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

[Hereandnow]

Eduk:
My nail example was supposed to be an attempt to explain the difference. For example if we feel good but for the wrong reasons and then find out those reasons were wrong we instantly lose this good feeling. In this sense our good feeling, which seemed real to us, is hollow and easily destroyed.

Good feelings embedded in the contingencies of the world is shot through with outrageous fortune. No wonder Buddhists sequester themselves.

[Eduk]

But I am not sure where the idea that we must earn bliss comes from? Have children earned the bliss they feel? Are they cheating somehow?

I believe children grow up and learn. The bliss they may feel as children may be very different than the bliss they feel as adults. This is basically the happy pig V unhappy man conundrum.

[Eduk]

Good feelings embedded in the contingencies of the world is shot through with outrageous fortune

Absolutely. But there is also reasonableness to take into account. If you did your absolute best to arrive to the most reasonable conclusion and it turns out to be wrong at least you have this knowledge in your methodological soundness. It is not always about consequentialism. But it's hard (impossible) to be impervious to such things.

[Hereandnow]

Buddhists perhaps are impervious, accomplished ones, at any rate. Consider Vietnamese Thích Quảng Đức who set himself on fire, and the many other self immolating protesters in Tibet. Hard to believe it, but they appear to be altogether in control of the pain. That's impervious.

[Felix]

Eduk: I would argue that concentrating on being blissful until the point where you are blissful is mostly unearned and therefore of no true value.

You are confusing bliss or nirvana with some sort of chemically induced high - whether that chemical be endogenous or not. It is about transcending the pleasure/pain polarity rather than being trapped in it.

[Sy Borg]

As to Greta's comment, I read Dewey and he is good on this, he is in her corner: work, good work with a beginning and a consummation, is what joy is all about. I disagree. I think the joy of completing work is a satisfying, but nowhere within parsecs of nirvana or love.

I actually agree with you, but was elucidating the usual rationale for not valuing drug-induced unearned bliss.

Actually, I see nothing admirable whatsoever in the avoidance of drugs - be it coffee, tea, booze or the illegals. Lifelong abstinence is just a decision to eschew certain risks based on what the media and others have told you. It's just a choice, and one that is meaningless in terms of morality or value, despite the usual assumptions of the public.

If an esoteric experience provides practical growth and/or learning then it's worthwhile. How such an experience is attained IMO is only important insofar as it affects health, and whether it can be controlled.

[Burning ghost]

Eduk -

The phenomenon spoken of here is likely part of the developmental stage of humans. You tend to find people have these “heightened” experiences in their 30’s. It is most certainly not equivalent to “fulfillment” or anything to do with being “happy”.

I have spoken to people who’ve taken heroin and they talk about feeling nothing emotionally, it may well be the opposite of what is being discussed here - that being something that opens up like a raw nerve. To understand and actually experience happiness as infantile and trivial is not really something that is easily articulated. “Bliss” is one attempt and “awe” is another.

As far as I can tell nirvana, heaven and all the other mythos basically reside within this unusual experience. I imagine you can get something akin to it in some respects with drugs - ayuhausca (DMT) is the most relevant example I’ve heard and is not “recreational” by any means.

[DragonflyRider]

True enough. It belongs in the same category with omnipotence, omniscience, perfection and other examples of the infinite which do not exist in reality.

Indeed! But then what, do we throw all of this out? Is something only useful or relevant if it is not factual and tangible, absolute and unrefutable? Could these concepts not act as catalyzers for the development and expansion of our individual experience?


So, even if we were to consider that the only Nirvana worth talking about needs to be the 100% utopic and idealized version of itself, we could still definitely derive benefit from it, even if it were false (unless, of course, the only reason to expand our intellect were to check off the magical list of life which things are real and which ones are not, turning our backs to anything that cannot bite us, be eaten, or copulated with).

Having made that point, our conceptions of what is factual or not is extremely limited to our own experience, so if you haven't ever experienced something that surprised you and drastically altered your perspective and self, then it makes sense that anything you haven't digested yet would seem absolutely indigestible, and anyone who consumes that thing would seem crazy.

[DragonflyRider]

I hadn't seen that there were more pages to the debate after reading the first, and posted anyway. My bad!

[Hereandnow]

BG
nirvana, heaven and all the other mythos

Nirvana should be thought of as a myth, I don't think. It is an alien term outside of the mainstream conversations we in the west are familiar with, but it is a subject fact, like feeling in love. Stories like Arthurian legends, are largely mythological, but that doesn't make romance a myth.

[Burning ghost]

H&N -

Again ... what? Can you be less clear?

[Hereandnow]

Greta:
Actually, I see nothing admirable whatsoever in the avoidance of drugs - be it coffee, tea, booze or the illegals. Lifelong abstinence is just a decision to eschew certain risks based on what the media and others have told you. It's just a choice, and one that is meaningless in terms of morality or value, despite the usual assumptions of the public.

Some "illegals" are off the charts amazing. Makes Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception seem....errr, more than merely interesting. Ponderous.

[Hereandnow]

Should not have written, "Nirvana should be thought of as a myth." Should have been "should not be thought of..."
I don't proof read just to spite myself. Serves me right not to be understood.

[Sy Borg]

Greta:
Actually, I see nothing admirable whatsoever in the avoidance of drugs - be it coffee, tea, booze or the illegals. Lifelong abstinence is just a decision to eschew certain risks based on what the media and others have told you. It's just a choice, and one that is meaningless in terms of morality or value, despite the usual assumptions of the public.

Some "illegals" are off the charts amazing. Makes Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception seem....errr, more than merely interesting. Ponderous.

Yes, philosophers, scientists and others long experimented with different mental states. Today's taboos against such things is a fad that's naively presumed to be universal because society's focus is on productivity. There is no interest in individuals' happiness or health, only productivity. Rational individuals do not share such utilitarian goals for themselves.

[Hereandnow]

Greta
There is no interest in individuals' happiness or health, only productivity.

Guy Debord wrote very bitterly about a society's dignity and worth being reduced to commodity fetishism. That was the sixties when ideas seemed to matter. Hope it doesn't take a crisis to bring respect for persons, as the multiculturalists used to put it, back.