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

[GaryLouisSmith]

GaryLouisSmith: I think most people responding here have made the mistake of thinking the Eternal Return as a temporal succession of lives. It was an ecstatic vision, not a thought experiment. He could see in an instant the repeating lives. They all occur at once, simultaneously.

If it's the same life over and over again, as Neitzsche described, then there are obviously no successive lives, it's an eternal time loop. I guess it would be too much to ask to expect you to make sense, at least occasionally?

If I occasionally make sense it's a mistake on my part. Metaphysics is madness - as the logical positivists said. Not only that but madness is metaphysics. The fact that you always want to feel as though you are encountering sane, rationality proves that you are not made for metaphysics. I would describe you as a rationalist, a scientific materialist -but not in the extreme. You, I bet, want to feel at home in your world. And you prefer not to go where wild thing roam. Sounds boring to me, but who am I to judge. I'm a deranged metaphysician. Can a time loop occur in an instant or does it take at least a finite amount of time to complete one circuit? And what about that electron that goes through both slits is Schroedinger's experiment?

[Belindi]

GaryLouisSmith wrote:

And you prefer not to go where wild thing roam. Sounds boring to me, but who am I to judge. I'm a deranged metaphysician.

Yes but what makes you get out of bed in the morning apart from having to pee, eat, and drink? You were right when you suggested I use all this metaphysics and stuff to try to find a better life.

I think it was you yourself who claimed similarity, relationship, or even identity between Jesus, Hermes, Nietzsche, liminality, and if I remember Platonic Forms.

What I do when faced with an idea or ideas I don't understand is think about it and read it up until I feel I have arrived at a conclusion. In this regard you yourself are trickster who throws cats among pigeons. The stage of "think about it" is uncomfortable as long as it lasts. Now I feel I know the way ahead in the world of my ideas. That is the benefit for me of open discussion like here.

Trickster is the most interesting of archetypes and is cause of the ensuing state of liminality which follows the trick. Naturally we fear Trickster as so much of life is being thrown into the deep end of mysterious sea of trouble, and that is why Trickster is archetypal. Some liminal states are fun like when Cinderella meets her trickster, or when a comedian makes us laugh and make fun of something we had been po-faced about.

The Romans and collaborating Jews were afraid of Jesus the disrupter of their power status quo. Likewise Socrates and Mandela. And sexual minorities. Trickster and the liminal state apply to politics, cookery. criminality, and personal mental health and is recorded in countless folk tales and other literature, besides theatre and religion(which is a variety of theatre). They are also the bases of existential angst ,and rites de passage such as funeral and wedding ceremonies.

[GaryLouisSmith]

GaryLouisSmith wrote:

And you prefer not to go where wild thing roam. Sounds boring to me, but who am I to judge. I'm a deranged metaphysician.

Yes but what makes you get out of bed in the morning apart from having to pee, eat, and drink? You were right when you suggested I use all this metaphysics and stuff to try to find a better life.

I think it was you yourself who claimed similarity, relationship, or even identity between Jesus, Hermes, Nietzsche, liminality, and if I remember Platonic Forms.

What I do when faced with an idea or ideas I don't understand is think about it and read it up until I feel I have arrived at a conclusion. In this regard you yourself are trickster who throws cats among pigeons. The stage of "think about it" is uncomfortable as long as it lasts. Now I feel I know the way ahead in the world of my ideas. That is the benefit for me of open discussion like here.

Trickster is the most interesting of archetypes and is cause of the ensuing state of liminality which follows the trick. Naturally we fear Trickster as so much of life is being thrown into the deep end of mysterious sea of trouble, and that is why Trickster is archetypal. Some liminal states are fun like when Cinderella meets her trickster, or when a comedian makes us laugh and make fun of something we had been po-faced about.

The Romans and collaborating Jews were afraid of Jesus the disrupter of their power status quo. Likewise Socrates and Mandela. And sexual minorities. Trickster and the liminal state apply to politics, cookery. criminality, and personal mental health and is recorded in countless folk tales and other literature, besides theatre and religion(which is a variety of theatre). They are also the bases of existential angst ,and rites de passage such as funeral and wedding ceremonies.

What I write on this forum is traditional metaphysics and also in line with modern and postmodern logical analysis. The others on this forum, who know nothing of those ideas, think I am a raving, stupid idiot. You and I both know that there is nothing I could say that would convince them otherwise. They will never spend time learning the history of philosophical ideas. So what am I to do? I play along and just get on with it. I'm used to it.

[Karpel Tunnel]

What I write on this forum is traditional metaphysics and also in line with modern and postmodern logical analysis. The others on this forum, who know nothing of those ideas, think I am a raving, stupid idiot. You and I both know that there is nothing I could say that would convince them otherwise. They will never spend time learning the history of philosophical ideas. So what am I to do? I play along and just get on with it. I'm used to it.

Somewhere along the line philosophy became common sense/trickle down science groupism. So you have a tension between more traditional theists and the occasional new ager vs. 'Team Rational'. Woe unto he who does not fit these categories.

And there is a tremendous dearth of believe based on experience: religious, exploratory, scientific, anomalous. It is all based on what is read.

This is a tangential rant. But let me tie it to the thread title....

Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?

Notice the way the issue is framed. In terms of proof - as if proof was even on the table for most alleged phenomena, including mundane phenomena and 'things'. Notice the implicit: if you can't convince me, you should believe it yourself, even though the person asking ABSOLUTELY must have beliefs that cannot be demonstrated to be true to others. For example, things they experienced in private that have left no residue.

Note the absence that one might come to a belief via experience.

