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

[GaryLouisSmith]

Belindi: But god has no attributes.

Or every possible attribute.

GaryLouisSmith: I have talked about the Boy as a god and people are ready to call the police. Nobody is against me for being gay, but they are very suspicious of me because of that peculiar brand of theism I have. The Boy.

If you define religion as the worship of what you love, that makes sense, but that's a rather pedestrian (some would say puerile) conception of religion.

Reminds me of what Charlie "Yardbird" Parker said when a reporter asked him, "Mr. Parker, are you are religious man?" Bird: "Yes Sir, I am a devout musician!"

Yes, I agree. That is a rather pedestrian conception of religion.

[GaryLouisSmith]

Skill and originality are waaaaaaaaay overrated.

...which is how mediocrity justifies it's lack of talent. If you can't compete then level what you can't ever hope to accomplish. Zombies are always in the majority and the majority rules! When it comes down to real talent the deplorables have a flat earth policy.

Those without genius try to rely on mere talent, but it is always less.

[Jklint]

...which is how mediocrity justifies it's lack of talent. If you can't compete then level what you can't ever hope to accomplish. Zombies are always in the majority and the majority rules! When it comes down to real talent the deplorables have a flat earth policy.

Those without genius try to rely on mere talent, but it is always less.

You made the assertion that skill and originality is way overrated. Since genius being a more advanced version of talent it falls within your conclusion of being overrated. We know, for instance, that Romeo & Juliet beats a run-of-the-mill romance novel even though it takes a certain skill to write those to. So what's your point! There are many envious of talents they don't possess without including genius in the mix...unless you mean that talent is overrated but genius is not which depends on what qualifies as genius. Andy Warhol for me is a mediocre talent while you many think he's a genius.

[GaryLouisSmith]

Those without genius try to rely on mere talent, but it is always less.

You made the assertion that skill and originality is way overrated. Since genius being a more advanced version of talent it falls within your conclusion of being overrated. We know, for instance, that Romeo & Juliet beats a run-of-the-mill romance novel even though it takes a certain skill to write those to. So what's your point! There are many envious of talents they don't possess without including genius in the mix...unless you mean that talent is overrated but genius is not which depends on what qualifies as genius. Andy Warhol for me is a mediocre talent while you many think he's a genius.

Genius is not advanced talent. They are two very different things. Talent makes doing something look easy, like anybody could do it. Genius makes it look impossible. Take Nijinsky who was a dancer possessed of genius. He was great, not because he could jump higher or farther than other dancers, but because he seemed to come down slower. Take Jean Genet or William Burroughs as writers of genius. No one would say they have advanced talent. They are scandalous, but there is a spirit in their words that captivates. The genius is possessed and it is frightening. A person of talent is just a normal someone with ability.

[Jklint]

Genius is not advanced talent. They are two very different things. Talent makes doing something look easy, like anybody could do it. Genius makes it look impossible.

You can think of it in that manner; it has some validity but ability is just a matter of degree. Genius to me is talent gone ultraviolet just like a hydrogen bomb needs an atomic bomb to set it off.

Take Nijinsky who was a dancer possessed of genius. He was great, not because he could jump higher or farther than other dancers, but because he seemed to come down slower.

Nijinsky is no genius but an exceptional performer who through discipline and control of his body could do what he did. Genius is measured by creativity, not performance which requires talent and much of it; the one area where the two are indeed distinct. The realm of talent is far greater than that of genius since more people are endowed with it. Pooling talent can create the effects of genius especially when it comes down to technologies and the sciences.

Take Jean Genet or William Burroughs as writers of genius.

I read about William Burroughs because I never heard of him. Now I know why.

The genius is possessed and it is frightening.

That's an old wives tale. A genius is certainly single minded regarding his/her task but possessed and frightening! Not likely though there are exceptions. Besides, even a mediocre talent can so concentrate on what he wants to accomplish that he may appear being possessed. Talent, in having to strain more, forces that impression more often than those rife with genius who encounter less resistance. Not least, being weird does not mean you're possessed with genius though you may be frightening. It just means you're weird.

[GaryLouisSmith]

Take Jean Genet or William Burroughs as writers of genius.

I read about William Burroughs because I never heard of him. Now I know why.

