Seeing the truth is not conductive to survival

[AshvinP]

(except bacteria part)

Come on, every body knows that humans are just space suits and Application Programming Intephases for anaerobic endogastric bacteria, which became necessary after the plants poisoned the air with oxygen.

Those AEB are way too low resolution for me... I'm with Hoffman on that, my API interface just gives up when we get down to that scale. But, in general I agree - one life form's "exploitation" is another life form's evolution! Eventually all these secrets of Nature will be cleared up in the spiral of temporality becoming eternity.

[JustinG]

I agree and disagree with you. I agree that I think that if the consequences of totalizing world narratives have been, on the whole, terrible, then that should prompt a hard look at the tree the fruit is growing from. I’m open to the possibility that the hard look will reveal something about the Bad Totalizing Stories that’s missing from some of the others, and for that reason I disagree that I’m beginning with a fallacious presupposition.

Interesting discussion going on. I think Postone's take on totality is relevant to DS's remarks about totalizing stories. In describing his own take on totality whilst criticizing that of Derrida (which seems similar to that of DS), Postone writes (https://platypus1917.org/wp-content/upl ... damarx.pdf) :

"...totality here is the object of the critique. This approach, like Derrida’s, is critical of homogeneity and
totalization. However, rather than denying their real existence, this critique grounds
processes of homogenization and totalization in historically specific forms of social
relations and seeks to show how structural tensions internal to those relations open up
the possibility of the historical abolition of those processes.

The problem with many recent critical approaches that affirm heterogeneity,
including Derrida’s, is that they seek to inscribe it quasi-metaphysically, by denying the
existence of what could only be historically abolished. In this way, positions intended
to empower people end up being profoundly disempowering, inasmuch as they bracket
and render invisible central dimensions of domination in the modern world."

So, Postone argues that both the affirmation of totality and the denial of its historical existence further oppressive structures. Hence, when postmodernist philosophers like Lyotard declare that "the world is a fable", this does nothing to change historical realities, and instead leads to things like insularity, fragmentation and the narrowness of identity politics.

To put this view in terms of the language being used on this forum - Yes, there is a historically dynamic metamorphic progression, and yes, this progression has oppressive and totalizing features. But the oppressive and totalizing features cannot be overcome by simply asserting that they have no sound philosophical foundation. Rather, they can only be overcome through the historical dynamic itself (in which individuals can participate). I think this accords well with Barfield's horseshoe diagram.

[AshvinP]

We may disagree on that last part too, in which case I will just keep the metamorphic process within this lifetime for now.

I don’t disagree that What-Is which is you is also the What-Is which is me, and my grandmother, and each bacterium in my stomach. And there is a sense, of course, in which I am what I am through what you are, and what my grandmother was, and what the bacteria in my stomach are -- I like Thich Nhat Hanh’s word “interbeing” for this. And so whatever is learned and verified in one lifetime ultimately finds expression through many lifetimes. It may end up being overturned in some other lifetimes, then reestablished in yet others, or synthesized in new ways, or just forgotten. “Learning” and “verification” are always temporal and provisional.

With that said, I don’t believe there’s some kind of personal structure, some aspect of my individual soul, that survives death in order to be reincarnated, such that there will (for example) arrive an infant carrying memories of my experiences. Remember that I affirmed with you the “inseparable connection between the spiritual and the physical.” This non-survival is key to the differences between me and a whole lot of metaphysics and theologies I’ve come across, most of which seem to be seeking out some way of justifying the idea that we survive death.

(Even secular, materialist people with a poetic streak will sometimes twist themselves in knots talking about how the heat in our bodies disperses and is carried by the Universe forever or literally anything to keep from facing death squarely.)

I think I agree completely with the first paragraph (except bacteria part) but not at all with the 2nd, so at least we are splitting the difference

I just realized I do not agree with the bolded part and did not read it carefully enough before, so wanted to clarify that. As we see from the diagram, there is a very broad metamorphic progression that is occurring towards integration of perspectives, whether any given individual chooses to participate or not (and, as discussed on another thread, no perspective chooses to fragment itself). So I don't think there can be any significant oscillations which go back towards broad fragmentation of knowledge in the manner you seem to be suggesting.

[AshvinP]

In faith we seek justice, knowing all the while that it is temporary and provisional. In faith we act with compassion, knowing that those to whom we extend it will suffer anyway. In faith we make peace, facing squarely the conflict that will undo it. In faith, we love without illusion. Death loses its sting when we love in its shadow. Death loses its victory when it cannot stop us from justice-seeking, peacemaking, and compassion. When we love in the heart of the yawning abyss, we overcome death.

