does seem the most complicated. As you say, a lot of variables.
I have a sense that things that are harder are often better. That more effort is required seems to elevate, or at least speak to, the quality. Harder to get right, for sure, but worth the effort.
November 26th, 2023 at 4:05 pm
It is safe to say, I submit, that both consequentialism and deontology are dead—or at least moribund—as ethical theories. Those experiments in ethics from our Enlightenment—consequentialism, deontology, and the less fashionable sentimentalist ethics of Hume—all hit a dead end by the 20th century. Social contract theory got a brief reprieve with Rawls but it ultimately stumbled. Besides, it was always just a pragmatic ethical and social theory work-around anyway. After rejecting the ancients much of moral philosophy in the Enlightenment was an attempt to create a basic foundational ground for a new ethics. I think the boom in the new “science” was the inspiration. Nice try Enlightenment thinkers, but sorry, you failed. I’m not sure I’d agree with you that good ‘ol virtue ethics is subjective. But then I’m unsure how you mean by that.
November 27th, 2023 at 4:21 pm
It wouldn’t surprise me at all that thinkers during the Scientific Revolution wanted to formulate a Godless morality based on logic or science. Scientism got its start then — all the Yin, but no Yang.
I don’t know that any of the three big moral philosophies work in isolation. Kant is, I would guess, a primary modern figure when it comes to deontology. I didn’t take to Kant at first (once I understood him, which took a while), and I consider deontology the weakest moral approach, but I have found that, in isolation, his razor usually cuts justly. But as soon as one backs up to a bigger systemic picture, it fails, and sometimes badly. And I think that’s true of all them to one extent or another. I believe I once mentioned I don’t have much truck with political XXX-ocracies. I’m the same with most social XXX-ologies. I think it’s rarely true that a single view represents the big picture.
But zooming in and isolating a specific aspect is easier than trying to understand the whole. It’s just possible human minds cannot comprehend the whole, which leaves us in the pickle of never figuring it out, always trying. (Perhaps that’s okay.)
I’d agree deontology, certainly, and consequentialism, as things in themselves, probably are past their sell-by dates. But I wouldn’t want to live in a world with no rules or no social consideration of consequences (some might argue we’ve needed a lot more of the latter for a long time). So, some hybrid, some combination of all worthy comers seems the best to me.
Perhaps “internal” is a better word than “subjective” for virtue ethics. I’m referring to the dependence on personal virtues in contrast to the external dependence on rules or outcomes of deontology and consequentialism.
November 28th, 2023 at 7:40 am
You have a fascinating approach to ethics. There’s so much that could be explored further in your response. (But I should not wear out my welcome.) Yes, I see your point now. “Internal” is a good description of a virtue driven ethics. To help with that I’ll add that “virtue” in English comes from the Latin. But, in virtue ethics the word comes from the Latin translation of the Greek word “arête” meaning “excellence.” Thus, moral goodness comes from the development of habits of excellence in various capacities—courage, moderation, truthfulness, prudence, etc. And, as you say, all that is internal to a person rather than a conformity to external rules or utilitarian outcomes. Thanks, I get it.
November 28th, 2023 at 3:03 pm
Ha! Yeah, I definitely mix, match, and blend the ideas I encounter. I’ve long thought, contrary to ancient wisdom, that there are new things under the Sun. I look at the sheer size of humanity these days (we recently passed eight billion), and the global world of many cultures, and see that as a new aspect of life. It’s never been a part of the equation before. So much of our approach to life traces back to small tribes or villages.
We’re still the same humans we were 10,000 years ago, and our thinking hasn’t caught up to the astonishing technological progress we’ve made. Our philosophy, religion, sociology, and politics haven’t caught up to our science, technology, sales, and manufacturing. And that’s made for something of a soulless society — highly materialistic, at the very least.
But I digress. Suffice to say I think philosophy and religion need modernizing (not, as some might suggest, discarding). And the truth is, my approach probably represents my ignorance and lack of understanding as much as anything else. I often find philosophy rather opaque and likely misunderstand much of it.
You’re not anywhere close to wearing out your welcome here. I thrive on discussions like this! And usually learn a lot.
BTW: I finally remembered to look up your handle. Ended up on a Swedish Wiki page (Google Translate has gotten really good, I must say). Great handle! 😃
November 29th, 2023 at 9:16 am
Many serious thinkers like yourself lament that our philosophy needs to “catch up with our science”—it needs “modernization” as you say. I hear that a lot. I have two things to say in response to that. First, philosophy does indeed rethink and craft new ways of articulating a response to our human condition at different points in history. You made a brief reference to the modern attempts to articulate two new responses to the problems of ethics for example; the deontological and consequentialist response. I added two other Enlightenment spawned attempts; Hume’s sentimentalist ethics and the recent history of social contract theories. There are more. So, there is indeed active and ongoing dialogue and debate about how we ought to understand our world and how we ought to live with each other. Multiple theories have arisen and died in the short half-millennial history of the Enlightenment alone. We are now struggling with the difficult philosophical issues raised under the very broad banner of postmodernism.
Second, let me suggest that maybe your complaint is wrongly formulated. When sometimes we feel like we’ve reached an intellectual impasse, it makes sense to question whether we’re asking the right question. Is it the proper frame of reference to argue that philosophy (especially ethics) needs to ”catch up with science”? Or, to suggest that philosophy “needs modernizing.” Oh! That word! Does that bias where we look for answers? Does it suggest we are looking for answers that resemble scientific answers? That reminds of the joke about the drunk fellow looking for his lost car keys not in the area where he dropped them but under a street light because he can see better there. I fear going much further down that road at this point. I’ll just plant that seed for now.