I'm curious to know what you read about Burroughs and why you "now know why". How about Genet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq_hztHJCM4&t=181s

[Sy Borg]

Define "anti-social" in context and then I'll decide if what you say is true.

That’s a good question, Greta. I will define the social as the inter-connectedness of all things in the cosmos. Everything has its place and function in the great ordering of things. Everything is important and necessary and has value. The Whole depends on the well-being of its parts. Every part must be cared for. In the past that was called the Balance of Nature. And that Balance extended to humans living together. Everyone had his/her place and function in the group. And that ordering was enforced for the good of all. It was very conservative.

The anti-social then becomes any act by thing or person that tears apart the tissue of inter-connectedness.

Up above Belindi was trying to correct my theology, but informing me that God has no attributes ... [many mentions of phalluses etc.]

Seems that you are describing your anti-social aspirations. I don't usually think of people in terms of their sociality, because I'm not very social myself these days, so that side of life is not much on my radar.

A gendered god to me is absurd. Any god that represents one side is not a god but a pretender. A deity in a monotheistic creed must encompass all to have the slightest hope (against hope, it should be said) of credibility. Nothing in life or the world suggests a gendered deity. It only suggests that greater disease immunity and adaptation comes from sexual reproduction than asexual reproduction. So we wind up with genders and phalluses and vaginas.

While there are broader active/receptive dynamics at play throughout reality, it's only one angle. It's the angle you focus on, but reality is like and elephant surrounded by blind people making different claims based on the part of the animal they are accessing.

Another angle: reality is fractal. The same dynamics, with variations, keep appearing.

Reality is also the dance of two great bundled forces - those pushing inwards and those pushing outwards.

Reality also particulates. Take any homogeneous field and, over time it will particulate to become a blend of very concentrated entities and relative space.

Speaking of very concentrated entities, reality is also a particle and a wave. The wave is the one with all the oomph, being the effects and emanations of incredibly concentrated particles.

Reality is also relativistic and quantum, the large built from the small. Physicality and mentality (the latter being subtle physicality).

What of the interactions between initial states and later conditioning/development?

Obviously I can't provide anywhere near a complete list of these features of our many-sided reality. Good luck focusing on your angle.

[GaryLouisSmith]

[many mentions of phalluses etc.]

A gendered god to me is absurd..
[/quote]

I think that sums up your views on the matter. Thanks

[Sy Borg]

To you, perhaps. In truth, that statement sums up precious little about me at all.

Pretty shallow IMO to interpret a person's few words online as the whole. I thought you might have more going on than the most basic tribalism.

[GaryLouisSmith]

To you, perhaps. In truth, that statement sums up precious little about me at all.

Pretty shallow IMO to interpret a person's few words online as the whole. I thought you might have more going on than the most basic tribalism.

I think that "precious little" says much more about you than you think. Gender and religion and the gods and so much more are all contained in that little judgment of yours. That little statement of yours spoke volumes.

[Sy Borg]

Gary, you are not capable of understanding even a small portion of my mind, any more than I can understand yours. To imagine otherwise is delusion and make believe.

[GaryLouisSmith]

Gary, you are not capable of understanding even a small portion of my mind, any more than I can understand yours. To imagine otherwise is delusion and make believe.

In this post you just confirmed what I suspected about you from reading that earlier statement. You are espousing philosophical Idealism, especially a kind of Holism. You are not to be identified with any “piece” of your existence, but only with the Whole. To absolutize the piece is to make it false. You are a great system. Just as the Cosmos is The Great System. And any and every system is unknowable by a finite human mind, even the mind itself. Indeed, even a tiny pebble is a system that contains multitudes. Then the mind is beyond itself as it falls into the Whole. Oh My it’s just too too too much.

I am not an Idealist. I don’t believe in holism. I think I can see reality directly and speak it. Yes, a gendered god is absurd, but the gods exist. Therefore the irrational abounds. Idealism is just too f*cking rational for me. I am looking direct at the thing before me. It is real.

[Sy Borg]

I'm just pointing out that we are complex beings and it's fantasy if one thinks they can see through the layers of a person based on an internet discussion. I'm no idealist. Just a realist.

Sure, all systems are too complex to fully understand. Hence the problems with medicine, where the complexity of a body evolved over billions of years remains difficult to work out. We see how much can happen in a century. Imagine how much can happen in a billion years.

