Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Dark Matter]

Interesting that you mentioned Negal. I’m reading MIND AND COSMOS: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False now.

[Belindi]

Greta wrote:

The problem is, in fact, population. We humans tend to have an idealistic sense that we should be able to live harmoniously in ridiculously huge groups when we are simply not evolved to cope with that level of complexity with so many shared dependencies and conflicts of interest. The happiest and most cohesive societies in the world are thus smallish nations with only a few million people. The nations are small enough that individuals semm to matter at least a little bit to each other.

Does this mean that there is no problem about in-groups and out-groups, and fear of foreigners?

I sympathise from personal experience with the idea of small societies where people know each other. They are cosy and companionable, even if some people in small tribes, old time villages, occasionally at least, would prefer the anonymity of the big city.

Scotland, to instance a very small nation has been plagued by opppressive lairds.
Today land ownership remains unfair in Scotland,
A study in 2003 by academics at the Universities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen concluded that:

"The modern Scottish Highland sporting estate continues to be a place owned by an absentee landowner who uses its 15-20,000 acres for hunting and family holidays. While tolerating public access, he (82% of lairds are male) feels threatened by new legislation, and believes that canoeing and mountain-biking should not take place on his estate at all".[17]

as elsewhere in small nations. Aristocracies , the ancient landed sort and also the new rich , don't die away. On the other hand developed urbanised nations provide the social medium in which the poorer sort of people can revolutionise or otherwise change the balance of power in society. The present Lord Mayor of London is the Muslim son of a bus driver.

I think, Greta, your are unnecessarily despondent about human evolution. We evolve culturally and have done so for more than thousands of years, probably since the advent of our species and probably Neanderthals too. I'm not saying that the cultural way of evolution doesn't involve suffering. Large industrialised nations, and federations, are here to stay for some time and all is not lost.

I've lived in a small village, in country towns,in cities and in suburbs of cities, and have been a foreigner in others' towns. I feel more European than British.

The problem of the cost to the natural environment of too many humans is not the same as the problems of urban life, and nation size.

BTW I become increasingly bored with the vocabulary of 'agnostic' , 'atheist', 'secularist', 'God', 'theist', 'religion'. All of these terms have to be defined and redefined for occasions. Me, for small talk purposes I call myself atheist if I have to label myself. For philosophy I prefer to go into details. I could easily call myself theist as for instance yesterday when TV screened the religious service for remembering the victims and bereaved of the Grenfell Tower, and forward with hope.

[Eduk]

I agree with Belindi, Greta. You do tend to get a bit down on our future prospects, I don't think it is all doom and gloom. Sure it's not as rosy as I'd like but nothing is finished. Despite Theresa May's protestations there are a good number of people who consider themselves citizens of the world, I for one consider myself to be a citizen of the universe.

[Dark Matter]

Are they? How do you know?

In a nutshell: Nagel.

BTW, your recommended author, Rollo, had this to say:

“Another root of our malady is our loss of the sense of the worth and dignity of the human being. Nietzsche predicted this when he pointed out that the individual was being swallowed up in the herd, and that we were living by a “slave-morality.” Marx also predicted it when he proclaimed that modern man was being “de-humanized,” and Kafka showed in his amazing stories how people literally can lose their identity as persons.”

This is something that you and the Weil fan talk about much, and generally attribute the problems of dehumanisation to "secularism". Yet, the objections are being raised by ostensible atheists, or at least agnostics.

This is from Nagel's book:

But while internal understanding is certainly valuable, and an essential precondition of a more transcendent project, I don’t see how we can stop there and not seek an external conception of ourselves as well. To refrain we would have to believe that the quest for a single reality is an illusion, because there are many kinds of truth and many kinds of thought, expressed in many different forms of language, and they cannot be systematically combined through a conception of a single world in which all truth is grounded. That is as radical a claim as any of the alternatives.

This isn't favorable toward agnosticism.

The more I read Nagel, the more I understand why Christians like him. His ideas seem to be limited to space-time. I think if he could get past that, he'd be a full-fledged theist in the classical tradition.

[Sy Borg]

I have no doubt that humanity will continue to improve and evolve rapidly, but only a minority. The upcoming "restructure" is locked in by physics. I am not pessimistic about this, just baldly realistic. It is when the greater bulk of humanity are gone that progress will really take off. Humanity won't have a shared fate. The fate of Trump and Putin and their families and their contacts is not the fate of children in central Africa or the poor anywhere.