November 29th, 2023 at 6:20 pm
An interesting seed. First, though, I must walk back the modernizing philosophy thing. Once you jogged my aging brain, I realized there are any number of contemporary philosophers I’ve crossed paths with, never mind centuries old ones. It has been a few years since I walked down any of those paths, but I should have known that, yeah, philosophy marches on. (I think it got swept up in a long-time rant that religion, rather than being discarded because science, should be updated as we did medicine.) I still think it’s true that the scope of things has changed, and that that ancient philosophies would need to take that into account. Our brains may not have changed in 10,000 years, but I think our minds may have, at least a bit.
What I think about that seed is somewhat aligned with what I think about concerns about sociopolitical systems or the future of humanity. If we can name those concerns, does that give us any power to avoid or mitigate them? Put another way, can the drunk be smart enough to realize he’s looking in the wrong place and realize where the right place is? (I’ve been drunk, and I’ve looked for my keys, but I can’t say I’ve combined those.)
A similar thing comes up in arguments about aliens coming to conquer us (a staple of SF; I’m reading a PKD novel about it now). We conceived of a “Prime Directive” back in the bad old days (i.e. the 1960s) in the original Star Trek. By the 1980s we, or rather Picard, actually took it seriously. (By some modern standards, even the 1980s is the bad old days.)
There’s a line from an MLK, Jr. speech, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” (Theodore Parker said it more verbosely in an 1853 sermon.) I think there’s truth to that. The world has — slowly, fitfully, and in zig-zag fashion — become generally more moral. I think there is a link between intelligence and morality. It’s why I sympathize with virtue ethics. I believe Kant said something along the lines of morality being ultimately innate.
I just read an article today about a trait we thought only occurred in humanity: innate friendliness towards outsiders. Most animals ignore or attack outsiders, even those that cooperate within their group. Chimps, a close ancestor of ours, are notoriously vicious. But, the article said, the Bonobo apes, our closest living ancestor, have been observed being friendly towards outsiders. In some cases, sharing food. So, perhaps morality is innate to the wiring of the brain and not in the intellect? Does our intellect merely rationalize and justify our innate sense?
November 30th, 2023 at 9:56 am
Again, I must say you have a fascinating approach to philosophy—and for me ethics in particular. It is, among other things, an interesting eclectic approach. I love it! Anyway, I really find no fault with a desire for philosophy to make some progress if I can put it that way. I believe that is the underlying motivation behind your remarks. In ethics specifically, the overall discourse seems to go round and round in interminable debate. So, let me expand on the “seed” of that alternative idea.
It can be argued that we are all children of the Enlightenment. And like a child who learns his parents language, we cannot help thinking the way we do. The number one remarkable feature of the last 500 years is the scientific explosion. I should note that some historians of ideas put the Enlightenment itself in a shorter time frame from the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth century—where the major changes in thinking began. Some, like me, think it’s intellectual influence extends to the mid twentieth century. Nevertheless, I submit that we all think with Enlightenment minds—minds formed by that specific and incredible sea-change in thinking and growth in human knowledge. Our modern history has given us an Enlightenment perspective. In other words—and in my view—we are all drunks looking for our lost car keys with what we think is the best available light. Or, to expand the metaphor, trying to construct the key to moral certainty with our most successful tools! And that, in a nutshell, is my rudimentary interpretation of the history of ideas in philosophy from the seventeenth century to the mid twentieth century—let’s say from Francis Bacon to A. J. Ayer or, if you are French, from René Descartes to Michel Foucault.
I cringe at the suggestion that philosophy has to “catch up with science.” That’s because, in fact, that is what it has been trying to do for 500 years. It has not worked—it has not progressed. By the mid twentieth century many argue it hit a dead end. Some argue that philosophy (for me especially, ethics) may be turning in a more hopeful direction. Along with postmodern relativism, emotivism, and nihilism, the mid twentieth century also saw a small revival of virtue ethics. That may help usher in a radical but fruitful change in thinking down the road.
Sorry for the verbosity. I felt I needed to clarify my previous comments before even attempting to respond to your many other interesting thoughts
December 1st, 2023 at 12:52 pm
Verbosity isn’t something anyone around here ever needs to apologize for! Feel free at any time to start a new comment thread when you want more elbow room.
Eclectic is a pretty good word to describe my approach to a lot of things in life. This blog would probably have more readers if it were less eclectic (“they” say you should pick a topic and stick to it). And it certainly describes my taste in music, art, fiction, and a lot else. In college, I was introduced to what they called “Interdisciplinary Education”, an idea I decided I liked a lot. The intellectual equivalent of cross-training. Curiosity has always been one of my more urgent traits.
Upon reflection, to the extent I have any real complaint about philosophy (besides quibbles about what often seems almost deliberately obfuscatory language), it would be about the seemingly endless refining of “the right questions” and the utter lack of conclusions. To some extent, though, that feels like complaining that summer is hot. It’s the very nature of the beast. But perhaps the beauty of our more complex ideas — science, philosophy, religion, art, math — is that we never reach the end of them. (One can draw a strong analogy with Gödel’s Incompleteness theorems or with the underlying foundation of the uncountability of the real numbers. Both reflect the inexhaustibility of questions and the impossibility of obtaining some answers.)
There is definitely a point here about how the answer-based scientific approach conflicts with, to borrow your metaphor, trying to figure out the right place to look for our keys. (I’ve said before there should be a ‘P’ added to STEM training. Perhaps it could be a silent ‘P’ at the beginning of things: PSTEM.) So, I don’t know how I got twisted around here. Really, it’s science that needs to catch up with philosophy. Yin needs a Yang.