This faith is our only true hope, not the hope of an idyllic future, but the hope that we can choose to love no matter what shape the future takes and in what guise death ultimately finds us. We find ourselves in the people and projects to which we give ourselves, but only if we do so authentically, knowing that to give ourselves to anything is to give ourselves ultimately to death, to loss and grief. The life that emerges from the embrace of death, from choosing to live fully here, now, in this very moment, in the depths of the abyss, is nothing short of resurrection.

There is a lot I can relate to in your death essay. I think you intuitively grasp (yes this has become one of my favorite phrases to use) the nihilism of belief that I also wrote an essay on. The hollowed out promises of redemption, salvation, afterlife, etc. of the modern church. But I bolded the word "knowing" above because ultimately that is the true antidote to the nihilism of blind faith - Kant said, "I had to deny knowledge to make room for faith", and I say we reverse that completely to, "I have to deny faith to make room for knowledge". There is no more use starting with faith in these things, because starting there does not allow us to develop the qualities of spirit and soul which are necessary moving forward. These are many of the same "virtues" of old but with the added dimension of true knowledge and full consciousness. The point I would make in reference to your essay, though, is that we cannot resist where "knowing" actually takes us. As Justin also touched on above, we cannot presuppose there is no purpose or hope or eternality. If we do that, then we are simply adopting nihilism of belief in the opposite direction. We should approach knowledge with good will, eagerness, gratitude, and nothing else, and then see where it takes us.

I am pasting intro to my nihilism essay which I think fits well with what you wrote, and the conclusion which is a tad bit more hopeful than yours :

“There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche

What is it about the modern era which lingers on to make us so feel gloomy all of the time? We can hardly move an inch before being seized by doom from the entertainment or "news" media. Politics, as usual, is no beacon of hope. Neither is Academia. Philosophical and spiritual realms of discourse traditionally provided us some rays of sunlight, but that is patently not the case anymore. Most of our intellectual and spiritual knowledge is now employed in service of finding ever-more ways to convince ourselves that the 'end is nigh'; that the "Apocalypse" is right around the corner. The few times we are offered messages of hope, those messages are couched in the context of escaping from-the-world rather than being-in-it.

These machinations of modern culture are justified to us on the grounds that they are "realistic". So what exactly is "reality"? Is it something we derive from a living participation in the world or from a detached reflection on the world as an object of our knowledge? The nihilistic view is that of the latter. It is the view which flows naturally from Rene Descartes' divide of the world into realms of 'spirit-mind' (subject) and 'matter' (object). Immanuel Kant, as discussed in Res Ipsa Loquitur: Kant vs. the World, then took Descartes' subject-object divide for granted and further divided the realm of 'spirit-mind' into what is actually real and what is merely experienced as real. The latter, according to Kant, is the world of phenomenal appearances we live in, reflect on and systematically investigate.

It does not take a huge stretch of our imaginations to see where Kant's epistemic logic has taken us; to see why his epistemology is fundamentally pessimistic-nihilistic at its core. The world of appearances is the world we live in. It is the only world we ever experience and reflect on in normal waking consciousness. What if you were to wake up one day, walk to the bathroom mirror, and see no one in the mirror's reflection. Then you would begin to experience as an individual what humanity has already begun to experience as a collective. You would feel not only confusion, but also despair in confronting what it means when the phenomenal world no longer reflects any aspect of yourself back to you.
...
We do not all live in our own personal bubbles of consciousness, passing information back and forth between our bubble-avatars in some unknown manner. Rather, we share the same space of consciousness with each other and with the Spirits who inform our existence and experience. We exited our Edenic paradise as the Spirit came to know itself through its forms. That is what makes human beings capable of true communication and empathy. It is what allows us to experience the same ideal content and perspectives of other beings. As we grow spiritually and mature, we uncover the complicated network of noumenal relations and we come to know for ourselves what we once merely took on faith alone; what we once naively believed.

"A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n"
-John Milton, Paradise Lost

[DandelionSoul]

I agree and disagree with you. I agree that I think that if the consequences of totalizing world narratives have been, on the whole, terrible, then that should prompt a hard look at the tree the fruit is growing from. I’m open to the possibility that the hard look will reveal something about the Bad Totalizing Stories that’s missing from some of the others, and for that reason I disagree that I’m beginning with a fallacious presupposition.