Consider the Great Plague. Lives in Europe were crowded, dirty and difficult and then the plague struck. Millions were lost. Almost as soon as the plague cleared, all aspects of societies flourished - commerce, creativity, innovation and prosperity. At last there weren't too many people around.

This is by no means a judgement. Nor is it a claim that all will be perfect with smaller populations. Bullies and despots may appear in a grouping of any size. However, life will be more peaceful, clean, sustainable and less destructive with somewhat fewer people after whatever is going to happen with climate change has bitten.

At that point the remaining masses will either seriously work on tackling population sustainability or nature will force it on them. What happens to the elites with AI and improved technology is anyone's guess. Probably various kinds of human machine hybrid Übermenschen.

Well played, Reflex. I was claiming your ideas to secular thinkers and you claim a secular thinker as (almost) your own LOL. I shall Wiki you in return:

In his work Mind and Cosmos, he notes that he [Nagel] is an atheist, writing, "I lack the sensus divinitatis that enables—indeed compels—so many people to see in the world the expression of divine purpose as naturally as they see in a smiling face the expression of human feeling."

This harks back to my point that belief and non belief are a matter of personality and temperament. These must vary in a pluralist society where diversity in its members boosts its flexibility and expands its scope. Here Nagel points out that he is not of religious temperament while acknowledging that others are.

[Sy Borg]

In philosophical topics one can soar to all manner of grand abstractions yet I have struggled to write the above whilst under assault by a fiercely farting little dog. It's times like that where the divine seems so very far away ...

[Dark Matter]

Greta, I think it very odd that you would cite Nagel since he is a defender of the very thing you hate and fear most: religion. All the more so because although more developed, his ideas are very much in accord with my own, the major difference being that I take just take them one step further.

On another subject, I am pleased to see you puting your hypocrisy right out in front for everyone to see.

[Belindi]

Greta wrote:

Consider the Great Plague. Lives in Europe were crowded, dirty and difficult and then the plague struck. Millions were lost. Almost as soon as the plague cleared, all aspects of societies flourished - commerce, creativity, innovation and prosperity. At last there weren't too many people around.

The labour force was depleted, so labourers could demand better conditions of service.

This is by no means a judgement. Nor is it a claim that all will be perfect with smaller populations. Bullies and despots may appear in a grouping of any size. However, life will be more peaceful, clean, sustainable and less destructive with somewhat fewer people after whatever is going to happen with climate change has bitten.

You are more optimistic than I. Whatever is going to happen is happening now. Already Italy has , after much past magnanimity, refused entry to a shipload of desperate Africans whose homelands have been depleted basically by climate change .

At that point the remaining masses will either seriously work on tackling population sustainability or nature will force it on them. What happens to the elites with AI and improved technology is anyone's guess. Probably various kinds of human machine hybrid Übermenschen.

More likely a return to the Stone Age and actual small warring tribes, if any human groups survive, and if the biosphere remains viable. Both are big ifs.

[Karpel Tunnel]

In his work Mind and Cosmos, he notes that he [Nagel] is an atheist, writing, "I lack the sensus divinitatis that enables—indeed compels—so many people to see in the world the expression of divine purpose as naturally as they see in a smiling face the expression of human feeling."

His wording is very interesting. He says he lacks a sense. IOW he is at the very least saying that others may have this sense. It could be read stronger than that, given that he describes himself as having a lack. It is one thing to lack a belief. It is another thing to lack a sense.

This harks back to my point that belief and non belief are a matter of personality and temperament.

Possibly for faith-based believers, but experience plays a strong role in many theists' beliefs. We tend to think of Abrahamists with their emphasis on faith. But other traditions and even many members of Abrahamic religions and certainly mystics and early leaders, base their beliefs on experiences, and repeatable experiences achieved through practices in many cases.

All atheists determine that certain things are real and true based on experience alone, but these tend to be specific examples within the greater ontology currently approved by science. But they will act in the world based on intuition and personal experience that has not been verified in some controlled scientific way. Further the very foundations of any approach to gaining knowledge work with a priori generalized not provable beliefs about the individuals generally trustable memory, rules that hold through time, ability to interpret memory correctly and so on. To me it is like, it is OK to trust our intuitions globally as individuals. It is OK to trust our experienced based or intuition based conclusions in interpersonal relation and politics. But we cannot use it in specific cases of ontology - for example the existence of God. Even though we know that some people did this and turned out to be correct long before science managed to go through paradigmatic shifts needed to even consider testing something - for ex. my example about animal intelligence.

I don't think it is merely a temperment thing, though this may be true for some. It is a matter of degree and openness about the variety of epistemological approaches we all use to arrive at what we are willing to act on in the world in ways that affect others. Some present themselves as using only this or that epistemology.