It’s interesting that I know Bacon and Descartes as scientists more than philosophers. I’m not familiar with Foucault or Ayer. (I first thought you meant the only Foucault I know, the French physicist [Léon] Foucault.) But both Bacon and Descartes had one foot in each world, so it’s not surprising philosophy followed that Universe as Mechanical Clock thinking. What’s seductive is how effective that worldview is in the physical world. And I might add to your metaphor the one about how when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. (If I were clever, I’d tie that to the nail that lost a kingdom.)
The problem is understood and appreciated, at least by some. But it’s hard to beat the effectiveness of the basic scientific premise: physics is the same everywhere, and reality has consistent patterns that can be observed, analyzed, theorized about, and finally, most importantly, tested. That approach has changed our world significantly in a breath-takingly short time. It’s easy to forget the territory outside domain — philosophy, religion, etc. Or if not forget it, relegate it to lower status — folklore versus true wizardry.
A while back I got to thinking about the various Revolutions of humanity (cognitive, agricultural, scientific, etc). Each undeniably brought us to a new level of civilization but each extracted a large and permanent cost. Sometimes the cost makes one question the value. What may be more significant is the inevitability of each Revolution. (Which scares me a bit about the coming AI Revolution. There’s a tiny chance this one turns out to be a particularly bad idea, but — especially given the pace of technology — I think the die has been cast. Cross your fingers.)
(I’m hosting a party Saturday night so probably won’t be back here until at least Sunday.)
December 3rd, 2023 at 4:34 pm
You are kind to give me a lot of “rope.” Thanks. A few years ago I set out to put some of my ideas and research into blog form. I ended up touring what was out there and stopping in at a few places like yours where I could test run my ability to write, explain and intelligently provoke. It may not be good for you, however, as I note that none of your “usual suspects” have jumped in on this thread.
I guess the point of my last few hundred words is that for much of the duration of the time from the beginning of the scientific revolution to the 20th century, philosophical thinking has struggled to remake itself. In ethics or moral thinking (one of my main interests) it struggled to identify and justify the one key to moral certainty. The result has been a lack of progress and interminable debate about the ground rules. And that, I submit, was because it wrongly struggled to “catch up with science.” (Hence my initial complaint!) All that is understandable since, as I said, the last few hundred years have decidedly changed the way our civilization thinks. The difficulty in critiquing that is like explaining the limitations of water to a fish. If you swim in it, its hard to not see it as the entire universe. But I also like your reference as well—when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
The result has been that “modernity” degenerated into the “postmodern” condition. In short, the prevailing assumption that there is no “key” to identify. And therefor there are no values which can be justified. It’s all meaningless emotivism. The search was all a waste of time and effort. But in the ashes of a postmodern world there was the birth of a small revival of another way of thinking which may lead us to firm territory! After years trying to understand that sad history of thought, that is where I found myself. Thanks again!
December 4th, 2023 at 9:54 am
I suppose the bottom line for me is that I hope you’re right about a revival. If it is true that human thought can have the pendulum-like aspect of swinging back-and-forth, perhaps we are at long last rejecting scientism as empty and swinging back looking for something more meaningful. The question seems where, in the darkness, to search for our keys. Or how to build something other than a hammer.
From the fish’s point of view, water is the only viable game in town. Nothing is perfect, so water certainly is open to critique, but to be compelling an alternative should be clear and viable. Postmodern deconstruction erased our idols, ideals, and faith (and much of our optimism). As you say, we lost our belief there are any absolutes for human experience.
We here are deconstructing the deconstruction — we’re not alone in this. I’ve had discussions with a guy who hammers the point that we’re mired in what he calls a “subject-object model” (SOM) when we should be pursuing a “reality-appearances model” (RAM). Some of his points about the SOM — that it’s an intellectual trap — are similar to points you’ve made here. Absent there was a good definition of a RAM, let alone a praxis. How does the fish exist elsewhere? What’s a better mousetrap? I agree with (both of) you about the vacancy in scientism, do you have a vision of what we should construct? Is the answer behind us or still ahead?
As to my “usual suspects”, most of them seem to have moved on. In part because what time I spend online tends to be taken up with self-education or trying to write blog posts. I don’t have much left over for participating in other venues (something I used to do a lot). If you mean the loosely associated crowd of folks I think, there was something of a parting of ways. I don’t need anyone to agree with me, but I do need to feel I’m being heard. Too many long discussions came to a point where I realized what I’d said earlier hadn’t registered, sometimes at all. Too much people talking at each other instead of with each other. Very much in contrast: our discussions. Much appreciated and much enjoyed. If no one else cares to join in, that’s their loss!
December 4th, 2023 at 1:29 pm
Indeed, scientism is empty. To quote Massimo Pigliucci; [Scientism] is a pernicious and increasingly influential strand of thought … which is not only a threat to every other discipline, including philosophy, but risks undermining the credibility of science itself.
December 4th, 2023 at 7:16 pm
Indeed. All Yin and no Yang.
December 6th, 2023 at 7:33 am
Since you are kind enough to give me room to express myself here let me pick up on a bit on a mundane point you just made. That is, “I don’t need anyone to agree with me, but I do need to feel I’m being heard.” I’ve been pondering those remarks. That certainly resonates with me. I’m a newbie to roaming the blogs as I read, write or journal my thoughts and plan my own future quest into that realm. In short, I’m looking for a place where I can test my thinking with the outside world. But I want a real testing—a real Socratic dialog so to speak. However, I’ve made the same conclusion as you about some of my experiences and some of the personalities I’ve met. I roam around looking for challenging discussions and some genuine give and take and yet so many seem to be talking past me.
I began to loiter around Mike Smith’s site (where I met you) because philosophy of mind and the popular issue of consciousness was one of my big philosophical weak points. I hoped participating there would do double-duty of teaching me something new and testing my ability to be articulate with my own inchoate thoughts on the matter. I also chose it because I knew from reading a few essays (in those philosophical areas where I feel confident) that I was on the other side of the fence from Mike and that would be the making of a good Socratic dialog. So far, with a few exceptions, it has been the most welcoming site.