Interesting discussion going on. I think Postone's take on totality is relevant to DS's remarks about totalizing stories. In describing his own take on totality whilst criticizing that of Derrida (which seems similar to that of DS), Postone writes (https://platypus1917.org/wp-content/upl ... damarx.pdf) :

"...totality here is the object of the critique. This approach, like Derrida’s, is critical of homogeneity and
totalization. However, rather than denying their real existence, this critique grounds
processes of homogenization and totalization in historically specific forms of social
relations and seeks to show how structural tensions internal to those relations open up
the possibility of the historical abolition of those processes.

The problem with many recent critical approaches that affirm heterogeneity,
including Derrida’s, is that they seek to inscribe it quasi-metaphysically, by denying the
existence of what could only be historically abolished. In this way, positions intended
to empower people end up being profoundly disempowering, inasmuch as they bracket
and render invisible central dimensions of domination in the modern world."

So, Postone argues that both the affirmation of totality and the denial of its historical existence further oppressive structures. Hence, when postmodernist philosophers like Lyotard declare that "the world is a fable", this does nothing to change historical realities, and instead leads to things like insularity, fragmentation and the narrowness of identity politics.

To put this view in terms of the language being used on this forum - Yes, there is a historically dynamic metamorphic progression, and yes, this progression has oppressive and totalizing features. But the oppressive and totalizing features cannot be overcome by simply asserting that they have no sound philosophical foundation. Rather, they can only be overcome through the historical dynamic itself (in which individuals can participate). I think this accords well with Barfield's horseshoe diagram.

Thank you for sharing this! I suspect that we are roughly agreed. At least, I agree wholeheartedly that there have, in fact, been many totalizing structures within history, and that breaking down those structures always takes place within a lived history, rather than merely by means of an academic deconstruction. With that said, I'm primarily offering metaphysical critiques here because that's the nature of this forum.

My issue with the Barfield diagram and with Ashvin's metaphysics more broadly as I understand it so far (and, I suppose, Steiner's?) is precisely that they seem very much to posit an ultimate totalization as a good thing -- that the collapse of embodied differences is something that will happen, and that its occurrence is to be hoped for. I disagree on both points

[AshvinP]

Thank you for sharing this! I suspect that we are roughly agreed. At least, I agree wholeheartedly that there have, in fact, been many totalizing structures within history, and that breaking down those structures always takes place within a lived history, rather than merely by means of an academic deconstruction. With that said, I'm primarily offering metaphysical critiques here because that's the nature of this forum.

My issue with the Barfield diagram and with Ashvin's metaphysics more broadly as I understand it so far (and, I suppose, Steiner's?) is precisely that they seem very much to posit an ultimate totalization as a good thing -- that the collapse of embodied differences is something that will happen, and that its occurrence is to be hoped for. I disagree on both points

That is not my view, but I realize it's my lack of discipline which leads to this misunderstanding. Basically we are all eager to get to the bottom line, so we start asking questions about the "big picture". Instead of dodging those questions or answering in a way that directs it back to the original premises, as a disciplined philosopher should, I naively answer them and state my conclusions. Then it appears like I have started from those "hoped for" conclusions and reasoned my way backwards from there. For ex., when you ask about what I think about the "Christ-being", or where I think we are heading very long-term, it's really poor form for me to answer directly. There is nothing good that will come of my answer and it will color all perceptions of the arguments going forward. I'm not saying that you are more prone to that than anyone else here... it's just how our minds work. I definitely do not think "ultimate totalization" and "collapse of embodied differences" are good things, thing that I am hoping for, or things that are guaranteed - I am not even sure exactly what those phrases mean.

There are a lot of abstract concepts embedded in such seemingly simple phrases and I consider those abstractions the exact opposite direction in which we should be headed. It's all about moving from abstractions to living experience. Also keep in mind a fundamental premise of my view is that we all are being 'asked' [by the Cosmos, whatever that is] to make choices going forward and our choices actually matter, so nothing is guaranteed. Theoretically everyone could choose not to participate in the sort of Self-knowledge I am advocating and then the current human species is effectively wiped out by mechanization. All of these things remain possibilities, however slight a chance of happening, and even if they are not possibilities, we should act as if they are. The "big picture" stuff I have remarked on are just my best informed conclusions reached so far based on my very limited experience-knowledge. Anyway, I just wanted to clear that up before we return to regular discussion of arguments.

Oh, and another thing - I am sure it seems that I take a perhaps unwarranted "optimistic" tone in my posts and essays, and that is true and intended. I do think my view is fundamentally optimistic, especially compared to every other view out there. But the only reason it is optimistic is because our knowledge and choices matter and, according to my view, there are no fundamental limits to what we can know or choose. I consider myself a pragmatist, and from that philosophical perspective a lot of worries about things I cannot possibly know or experience are cast aside. But again it is not because I have determined with certainty any outcome, only because I genuinely believe the quote in my footnote below is accurate and, as cliché as it may sound, our lives will be what we make of them in every moment we still have a choice.