That is not what I see. At all.

These must vary in a pluralist society where diversity in its members boosts its flexibility and expands its scope. Here Nagel points out that he is not of religious temperament while acknowledging that others are.

Though he did not use the word temperment.

[Sy Borg]

More likely a return to the Stone Age and actual small warring tribes, if any human groups survive, and if the biosphere remains viable. Both are big ifs.

That will probably happen, and they will thought of as animals to the increasingly technologically enabled pockets of civilisation remaining.

[Sy Borg]

DM, please try to grow up, at least pretend to be an adult. You are writing like an Twittering evangelist teen.

His wording is very interesting. He says he lacks a sense. IOW he is at the very least saying that others may have this sense. It could be read stronger than that, given that he describes himself as having a lack. It is one thing to lack a belief. It is another thing to lack a sense.

I'm ok with that. That was always Nagel's main point, though - that assuming what's happening in others' minds will always be based on incomplete information, ie. we can't know.

This harks back to my point that belief and non belief are a matter of personality and temperament.

Possibly for faith-based believers, but experience plays a strong role in many theists' beliefs. We tend to think of Abrahamists with their emphasis on faith. But other traditions and even many members of Abrahamic religions and certainly mystics and early leaders, base their beliefs on experiences, and repeatable experiences achieved through practices in many cases.

As per the above, we cannot presume to assume to read the minds of the non-religious, just as we can't mindread the religious. I, and many others, have had profound mystical experiences and yet not become religious.

After the second experience I was as close to becoming a believer as I've been since age nine. So why do some people believe after having peak experiences while others like me remain unsure? That's probably not a sense, but temperament. We can have very similar experiences but temperament determines our response.

To me it is like, it is OK to trust our intuitions globally as individuals. It is OK to trust our experienced based or intuition based conclusions in interpersonal relation and politics. But we cannot use it in specific cases of ontology - for example the existence of God.

Yes. Real life passes too quickly to attend consciously so we effectively train/program ourselves so our spontaneous responses are as much in keeping with what we want from ourselves as possible. Religion is a means of such programming and for best results faith is needed to lever the placebo effect ... in World Cup parlance, the programming and placebo could be thought of as defence and attack respectively :)

Even though we know that some people did this and turned out to be correct long before science managed to go through paradigmatic shifts needed to even consider testing something - for ex. my example about animal intelligence.

Sure. In my experience people's intuitions are very often correct. One problem is very often. Perhaps the more pressing problem has always been the feigning of intuition to manipulate the non skeptical.

Whatever, too many people have been wrong about things of which they were "absolutely certain". Thus science. Thus agnosticism. It's really just avoiding counting your chickens before they hatch. So I do enjoy mysticism in my life, just that I'm unsure of its nature. For all I know it might all just be brain chemicals. Or not.

[Karpel Tunnel]

As per the above, we cannot presume to assume to read the minds of the non-religious, just as we can't mindread the religious. I, and many others, have had profound mystical experiences and yet not become religious.

After the second experience I was as close to becoming a believer as I've been since age nine. So why do some people believe after having peak experiences while others like me remain unsure? That's probably not a sense, but temperament. We can have very similar experiences but temperament determines our response.

There’s a problem here. What you are saying is that you have had the same or similar experiences and drew different conclusions. But, given your philosophy, how would you know they are similar?

Further, your experiences, whatever they are, are not in the same context. They are not part of regular practice overseen by experts. I realize that is only one way theists have these experiences, but in the best case examples with, say, meditators and shamans, they are experiences things and can repeat the experiences, gain control and repeat as in empirical research. They can be told in advance by others what categories will arise. They can learn to make practical use of the experiences – gain specific context related information they can use.
It’s not just lovely experiences of oneness. That is passive anomalies. But rather repeatable, deepening experiences that can be used in their daily lives for specific purposes. They can also, though this is really digressing, find that experts know specific content – say of past life memories – without being told by the person . during a session say. IOW the expert sees the internal experience of the past life while the experiencer is seeing it and can describe it first without being told. I know exactly what skeptics will attribute this to, but they are talking about things they have never gone in and invested the time to try, so their objections only seem to fit what they know little about. It must be the case because of their paradigms.
IOW, sure some theist have some touchy feeling experience, mystical, perhaps profound, perhaps not, and decide simply on that basis that God is real or whatever. But best case examples are part of long intentional practices, where controlled repetition, outside prediction and practical application are the rule.
It is not that Greta and theist A had the same experience and Greta attributes this to ‘brain chemicals’ or thinks at least, it could be, while the theist’s temperament allows him or her to be confident in a global interpretation based on a one off experience. There are people going through long term apprentice processes with discipline and having experiences that are repeatable, predictive, mutual and useful. These are two totally different contexts EVEN IF you are correct that your experiences are the same or similar, which they may not be.
Aside – brain chemical and an experience being a direct contact with God (or whatever) are not mutually exclusive. I assume that brain chemicals are different during these experiences, just as they are when I see a bear lumber out of the woods.