I guess this problem of getting a genuine hearing is just the nature of the best. A friend of mind once remarked that most folks on the internet are looking for an “echo chamber.” I think he’s correct.
December 6th, 2023 at 7:47 am
I.e., the most welcoming site with the exception of your little spot on the interweb, of course.
December 6th, 2023 at 5:38 pm
My little secret oasis! 😉
December 6th, 2023 at 6:15 pm
I’ve been online to one degree or other since the mid-1980s, and I’ve gone through multiple evolutions. Back then I spent a lot of time on USENET and various BBSs, mostly in science, technical, or science fiction groups. It can be hard to separate age-induced cynicism from valid perception, but it feels as if we’ve changed in how we communicate in those thirty-some years. Mostly in how much polarization and entrenchment there seems to be. Conversations like the ones we’ve had have become extremely rare. As you say, most folks are looking for reinforcement, not challenges to their thinking.
I would agree Mike’s blog is a good one. I was a regular for something like eight years. But found myself too often frustrated by the sense of not being heard. I think sometimes people can be reluctant to acknowledge contrary points for fear of a slippery slope that might force them to reevaluate their thinking. It’s easier to believe in something if you don’t question it too much.
Ironically, I connected with Mike because of things we had in common: software development, science fiction, and technology. Only to find we had very different opinions about consciousness, computationalism, the MWI. Which seemed fertile ground for debate, but none of those topics evolved in any way, and I grew weary of my points being given zero validity. (It’s apparently very hard for some to admit, “Yeah, that’s a good point.”) Eventually, I decided the frustration wasn’t worth it and stepped away. Truth is, he and I ultimately have pretty different outlooks. He’s one of those who escaped religion, but I sometimes think he substituted science for it. He seems pretty firmly planted on the Yin side of things. A believer.
As I mentioned, one issue with this blog is that I’m too damn eclectic. I write about things that interest me, but that includes just about everything. (It’s just that somethings are more interesting than others, and life is short, so there has to be some selection.) So, this blog is all over the map, which — contrary to what I would have thought — apparently makes it less interesting not more. Story of my life in some ways. But if you were to start blogging about a specific topic, you’d likely get followers — your own usual suspects. The topic matter would likely draw thinkers. And, if you’re interested, there are myriad ways, freely available and purchased, for promoting your blog. Just advertising it on social media can be effective. (Mike, for instance, is active on other social platforms, and there’s a synergy that happens with that.) WordPress recently added a mechanism for “promoting” your posts — for a price!
December 7th, 2023 at 4:17 pm
I appreciate your advice on blogging. I’ve bounced around for a bit too long. My reasons for roaming the blog world are to look for blogs with design features I want to use and, as I’ve said, to test out my own ability to write and intelligently provoke. It’s been a couple of years so I ought to pull the trigger and get started.
I began active journaling about ten years ago—I revived and expanded on some old research. To be clear, I was shocked into action by the apparent turn, mostly in Western societies, to right-wing authoritarianism. It seemed that dangerous historical trends may be repeating. I feared that the bloody first half of the 20th century was a dress-rehearsal for what was coming.
As you may have surmised I’m deep into intellectual history or the history of ideas. The way we think—our shifting background assumptions—inform and direct our actions. In short, the evolving of certain ideas has propelled us to this point. I needed to better understand what was going on. I was hoping to clarify my thinking with some genuine Socratic give and take. So I much appreciate your encouragement.
BTW, I think I have actually witnessed firsthand the frustration you described. And I guessed that your recent absence elsewhere had something to do with that frustration. I think you are correct in the reason for a certain “deafness” of some of those folks you are trying to engage in meaningful dialogue. I would expand on what you said by saying that some people are reluctant to acknowledge points that may threaten their conception of reality. Certainty—at least about fundamental matters—is intellectually comforting. It is hard to give up. Or, in other words, living with uncertainty about fundamental matters can be torturous for some folks. Hang in there my friend!
December 9th, 2023 at 10:47 am
I share your shock regarding the rise of right-wing authoritarianism and the fear that, beyond all sanity, we seem in danger of repeating fairly recent history. (I heard it quipped once that history only repeats because we don’t learn from it.) I’m very concerned — yet somehow also exhausted to ennui by it all — that despite political losses, the madness continues. (“Madness” seems doubly appropriate given the underlying anger and hate.)
At the same time, the left seems to have become mush-minded and incompetent to combat this. Both sides seem increasing lost (and desperate to hold on to their respective perceived security blankets) in an increasingly scientific and technical world. People figure they can’t understand all of it anymore, so they abdicate understanding any of it. I’ve heard often in global warming debates the complaint about not being able to understand the science. But it’s not an all or nothing proposition. One can grasp the basics if one makes a little effort. (And grasping the basics leads to being able to grasp more and more.)
But in a world filled with easy distractions (and if one perceives it as all over one’s head), it’s easy to avoid the effort. That Carl Sagan quote I posted in our discussion on Katherine’s blog. Almost 30 years old, but ever more relevant.
The anti-science current right now concerns me greatly. There is a rejection of science, math, and logic throughout society. It horrifies me that educated liberals are anti-vaxxers. We seem to me to be sliding back towards the dark ages. We experienced the myriad difficulties of a modern global world, found it too much, and retreated from it. Problem with all humanity’s pendulum swings: we always overshoot; we always go too far. Civilization sometimes seems an endless series of over-corrections.
So, I share your concerns. A lot!