[DandelionSoul]

If you haven't read any Sartre, Ashvin, I suspect you would like "Existentialism Is a Humanism." Existentialism has been one of my more important streams of influence, and when you say:

Also keep in mind a fundamental premise of my view is that we all are being 'asked' [by the Cosmos, whatever that is] to make choices going forward and our choices actually matter, so nothing is guaranteed. Theoretically everyone could choose not to participate in the sort of Self-knowledge I am advocating and then the current human species is effectively wiped out by mechanization. All of these things remain possibilities, however slight a chance of happening, and even if they are not possibilities, we should act as if they are.

I'm reminded a lot of:

Tomorrow, after my death, some men may decide to establish Fascism, and the others may be so cowardly or so slack as to let them do so. If so, Fascism will then be the truth of man, and so much the worse for us. In reality, things will be such as men have decided they shall be.

[DandelionSoul]

(I'm not suggesting that you would agree with every word, but I think you'd find a lot to agree with.)

[SanteriSatama]

(except bacteria part)

Come on, every body knows that humans are just space suits and Application Programming Intephases for anaerobic endogastric bacteria, which became necessary after the plants poisoned the air with oxygen.

Those AEB are way too low resolution for me... I'm with Hoffman on that, my API interface just gives up when we get down to that scale. But, in general I agree - one life form's "exploitation" is another life form's evolution! Eventually all these secrets of Nature will be cleared up in the spiral of temporality becoming eternity.

Or too high resolution? We're joking, of course, but I would not a priori exclude collective bacterial consciousness, and/or human participatory relation with such.

[SanteriSatama]

I agree and disagree with you. I agree that I think that if the consequences of totalizing world narratives have been, on the whole, terrible, then that should prompt a hard look at the tree the fruit is growing from. I’m open to the possibility that the hard look will reveal something about the Bad Totalizing Stories that’s missing from some of the others, and for that reason I disagree that I’m beginning with a fallacious presupposition.

Interesting discussion going on. I think Postone's take on totality is relevant to DS's remarks about totalizing stories. In describing his own take on totality whilst criticizing that of Derrida (which seems similar to that of DS), Postone writes (https://platypus1917.org/wp-content/upl ... damarx.pdf) :

"...totality here is the object of the critique. This approach, like Derrida’s, is critical of homogeneity and
totalization. However, rather than denying their real existence, this critique grounds
processes of homogenization and totalization in historically specific forms of social
relations and seeks to show how structural tensions internal to those relations open up
the possibility of the historical abolition of those processes.

The problem with many recent critical approaches that affirm heterogeneity,
including Derrida’s, is that they seek to inscribe it quasi-metaphysically, by denying the
existence of what could only be historically abolished. In this way, positions intended
to empower people end up being profoundly disempowering, inasmuch as they bracket
and render invisible central dimensions of domination in the modern world."

So, Postone argues that both the affirmation of totality and the denial of its historical existence further oppressive structures. Hence, when postmodernist philosophers like Lyotard declare that "the world is a fable", this does nothing to change historical realities, and instead leads to things like insularity, fragmentation and the narrowness of identity politics.

To put this view in terms of the language being used on this forum - Yes, there is a historically dynamic metamorphic progression, and yes, this progression has oppressive and totalizing features. But the oppressive and totalizing features cannot be overcome by simply asserting that they have no sound philosophical foundation. Rather, they can only be overcome through the historical dynamic itself (in which individuals can participate). I think this accords well with Barfield's horseshoe diagram.

Interesting view, and I agree very much. On the other hand, totalizing homogeneity has not been historically total, it's also a part of a historical dialectic which also produces heterogeneity. 'Leto the Tyrant' in Frank Herbert's Dune series is a good discussion of this aspect.

Of course, a mechanical law-like dialectic is not as such yet very empowering. In defence of Derrida, his post-structuralism also danced on the borderzones and liminal states of dialectical antidialectic and mythological-mystical. In behind-sight, Derrida's empowerement of written language as a heterogenous peer with historical heterogeneity of spoken language (instead of writing only either superior or inferior to spoken language) can now be observed in the metamorphic processes of writing Internet.

Metaphysically, interesting co-operation or conspiracy can be seen between "latest word of physicalism" in the form of Rovelli's heterogenous and relational ontology and "perspectival multinature" of contemporary animistic philosophy describing spiritual ontology as radically heterogenous.