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

[GaryLouisSmith]

I think you don't quite know what philosophers,poets, and scientists mean by 'nature'. Male and female sex organs are things of nature.

Why is it that those people who don't like being enslaved by a male, monotheistic God are perfectly happy being enslaved to the Goddess Nature.

[Belindi]

I think you don't quite know what philosophers,poets, and scientists mean by 'nature'. Male and female sex organs are things of nature.

Why is it that those people who don't like being enslaved by a male, monotheistic God are perfectly happy being enslaved to the Goddess Nature.

That is a worthy question. Quite a few people do rebel against nature and some of us can't look Kali in the face. Nature is what we have whether we like it or not. Nature can't be wrong but is necessarily what nature is and can't be otherwise than it is. Nature is what nature does.

The monotheistic god (or 'God' to give him his name) is usually explained to people in the form of established authority ," almighty " and so on. But unlike morally neutral nature , god's supposed authority is sometimes right and sometimes wrong as we have seen by the slightest glance at the evils of the past, many of them perpetrated in the name of God. But god is not almighty ; nature is almighty . Hindu deities represent broad forces of nature, Atman / Brahman is natural not supernatural.
I am sure you find a lot of pagan practices such as sacrificing animals in Kathmandu. Pagan practices do survive in ethnic traditions but Hindu philosophy can be enjoyed without any stone age magic. Ideas do evolve.

[Sculptor1]

So REV Tinker was the " only person who could talk and mediate between the North Vietnamese in Paris and the American government."
I think unlikely.
Claims using hyperbole or superlatives tend to appear ridiculous.

I am certainly a ridiculous person.

I'd be willing to accept that, as long as you did not try to claim that you were the ONLY ridiculous person, or the MOST ridiculous person.

[Sy Borg]

You have to hand it to humans. We are big on sacrifices - as long as the sacrifice is made by someone else.

Animal sacrifice, along with factory farming and war, highlight human hubris, vanity and lack of empathy.

If human civilisations survive their environmental vandalism, these cruel and pathetic practices will diminish (and not just because most other large species will be extinct). There is a very long way to go for humanity to reach its potential, morally as much as technologically.

Humans will not survive their being what they are. The true exemplar of who we are is the Marquis de Sade. We are a sado-masochistic lot. Your dream is unrealistic. The boy who comes and cooks and cleans for me is the one in his village who cuts off the head of the sacrificial animal. He is a very cute, rather timid boy. I come from the state of Iowa, where at any given time there are about three million people and sixteen million pigs all (both human and animal) in confinement, waiting to be slaughtered.

Not unrealistic, just speaking in shorthand. Of course humans will remain the watery bags of need they have always been.

It will only be when we are either mostly synthetic, or when consciousness is fully digitised, that morality amongst the masses - or at least non-destructiveness - will be achieveable. While we are still animals we will continue to behave as such.

[GaryLouisSmith]

Pagan practices do survive in ethnic traditions but Hindu philosophy can be enjoyed without any stone age magic. Ideas do evolve.

I think what you are really against is not belief in a monotheistic God, but belief in magic. Your real adversary is the magician.

[GaryLouisSmith]

Humans will not survive their being what they are. The true exemplar of who we are is the Marquis de Sade. We are a sado-masochistic lot. Your dream is unrealistic. The boy who comes and cooks and cleans for me is the one in his village who cuts off the head of the sacrificial animal. He is a very cute, rather timid boy. I come from the state of Iowa, where at any given time there are about three million people and sixteen million pigs all (both human and animal) in confinement, waiting to be slaughtered.

Not unrealistic, just speaking in shorthand. Of course humans will remain the watery bags of need they have always been.

It will only be when we are either mostly synthetic, or when consciousness is fully digitised, that morality amongst the masses - or at least non-destructiveness - will be achieveable. While we are still animals we will continue to behave as such.

you should read Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. He very poetically writes up the beautiful violence of nature. Your morality and non-destructiveness seem so pale and lifeless beside that.

[Sy Borg]

Not unrealistic, just speaking in shorthand. Of course humans will remain the watery bags of need they have always been.

It will only be when we are either mostly synthetic, or when consciousness is fully digitised, that morality amongst the masses - or at least non-destructiveness - will be achieveable. While we are still animals we will continue to behave as such.

you should read Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. He very poetically writes up the beautiful violence of nature. Your morality and non-destructiveness seem so pale and lifeless beside that.

I certainly hope so! Nature's redness in tooth and claw, usually administered by the species H. sapiens, gets a bit much after a while.

I think that suffering is something to be outgrown on a macro level, like childhood and the terrible teens. Biology seems to be a phase, a catalyst, rather than a destination. At some stage life will need to "put away childish things". The Earth's habitability is not forever. If the journey is to continue, it won't be biology taking the baton out into the cosmos to spread Earth's madness, but post-life.

[GaryLouisSmith]

you should read Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. He very poetically writes up the beautiful violence of nature. Your morality and non-destructiveness seem so pale and lifeless beside that.

I certainly hope so! Nature's redness in tooth and claw, usually administered by the species H. sapiens, gets a bit much after a while.