Regarding blogs, they’re generally easy to start and can be treated as public journals documenting your experiences and thinking (the “web logs” they began as) or as forums for discussion or as stages for more formal presentation of whatever you want to present. Or a combination of all three. Or whatever you can conceive. I think if you started writing about your thoughts, you’d get followers. I would certainly tune in! Your success may turn on your willingness to self-promote or you may tap into a vein.
Very true about certainty. I like the quote about how the more I learn, the less I know. I think, with me, there can be an additional component. A word I’ve heard a lot in my life is “intimidating”, which surprises and dismays me. It’s certainly not any kind of goal — quite the opposite. Makes me think I might be on a spectrum just a bit. It’s not uncommon that I really don’t get people!
December 6th, 2023 at 9:25 am
BTW: Happy Finnish Independence Day!
https://www.themayor.eu/en/about-us/what-we-do
December 6th, 2023 at 9:25 am
https://www.themayor.eu/en/a/view/happy-independence-day-finland-1825
December 6th, 2023 at 5:37 pm
Happy (Finnish) Independence Day!
December 9th, 2023 at 11:01 am
Dude…… don’t forget that you are the one who framed the reality/appearance distinction as reality/appearance metaphysics (RAM). Great move and I appreciate your contribution to my own journey of discovery.
We need an effective context from which to work in order to understand this mysteriously amazing reality in which we find ourselves and RAM delivers.
Been a while Wyrd, but I wish you good health and good will.
December 9th, 2023 at 12:54 pm
Likewise, and likewise, dude!
I just pointed out the acronym. I’m still hoping for a definition or description. Maybe an applicable example of SOM versus RAM?
December 9th, 2023 at 3:36 pm
Try this on:
Understanding that we see through a dark and clouded lens, we come us with schemas to make sense of our environment and ourselves. One such schema is SOM.
SOM divides “our world of reality” into parts. It is this intellectual action of division that is problematic. For example: from our isolated perspective, something is either true or it is false or; something is either real or it is not real. This rationale is problematic as a grounding architecture for reasoning because it does not reflect the true nature of reality and therefore creates problems for us that fundamentally do not exist.
In contrast, RAM does not divide “our world of reality” into parts. And since reality is an indivisible unity of which we are a part, RAM starts from the premise that there is no such thing as something not being real and there is no such thing as something being false. Everything is real and equally, everything is true. It is just that real-ness and true-ness is a context. Hence, the reality/appearance distinction.
How does this apply to our own experience? How we perceive the world is reality because for us, perception “is” reality. However, that perceived reality is the appearance. The same thing happens when we misunderstand each other because all too often, the “perception is reality paradigm” can mislead us. What we perceive to be the reality may not match the facts on the ground which are the reality.
The RAM framework is counterintuitive and extremely controversial, especially when it comes to ethics. SOM leads us to believe that there has to be a way of determining what is right in contrast to what is wrong as well as determining what is true or what is false. RAM ethics rejects that premise by insisting that as a participant of an indivisible reality there is only what we do, and that action is a choice driven by self interest manifested by what one wants in contrast to what one does not want.
For human behavior and ethics, choices can be fundamentally reduced to an individual or collective “I want”, or “I do not want”; and everything else is just a story we tell ourselves. Like I said, counterintuitive and highly controversial.
Clear as mud…….
December 10th, 2023 at 11:10 am
Firstly, thank you for writing all that. It gives me something to chew on. I don’t know how interested you are in drilling down on this, but I do have questions.
You pick out truth and reality as treated differently in SOM vs RAM. What about physical facts? Where do they fit? Science is the search for, not truth or reality, but the patterns we find in nature. Where do those patterns and our study of them fit here?
Is RAM a form of (philosophical) idealism or does it admit to an external reality? I get the impression it rejects realism (and certainly physicalism). Is that right?
A bigger question is: how do you build a civilization without a foundation of truth or reality?
Truth, certainly, can be both subjective and context dependent. For me, it’s true that caramel is better than chocolate, but others have different truths on the matter. If we’re talking about most forms of mathematical logic, yes, a proposition is either true or false. Important to such logic is the property that if something is not true, it must be false, and vice versa. It’s called the axiom of the excluded middle, and most (but not all) forms of logic do assume it. But logic is just a mathematical tool for making sense of multiple propositions. It’s about the logical correctness of an argument. The truth of the propositions is always a separate matter.
Reality, I’m sure you know, is much discussed philosophically. I think to some extent it’s like the falling tree in the forest. Once you define what you mean by “sound” the question resolves itself pretty easily. Likewise, reality. Physical reality is one definition, but are the rules of baseball real? How about unicorns? How about justice or mercy? One of the amazing things about the human mind is our ability to imagine things. And we often make the things we imagine physically real. We’re tool builders and storytellers, and those traits have given us unimaginable power over physical reality.
In contrast, how do I apply RAM to how I go about life if truth and reality have no meaning?
“RAM ethics rejects that premise by insisting that as a participant of an indivisible reality there is only what we do, and that action is a choice driven by self-interest manifested by what one wants in contrast to what one does not want.”
How can there be any notion of self in an indivisible reality? Isn’t the very first cut we make the division between self and everything else? Classic cogito ergo me. Another important realization, I think, is that other selves exist and they have parity with us in virtue of their own cogito ergo. I think one can build an ethical platform on that notion of the parity of other consciousnesses, but that’s a whole other rabbit hole to go down.
To borrow Freud’s notion of Id, Ego, and Superego — or even just the ancient notion of devil on one shoulder angel on the other — I agree that our “Id” (or “devil”) is all about what we want. Or don’t want. Animals — and very young human children — tend to be all Id. (Though one sometimes does see flashes of the angel in very young human children.) There is an argument that higher consciousness naturally leads towards our better angels. Our ability to rise above the animal “I want” seems to depend on our intellect.