To me it is like, it is OK to trust our intuitions globally as individuals. It is OK to trust our experienced based or intuition based conclusions in interpersonal relation and politics. But we cannot use it in specific cases of ontology - for example the existence of God.

Yes. Real life passes too quickly to attend consciously so we effectively train/program ourselves so our spontaneous responses are as much in keeping with what we want from ourselves as possible. Religion is a means of such programming and for best results faith is needed to lever the placebo effect ... in World Cup parlance, the programming and placebo could be thought of as defence and attack respectively

I was talking about the attitude of non-theists and skeptics, etc. IOW they allow themselves to use intuition around metaphysics (models of reality), what to question what not to, decisions in politics and more, but when contrasting themselves with theist or other types of believers, suddenly they just have one epistemology – empirical science.

Even though we know that some people did this and turned out to be correct long before science managed to go through paradigmatic shifts needed to even consider testing something - for ex. my example about animal intelligence.

Sure. In my experience people's intuitions are very often correct. One problem is very often. Perhaps the more pressing problem has always been the feigning of intuition to manipulate the non skeptical.

Whatever, too many people have been wrong about things of which they were "absolutely certain". Thus science. Thus agnosticism. It's really just avoiding counting your chickens before they hatch. So I do enjoy mysticism in my life, just that I'm unsure of its nature. For all I know it might all just be brain chemicals. Or not.

My point was not that we should accept other people’s intuition – though everyone does. My point was that everyone, scientists included, skeptics included, use a varied set of epistemologies. Everyone allows intuition to guide their decision making on critical issues, issues critical personally and for others.

So one issue is the hypocrisy when one side presents itself as having one epistemology, when in fact it uses several and not just for trivial things.

The other is the context within which mystical experiences are experienced.

[Mark1955]

Just suppose for a moment that cattle are hyper-intelligent, and just pretending to be dumb herbivores?
But they allow themselves to be eaten, I hear you say!
But cows can transcend their physical forms and allow themselves to be eaten so as to avoid detection - they move their consciousness into new born calves!
Are you agnostic about their intelligence?

Yes, what you write may seem nonsensical but if it is true we are unable to perceive it.

Nothing you say changes what I say.

Your choice.

[Sy Borg]

As per the above, we cannot presume to assume to read the minds of the non-religious, just as we can't mindread the religious. I, and many others, have had profound mystical experiences and yet not become religious.

After the second experience I was as close to becoming a believer as I've been since age nine. So why do some people believe after having peak experiences while others like me remain unsure? That's probably not a sense, but temperament. We can have very similar experiences but temperament determines our response.

There’s a problem here. What you are saying is that you have had the same or similar experiences and drew different conclusions. But, given your philosophy, how would you know they are similar?

Yes, but how do we deal with the problem of other minds? Communication. Our descriptions are even more sketchy than our senses, but they do provide plenty, which is why humans are so obsessed with it ... as we are doing now! What does the world look like through your eyes? asks one, and the other might ask the same question.

So afterwards I Googled the characteristics of the experience and found a striking similarity with others who'd enjoyed peak experiences. Bliss, a sense of unconditional love, and so forth. So there is a commonality. If it was just one other person describing the same experiences then that would be more open to question than many thousands.

There remains mental opacity but it seems that, at emotional extremities - be it joy or suffering - we feel more similarly, and not just with other humans. Being hunted by a tiger would be much the same experience for a human, deer, pig or large lizard, and the experience of being caught and eaten would probably be almost identical. Less disturbingly, I imagine that ultimate bliss is also similar.

Further, your experiences, whatever they are, are not in the same context. They are not part of regular practice overseen by experts. I realize that is only one way theists have these experiences, but in the best case examples with, say, meditators and shamans, they are experiences things and can repeat the experiences, gain control and repeat as in empirical research. They can be told in advance by others what categories will arise. They can learn to make practical use of the experiences – gain specific context related information they can use.

Yes. They were the first scientists of the internal dynamics of consciousness - observing, repeating, recording and communicating.