Gods only exist in the subjective domain so, if many people imagine a gendered god, then that is a powerful meme. But it's just a shared fantasy. There is cleaner feedback loop to be gained by focusing on what is real rather than filtering reality through anthropomorphic lenses.

Rather than claiming that the rest of reality resembles humans, we should be looking at how much we humans resemble the rest of reality, especially humans en masse. Our colonies behave similarly to others found in nature. They are expansive entities, capable of being more than the sum of their parts, and especially dangerous foes for their peers. We are part of nested larger systems.

You seem to think reality is rational, and that bores you. However, the more we learn about nature, the more bizarre and esoteric we realise it is. So many assumptions we have made turned out to be wrong. Nature? Rational? Not really. The cosmos moves in mysterious ways ...

[GaryLouisSmith]

I'm just pointing out that we are complex beings and it's fantasy if one thinks they can see through the layers of a person based on an internet discussion. I'm no idealist. Just a realist.

Sure, all systems are too complex to fully understand. Hence the problems with medicine, where the complexity of a body evolved over billions of years remains difficult to work out. We see how much can happen in a century. Imagine how much can happen in a billion years.

Gods only exist in the subjective domain so, if many people imagine a gendered god, then that is a powerful meme. But it's just a shared fantasy. There is cleaner feedback loop to be gained by focusing on what is real rather than filtering reality through anthropomorphic lenses.

Rather than claiming that the rest of reality resembles humans, we should be looking at how much we humans resemble the rest of reality, especially humans en masse. Our colonies behave similarly to others found in nature. They are expansive entities, capable of being more than the sum of their parts, and especially dangerous foes for their peers. We are part of nested larger systems.

You seem to think reality is rational, and that bores you. However, the more we learn about nature, the more bizarre and esoteric we realise it is. So many assumptions we have made turned out to be wrong. Nature? Rational? Not really. The cosmos moves in mysterious ways ...

The objection I have to what I understand is your philosophy is that it is without much content. You do have natural things, things of nature. But you do not have abstractions and objects of the imagination. All of that you shove into the subjective mind as, I suppose, non-existents. In my philosophy there are no subjective things. Everything that passes before our awareness is objective or out there.

Maybe the gods are dreams, hallucinations, mad visions. As I see things, all those things are real, really out there external to the mind. They exist. And they can be categorized.

Here’s my critique of rationalism. A rationalist will see an ordinary object as a great system of relations. An ordinary object is related to everything else in the cosmos. Indeed, those relations are internal to what it is. To know the object is to know all those relations. Of course that is impossible. Rationalism is the idea that an object exists only within a great system of relations. If it is extricated (abstracted away) from that inter-connectedness, it dies. A human exists only in the family or community. Maybe that family is a family of animals or rocks, nonetheless it is a family.

I like to tear things apart, i.e. to analyze then. Then I have the simple parts outside the complex they are within. For example, consider the words “the” or “outside” or “they” in the previous sentence. What existent do those words refer to? A rationalist will say that they don’t refer to anything because those worlds exist and are meaningful only within the complex context. They are abstractions and abstractions don’t exist.

Years ago when I was in my rockist phase what I really liked was categorizing all them. I did the same thing with trees and objects in the small grocery store I worked in. I loved to categorize. Those categories were more important than the objects themselves. I also liked to visit museum where things were laid out in cases all appropriately labeled. I remember butterflies and beetles. And sea shells. Everything under glass and labelled. I really had no desire to go out in nature and see those things in situ. Categories are more important to me that the individual things. Abstractions of sameness. One can do the same thing with geometrical shapes and pieces inside an old vacuum tube radio. I guess there is no accounting for taste.

[Belindi]

GaryLouisSmith wrote:

A gendered god to me is absurd..

I think that sums up your views on the matter. Thanks[/quote]

If you allow your god is one gender or another, will you also allow your god is one age or another, one profession or another, one political affiliation or another, one skin pigmentation or another?

If your god has one attribute and so on according to the principle of a personal god has many attributes does he become eventually a mirror image of yourself?

Then you would be a solipsist.

However if Gary is saying maleness is a god, one of many gods, then Gary is polytheist. I like polytheism better than solipsism.

If Gary would use the conventional nomenclature e.g. ''polytheist', 'solipsist' and so forth perhaps I could understand .If indeed Gary wants to make himself clear to others.