December 10th, 2023 at 1:17 pm
I don’t mind drilling down on some of your questions Wyrd. I probably won’t address all of them in a single post.
First and foremost, RAM is not a form of idealism and it does admit to an external reality, which according to its architecture is the Reality constituent of the Appearance metaphysics. RAM does not reject physicalism and since the Reality of the RAM architecture is a still a mystery, the Appearances of this paradigm are a physical universe and everything that entails.
This of course leads to a pragmatic approach towards physicalism, since for all practical purposes a material universe is what we have to work with. Pragmatic realism enhances the findings of the physical sciences while acknowledging that the findings of those facts along with the mathematics we use to make predictions are context dependent and may not reflect the true nature of Appearances.
“Physical reality is one definition, but are the rules of baseball real?…etc, etc, etc”
Good questions. As an architecture of reasoning, SOM cannot effectively deal nor resolve these type of questions. For RAM it’s pretty straight forward. Do the imaginary and made up rules have casual power? Absolutely. How about unicorns or believing in the devil and demons? If these beliefs cause one to act on them then they have causal power which again means they are real. Perception is reality even if that perception is a delusion, make believe or imaginary.
“…how do I apply RAM to how I go about life if truth and reality have no meaning?”
Truth and meaning is context dependent which means that certainty is in a constant state of flux. As far as living life, this paradigm it is not problematic if one has a high threshold for uncertainty. However, if uncertainty is problematic, one will seek to “assign meaning” above and beyond for the sake of having something concrete to wrap their hands around, so to speak.
“How can there be any notion of self in an indivisible reality? Isn’t the very first cut we make the division between self and everything else?”
Absolutely. SOM is not a set of rules we follow, it is a codified form of how we instinctually reason. And the very first cut we make leads to the paradox of dualism.
Try this: From a teleological perspective, SOM sees the creator as one thing, and the creation as another thing. This intellectual maneuver creates a division which cements a dualistic foundation. Whereas RAM would suggest that the creator and the creation are one and the same, and there is no difference between the two, only the context is different.
According to this delineation, for all practical purpose the Reality and the Appearance are the same thing, the only difference is the context.
Good luck parsing through this……..
December 10th, 2023 at 3:23 pm
“RAM does not reject physicalism and since the Reality of the RAM architecture is a still a mystery, the Appearances of this paradigm are a physical universe and everything that entails.”
How does RAM compare to Kant’s transcendental idealism? I’ve often thought they sound similar. Both admit to external reality, both entail physicalism, both recognize the subjective nature of our individually perceived model of that external physical reality.
Once difference I perceive is that RAM apparently denies certain aspects of (our experience of) physical reality. It’s that experience of reality that teaches us it’s made of parts. What is the basis for a claim of indivisibility in contrast with that experience?
I quite agree about pragmatic physicalism — indeed, it’s all we’ve got when it comes to physical reality. As an aside, perhaps we mean the same thing, but I would say the physical sciences are contingent (on future discoveries) rather than context dependent. A key axiom in science is that reality doesn’t depend on context. That’s part of its pragmatic approach.
“If these beliefs cause one to act on them then they have causal power which again means they are real.”
Yes, exactly! I think that’s a human thing — part of our higher consciousness. I’m not sure it’s a metaphysical question. Does RAM deny that the Grand Canyon, baseball rules, and unicorns have different levels of reality?
There’s a synchronicity in your mentioning living life with uncertainty. In the latest issue of New Scientist, just this morning I read a letter to the editor making the point that the human brain evolved as a tool against an uncertain world. A very good one, as it allowed us to inhabit just about every corner of the globe and to adapt to changing conditions. That said, I quite agree some find it more challenging than others. We fill our lives with all sorts of anchors — some better than others. Some are explorers, some like staying home.
“This intellectual maneuver creates a division which cements a dualistic foundation.”
Is it an intellectual maneuver or an obvious observation? Calling it a maneuver suggests a strategic intent. I think perhaps, as you say in the preceding paragraph, that it’s part of our instinctive reasoning. What seems more an intellectual maneuver is calling creator and created one and the same contrary to experience. You said it yourself, “counterintuitive and highly controversial.”
As another aside, the label “dualism” seems often used as some sort of automatic fail card. But what’s wrong with dualism? The ancient philosophy of Yin-Yang says (and my experience agrees) that everything is dual. The modern philosophy of information science says all information, ultimately, is 1s and 0s — a modern duality. So, I’m fine with a dualistic foundation — such a thing seems entirely natural to me.
It may be we’re trying to bite off too much to chew effectively here. On the one hand, a metaphysics, SOM vs RAM, plus the notion of indivisibility, but also a lot about psychology and sociology. It is a lot to parse.
December 10th, 2023 at 6:09 pm
“It’s that experience of reality that teaches us it’s made of parts.”
Exactly; the hardest paradox for us to reconcile is our observed reality consisting of the many in contrast to an indivisible unity of one.
“What is the basis for a claim of indivisibility in contrast with that experience?”
Now that Wyrd, is a metaphysical question. The only way to answer these compelling questions and reconcile the many in contrast to the one is to identify and articulate the external reality or Kant’s noumena.
RAM has gone beyond Kant by identifying and articulating the Reality behind the Appearance. Filling in this huge epistemic gap completes Kant’s transcendental idealism model and makes it a useful tool for the physical sciences, philosophy and a framework from which to explain our universe, the mechanism that drives complexity and our own place within it.
Does the architecture of RAM reflect the true nature of reality. I don’t know. Does it work? Yeah it works, and that’s a problem. It’s a problem because it is so counterintuitive and challenges everything that we cherish and believe.
But in light of our deep, divisive ideological and religious beliefs, something has to give. But being a pragmatist myself, humanity will have to wait for the evolutionary process to do its thing before anything changes…….