Some people are so inclined. Again, that is temperament. I have always been curious, a bit of a psychonaut, which I think started with a fascination about the way my mind would blank out in dangerous situations and wondered what went through my mind during those situations. My experiments and observations were successful - what went through my mind was "I can't believe it!" :)

Others, as you say, have taken those investigations rather further, as they had the opportunity and the nature tendencies to do so.

It’s not just lovely experiences of oneness. That is passive anomalies. But rather repeatable, deepening experiences that can be used in their daily lives for specific purposes. They can also, though this is really digressing, find that experts know specific content – say of past life memories – without being told by the person . during a session say. IOW the expert sees the internal experience of the past life while the experiencer is seeing it and can describe it first without being told. I know exactly what skeptics will attribute this to, but they are talking about things they have never gone in and invested the time to try, so their objections only seem to fit what they know little about. It must be the case because of their paradigms.

You could be right. None of us know the level and nature of cause and effect prenatally and post mortem. They must exist, but would be damnably complex to calculate. Can they be intuited? Maybe so? Can be we sure that the intuitions are entirely reliable? Probably not. Hence science.

However, as mentioned earlier, given that real life operates too quickly to process, taking intuition and instincts seriously - but with caution - makes sense. It's all more information to take on board in considering the big picture.

Given the recycling nature of reality, reincarnation would not surprise, although it is not evidence of God's existence. Our bodies recycle in and out of the environment, forming environments for other entities. If life forms turn out to have souls in other dimensions, then they would seemingly recycle too, or are at least shaped. Yet none of that suggests a deity, although physics opened up to that degree would surely make deities seem more feasible.

IOW, sure some theist have some touchy feeling experience, mystical, perhaps profound, perhaps not, and decide simply on that basis that God is real or whatever. But best case examples are part of long intentional practices, where controlled repetition, outside prediction and practical application are the rule.

Fair point, although the former appears to be far more common than the latter, perhaps in the same way as novice painters are more common than masters. However, I think one can infer based on conduct whether a theist is of the type that simply took the opportunity to believe or whether the believer is a serious explorer.

Now consider these serious explorations, with "long term apprentice processes, with discipline and having experiences that are repeatable, predictive, mutual and useful". Explorers of the outside world - scientists - have done the same thing.

Yet is there a single scientist whom, if they claimed 100% that there was or was not any kind of existent or potential god (not just Santa for Grownups), we would consider credible in making that claim? Of course not! The boffins have been proving each other wrong for centuries - once the universe was a dome within the celestial clockworks with Earth at the centre. Then we found out about the Sun, then the Milky Way, then that the Milky Way was not alone, and so forth.

So why take grand claims about God or gods more seriously when coming from scientifically-minded mystics and psychonauts? Like scientists, they can make many useful and important discoveries, but they are just as fallible.

Whatever, too many people have been wrong about things of which they were "absolutely certain". Thus science. Thus agnosticism. It's really just avoiding counting your chickens before they hatch. So I do enjoy mysticism in my life, just that I'm unsure of its nature. For all I know it might all just be brain chemicals. Or not.

My point was not that we should accept other people’s intuition – though everyone does. My point was that everyone, scientists included, skeptics included, use a varied set of epistemologies. Everyone allows intuition to guide their decision making on critical issues, issues critical personally and for others.

So one issue is the hypocrisy when one side presents itself as having one epistemology, when in fact it uses several and not just for trivial things.

The other is the context within which mystical experiences are experienced.

It's not necessarily hypocritical because there are degrees of rigour - "use of intuition" may be conservative or complete. The human capacity, often compulsion, to fool both itself and others is IMO is one of the key issues here.

[DrJamchie]

1. Which God? By which I mean various religious claim to know specific mutually exclusive Gods. Which God are you being agnostic about and does it matter?

In case we live in a simulation, then there must be someone or something that have started it. Also there might be someone or something that is administrating it. Such entity would be all-knowing and all-powerful and in some other aspects similar to gods of monotheistic religions.

2. How do your actions change, with practical examples, if you are agnostic.

Sometimes, unwittingly, I try to explain of defense my actions or intentions in my head just in case someone is listening and judging. Also in some really desperate situation I might ask god for help. The slight possibility of after-life (which is not guaranteed even if god exists), makes inevitability of death not so terrifying, even if just for curiosity.

3. If you are agnostic, as defined above, then is it exactly 50/50 whether or not God exists. And does that matter?

Given how much we do not know about origins of life and universe I would not push this to either direction.

For all it worth, I was atheist before turning agnostic.