The assumption that if one knows something and is right you should be able, online no less, to create a verbal proof.

The theists who arrive will probably, in the West, accept this framing and work within it, disagreeing of course. Strange but true.

Philosophy as arguing over multiple choice answers on a reading comprehension test.

[Karpel Tunnel]

There are a couple of missed negatives and typos above. Hopefully the core idea will get through.

[GaryLouisSmith]

There are a couple of missed negatives and typos above. Hopefully the core idea will get through.

Your idea got through and it's a good idea.

[Karpel Tunnel]

There are a couple of missed negatives and typos above. Hopefully the core idea will get through.

Your idea got through and it's a good idea.

Good. I appreciate your posts, though I often don't find a response that fits the thread and your post. It is welcome to get someone who is outside of the few politically correct philosophical slots. To an atheist you are worse than a traditional theist. To a theist you are likely a sinner of some kind and also not enough of a Middle Ages European theologian. You 'rudely' refer to experience and simply take stands unapologetically.

It often seems like the core motivation of philosophy forums is to keep the barbarians under check. The two core teams, of course, seeing the other as barbarians. And that's a snore, often based on a very limited view of the options and very little life experience. I mean, **** I know atheists, Christians, Buddhists, Bhakti chanting Hindus, shamans, mediums, scientists, detached rationalists (little r) and can work with any of them. I have tried their active immersion based practices - and I include scientific practice in there and as immersive. I have had their core experiences - I won't claim all the way through, but enough to get a sense of what they are talking about.

Onlline is mainly armchair generals. Which includes a very big implicit assumption that no one bothers to defend.

[GaryLouisSmith]

Your idea got through and it's a good idea.

Good. I appreciate your posts, though I often don't find a response that fits the thread and your post. It is welcome to get someone who is outside of the few politically correct philosophical slots. To an atheist you are worse than a traditional theist. To a theist you are likely a sinner of some kind and also not enough of a Middle Ages European theologian. You 'rudely' refer to experience and simply take stands unapologetically.

It often seems like the core motivation of philosophy forums is to keep the barbarians under check. The two core teams, of course, seeing the other as barbarians. And that's a snore, often based on a very limited view of the options and very little life experience. I mean, **** I know atheists, Christians, Buddhists, Bhakti chanting Hindus, shamans, mediums, scientists, detached rationalists (little r) and can work with any of them. I have tried their active immersion based practices - and I include scientific practice in there and as immersive. I have had their core experiences - I won't claim all the way through, but enough to get a sense of what they are talking about.

Onlline is mainly armchair generals. Which includes a very big implicit assumption that no one bothers to defend.

LOL Yes, I am that. I am also a barbarian. And an easy touch for my poor friends. The mistake most people make is mistaking content for content. Everything I have to say is paratextual. And queered.

[Felix]

GaryLouisSmith: You, I bet, want to feel at home in your world.

Well, I never have, so why start now?

Language fails us in its vain endeavour
The spirit mounts above, and lives forever.
- Goethe

[Sculptor1]

What do you think it means?

The Eternal Return is the Hindu idea of Samsara. It is the cycle of birth and rebirth. It is that which the religious person is ever trying to get off of. How do we get off the Wheel of Life? That is the great question of Hinduism and Buddhism.

Nothing to do with Nietszche.

[Sculptor1]

With Nietszche the eternal recurrence is not about getting the chance to do everything again and again until you get it right.
Neitszche was all about taking responsibility for your actions in a world limited to one life, without god or heaven.
The ER is about the ultimate embrace of responsibility that comes from accepting the consequences, good or bad, of one’s willful action!
And that you should live each day AS IF you have to repeat it endlessly for eternity. It's a lesson about never **** up.

The Hindu idea is all about a second chance. With Nietzsche there are no allowances; no second chances.
ANyone who has spent a significant time with N and his writing gets that from the outset.

[Sy Borg]

GaryLouisSmith: I think most people responding here have made the mistake of thinking the Eternal Return as a temporal succession of lives. It was an ecstatic vision, not a thought experiment. He could see in an instant the repeating lives. They all occur at once, simultaneously.

If it's the same life over and over again, as Neitzsche described, then there are obviously no successive lives, it's an eternal time loop. I guess it would be too much to ask to expect you to make sense, at least occasionally?

Evidence for the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics? :D

[GaryLouisSmith]

With Nietszche the eternal recurrence is not about getting the chance to do everything again and again until you get it right.
Neitszche was all about taking responsibility for your actions in a world limited to one life, without god or heaven.
The ER is about the ultimate embrace of responsibility that comes from accepting the consequences, good or bad, of one’s willful action!
And that you should live each day AS IF you have to repeat it endlessly for eternity. It's a lesson about never **** up.

The Hindu idea is all about a second chance. With Nietzsche there are no allowances; no second chances.
ANyone who has spent a significant time with N and his writing gets that from the outset.

How depressing. A wistful happiness in the fading knowledge that you took responsibility and then poof - nothing.

[GaryLouisSmith]

If it's the same life over and over again, as Neitzsche described, then there are obviously no successive lives, it's an eternal time loop. I guess it would be too much to ask to expect you to make sense, at least occasionally?

Evidence for the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics?

The multiverse and the parallel universes of Everett are the fading dreams of what physics could have been if the human mind could have been able to see beyond this little confine. It theoretically can't. Physics has reached its limit and is at an end.

[GaryLouisSmith]

GaryLouisSmith: You, I bet, want to feel at home in your world.

Well, I never have, so why start now?

Language fails us in its vain endeavour
The spirit mounts above, and lives forever.
- Goethe

Are you being wistful and sad at your plight as a human being?