December 11th, 2023 at 11:13 am
“RAM has gone beyond Kant by identifying and articulating the Reality behind the Appearance. Filling in this huge epistemic gap completes Kant’s transcendental idealism model and makes it a useful tool for the physical sciences, philosophy and a framework from which to explain our universe, the mechanism that drives complexity and our own place within it.”
That is an extraordinary claim on multiple points! What exactly do you mean by “identify and articulate” what Kant called noumena?
If it refers to your assertion of indivisibility, I’m not clear whether you take that as axiomatic or as a reasoned conclusion. In either case, I’m not clear on how you ground or explain the assertion. Nor am I clear on what explanatory power it has. Prima facie, being context dependent, it would seem to have less. As you say, it’s a metaphysical question, but from what I’ve heard (assuming I understood), RAM asserts indivisibility. I’d like to understand the how or why. Or if you take it as just axiomatic.
You ask whether RAM accurately reflects reality, and I’d venture that it depends on exactly what you mean. Kant’s “Copernican revolution” — the distinction between the noumena of external physical reality versus the phenomena of our subjective experience — is, I think, today taken as much for granted as is the actual Copernican revolution. So, on the Reality/Appearances model itself, to the extent it matches Kant’s transcendental idealism, I think RAM is an accurate description.
The indivisibility (or unity?) element remains opaque to me. It’s a notion I’ve most often encountered in religious or spiritual views. Absent a strong argument favoring it, I’m dubious about its accuracy. You say it works. Can you demonstrate it in action?
“But in light of our deep, divisive ideological and religious beliefs, something has to give.”
I quite agree. I’d say something has been giving all along. Our divisions go back to our earliest history. Our tribal natures are still strong within us. That said, we do seem in a post-postmodern delirium lately.
In the socio-political sense, I think there is great value in recognizing a unity or egalitarianism among all humans and a further (different) unity between us and all other life and yet another between us and the world as a whole. Absent an appeal to a teleology, I’ve long thought one could build a moral or ethical foundation on the notion of higher consciousness. Firstly, that it’s quite rare in the universe (odds on the order of 10²² against), and secondly, that we are all equal in being (higher) conscious beings. Humans differ in almost all aspects, but we share in common being members of the universe’s most interesting accomplishment. The human mind is the only thing to have named itself, the only thing to wonder how it came to be.
But is this sort of social indivisibility what you mean? I got the impression you mean something much more fundamental.
December 11th, 2023 at 2:30 pm
“The indivisibility (or unity?) element remains opaque to me. It’s a notion I’ve most often encountered in religious or spiritual views.”
Yeah, the religious or spiritual views might actually be on to something that is real but the underpinning of the esoteric premise end up convoluting the whole idea and bastardizing it to the point that one wants to vomit.
If you remember, the idea of unity was an unrelenting item on Michael Mark’s docket. He wasn’t too successful at conveying what he understood because of the baggage he inherited from esoteric and spiritual authors.
A feeling of “oneness” with the natural world of Appearances is coextensive with one’s relationship with the ultimate Reality. In contrast, the indivisibility or unity of the Reality with the Appearance is a metaphysical question. I will address metaphysics later.
This lack of unity or a feeling of isolation that so many spiritualists talk about is not part of a grand scheme of some kind, it’s a derivative of the “initial cut” that we make at a very young age as we try to make sense of our world and our place in it. This “initial cut” is something that we all do, it’s like we don’t really have a choice, and for the most part we do not have a choice. That is the deterministic aspect of our existence; our properties dictate that me make that “cut”. It’s just the way of things.
However, I have encountered a handful of people in my lifetime who never made that “initial cut”. The “initial cut” sets the stage for our experience whereas for those who never made that “initial cut”, their decision to not make that cut sets the stage for their experience. What is ironic is that these individuals who have a different experience than you or I have no idea what it’s like to have our experience and likewise, I have no clue as to what is like for these individuals.
This dichotomy raises an important question: is there knowledge independent of or beyond experience? The short answer is no, and I think the long answer is also no. Kant claims that we can gain knowledge a priori, but the a priori itself becomes the experience. So we are suspended in experience for knowledge.
These people I’ve met are for real and their experience is also real. I think what this means is that there is another ontological level of experience that is taking place. That is why I keep referencing evolution as a means of change within our species.
Ironic as it seems, I just stumbled onto a blog site this morning of a dude whose experience is similar to others I have met in person. I haven’t engaged with the dude, but from what I’ve read he seems grounded and pragmatic. He might be fishing to see if there is anybody else in cyberspace who is like him, who knows……
December 12th, 2023 at 10:38 am
I do remember Micheal Mark’s efforts to promote unity. It apparently (and probably coincidentally) was the swan song for his blog. He hasn’t posted anything since those efforts 18 months ago. What struck me about his account, and what strikes me about the handful of people you refer to, is that it depends on anecdotal evidence. Especially in the context of this discussion, focused as it is on the distinction between external reality versus our apprehension of it, I’m also struck by the dependence on that apprehended subjective reality.
Those who work first-hand with the personal testimony of others experience what unreliable narrators we are of our own experiences. Put this in juxtaposition with the vast historical collection of experience in our possession — our collective experience of the regular patterns of nature that give us an ever more resolved (but always contingent) picture of physical reality. Nature bears honest witness to itself, but people frequently don’t. It’s part and parcel of the noumena/phenomena duality.
In light of this, intellectual honesty demands skepticism of personal accounts, especially accounts unsupported by repeatability or willful execution of putative extraordinary talents.
For, if such things are part of physical reality, then science applies, and they can be studied as with any natural phenomenon. But if they’re somehow transcendental to physical reality — not in the purview of science — then some form of spiritual dualism applies. Yin of science and Yang of … something else.