I think that suffering is something to be outgrown on a macro level, like childhood and the terrible teens. Biology seems to be a phase, a catalyst, rather than a destination. At some stage life will need to "put away childish things". The Earth's habitability is not forever. If the journey is to continue, it won't be biology taking the baton out into the cosmos to spread Earth's madness, but post-life.

The post-biologic world will arrive here the same way this biologic world did. Some writer will contemplate the Eternal Form and he/she will write it into place.

[Consul]

The post-biologic world will arrive here the same way this biologic world did. Some writer will contemplate the Eternal Form and he/she will write it into place.

I recommend Terrence Malick's awesome VOYAGE OF TIME (the feature-length version):

"Voyage of Time is a celebration of the universe, displaying the whole of time, from its start to its final collapse. This film examines all that occurred to prepare the world that stands before us now: science and spirit, birth and death, the grand cosmos and the minute life systems of our planet."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_Time

[GaryLouisSmith]

The post-biologic world will arrive here the same way this biologic world did. Some writer will contemplate the Eternal Form and he/she will write it into place.

I recommend Terrence Malick's awesome VOYAGE OF TIME (the feature-length version):

"Voyage of Time is a celebration of the universe, displaying the whole of time, from its start to its final collapse. This film examines all that occurred to prepare the world that stands before us now: science and spirit, birth and death, the grand cosmos and the minute life systems of our planet."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_Time

That does look like a good film. I like such things. As I watched that trailer, I kept noticing the word "the" spoken throughout. The past, the present, the future, the universe. Of course the definite description has had a big journey itself in philosophy. When did mankind first learn to say "the" or its equivalent in other languages? I myself doubt that there is one past, one present, one future, one universe, one reality. The word "the" controls too much of what we think. I am more fascinated by the indefinite words: a/an, any, every, some. Do indefinite things exist?

[Felix]

Belindi: Hindu deities represent broad forces of nature, Atman / Brahman is natural not supernatural.

Unlike the personal Hindu dieties, Atman (Individual Consciousness/Soul) and Brahman (Universal Consciousness/Soul) do not represent Natural forces.

GaryLouisSmith: Do indefinite things exist?

Only until you name them... you may have to go back to age 1 or so to remember that. What is the sound of one hand clapping?

[GaryLouisSmith]

Belindi: Hindu deities represent broad forces of nature, Atman / Brahman is natural not supernatural.

Unlike the personal Hindu dieties, Atman (Individual Consciousness/Soul) and Brahman (Universal Consciousness/Soul) do not represent Natural forces.

GaryLouisSmith: Do indefinite things exist?

Only until you name them... you may have to go back to age 1 or so to remember that. What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Are you saying that indefinite things do exist, but then when a conscious mind names them, they change and become definite?

[Felix]

Are you saying that indefinite things do exist, but then when a conscious mind names them, they change and become definite?

Yes, they are kind of like background noises until they are identified.

[Belindi]

I think what you are really against is not belief in a monotheistic God, but belief in magic. Your real adversary is the magician.

I am against supernatural authority however it manifests itself. I expect there are magicians who don't use their art to get power over other people.

Felix is wrong about Atman/Brahman which is natural inasmuch as all that happens is natural. Human life is natural , human soul with ego is natural, and human soul without ego is natural.

Gary's insisting reality is eternal Forms and only eternal Forms is insufficient. True, reality (nature) is eternal Forms and also particular instances of eternal forms. The idea of the right angled triangle is true and manifested relatively right angled triangles are relatively true.

[GaryLouisSmith]

I am against supernatural authority however it manifests itself. I expect there are magicians who don't use their art to get power over other people.

Felix is wrong about Atman/Brahman which is natural inasmuch as all that happens is natural. Human life is natural , human soul with ego is natural, and human soul without ego is natural.

Gary's insisting reality is eternal Forms and only eternal Forms is insufficient. True, reality (nature) is eternal Forms and also particular instances of eternal forms. The idea of the right angled triangle is true and manifested relatively right angled triangles are relatively true.

The whole point of magic is to gain power over other people. Magic and religion belong mainly to the poor and the marginalized people of society. The educated, urban elite, the rich and the powerful have science. The poor use magic and religion to scare the hell out of the rich. And it works right well, witness how the wealthy in the West (and also East) are trembling in their shoes because terrorists might come at any moment, filthy poor people who believe and practice magic.

In Hindu philosophy the word for nature is prakriti. Purusa is pure consciousness. They are distinct, except that purusa has “accidentally” fallen into prakriti and thinks that prakriti is its true being. Moksa, liberation, comes when purusa comes to see that he is other than prakriti and free. If you google Samkhya, prakriti and purusa you will find a ton of stuff.

What do the words “Eternal Forms” mean? At least what do I mean by those words? Remember that I am your postmodern philosopher. Maybe post-postmodern. Where should we go to encounter Reality? I mean the Really Real. Obviously, to a shopping mall. Maybe the virtual shopping mall that is the Internet. And to photo-shopped porno. Perfection everywhere you look. In that commercial world one escapes the ordinary everyday so full of imperfection and entropy. The word “commerce” is Mercury, who is Hermes, lord of boundaries, which is where trading has always been done, the liminal. He is also the god of theft and trickery. Commerce is hermetic magic. You fall for it every time.