Which I’m comfortable with. I am a dualist; I do feel there’s something else. And I have personally experienced events that are either stunning coincidences and hints of that something else.
But I appear to live in a physical reality, external to me, not contingent on me, and that reality has regular patterns — physical laws. And stunning coincidences do happen. That they are so stunning makes us remember them. They can even become touchstone events for us (as some of mine have for me). But subjective experience is always more questionable than physical fact. (In particular, if real it must account for why it remains so ineffable in the face of science.)
So, I’m bound to remain skeptical of personal accounts (including my own). There can be an element of wishful thinking, of wanting reality to be more than it appears to be, that disposes us to favor such accounts. Yet I have a small suspicion these accounts might be darkly glimpsed, and perhaps misunderstood, experiences of whatever Yang might truly be there. I’ve wondered if some religions didn’t start also as attempts to delineate some ineffable (but true) Yang.
“This ‘initial cut’ is something that we all do, it’s like we don’t really have a choice, …”
No, and I’m not convinced it’s a bad thing, but a necessary, even a true, thing. (I’m assuming your quote marks refer to my use of ‘initial cut’ to refer to our early realization of self versus not-self.) I don’t see how it’s possible to progress as a person without this crucial first step. (A second crucial step is recognizing the parity of other not-self selves.)
Rather than something most lose in the cradle, perhaps something that can be gained by a leap of wisdom or a surrender to faith? One thing I’ve long found striking about religions is their common points — fundamentally that reality is teleological and that how we live our individual lives matters for reasons beyond our ken.
“This dichotomy raises an important question: is there knowledge independent of or beyond experience?”
You say no, but I think it depends on the type of knowledge. Years ago, I wrote a post about the a priori nature of math. I speculated that an isolated intellect experiencing no phenomena could derive math just in the context of its thoughts. It works because math is the only form of knowledge I can think of that’s completely abstract. I suspect almost all other forms of knowledge come to us a posteriori — as a result of our observations.
December 12th, 2023 at 11:17 am
I’m on board with everything you’ve written,
“…an isolated intellect experiencing no phenomena could derive math just in the context of its thoughts.”
I agree completely with your assessment of math being a priori. But don’t you think that the a priori knowledge of math and the internal workings within one’s mind qualifies as an experience? Because even though it occurs within our own head, it is still a result of internal observation right?
On a related note: If one is going to be bold or foolish enough to posit what Kant’s “thing-in-itself” actually is, whatever that me be, it must square up with what we can observe, measure, test and/or directly experience in our universe of Appearances.
December 12th, 2023 at 11:59 am
Ha! Yeah, good point. Math isn’t 100% a priori — only in the sense of not requiring that ‘first cut’ recognition of an external world. Even cogito ergo sum depends on cogito.
As an aside: There is another sense to your question of whether there is “knowledge independent of or beyond experience” — whether there is knowledge we can never obtain regardless of experience — knowledge forever barred to us. And the answer to that question is definitely yes, both in science and pretty much by definition in any putative ineffable Yang.
As a further aside on noumena (and, yes, it absolutely must account for the resulting phenomena): There is often a tendency to claim we see reality through a dark distorted glass, that our apprehensions are inaccurate. Which surely they are, but there are two ways to be inaccurate. One is to be just plain wrong, off-the-mark, incorrect, and I think this is the sense often meant regarding how we see reality. But another inaccuracy involves low resolution that loses details. The inaccuracy can be defended as not-exactly-wrong but as imprecise. Every life-like image you’ve ever viewed on a screen has this inaccuracy. So does any digital music you listen to. Pi, roughly, really is 3.14.
I think of our experience of reality as similarly imprecise — a wireframe compared to a photo-realistic rendering. Crude, but not-exactly-wrong.
Further, we have a consensus developed over time that smooths out outlier perceptions and refines our view. Billions of people can’t be that wrong. On top of that, we have what our instruments tell us, and they can perceive reality in ways far outside our direct experience. (Which sometimes leads to people not believing in what they can’t directly confirm.)
Which is all to say that I wonder if we aren’t slowly zeroing in on Kant’s noumena, the fundamental fabric of reality. For all that, I suspect there’s more to the picture — the Yang — and reality won’t give up all its secrets readily. If ever. (And I like a little mystery to reality. I love that quantum mechanics says reality, ultimately, is both random and fuzzy.)
December 12th, 2023 at 4:45 pm
Oh, it’s definitely a mystery and will always remain so.
I’ve been giving considerable thought to my metaphysics the last few days. Kant’s assertion that the “thing-in-itself” is unknowable means that this fundamental reality exists but it belongs to the transcendent beyond, and it cannot be applied to our perceptual concepts and categories. In laymen’s terms, this means that all of the “things” that make up our world of Appearances tell us nothing about the “thing-in-itself”.
I come at this paradox from the perspective that taken as a whole, all of these “things” tell us everything that we “really” need to know about the “thing-in itself”. So much so that a vocabulary can be crafted to describe it, its intricacies, how it works in physics and what drives complexity. With this foundation RAM becomes a very useful metaphysical model.
But like math, what it tells us is abstract. And also like math, one can work through all of the possible scenarios to see if they conform to what we observe internally and externally in our world of Appearances.
Complex as it is to try and explain with vocabulary it can be done, but it’s not easy. This seemingly insurmountable complexity is due to all of the moving parts. Now, if I was a mathematician, which I am not, I would probably be able to build a mathematic model to express it.
I’ve been successful in explaining it to other individuals, but it takes time and cannot be properly expressed on a venue such as a blog. So with that, I’ve really enjoyed our time together over that last few days and wish you the best my friend.
December 13th, 2023 at 10:09 am
Likewise, and have a great Holiday season!
January 17th, 2024 at 4:01 pm
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