John Horgan defends not knowing

[Papanca]

Yes, and that is why I mention - "Reality is not comprised of a static set of beings and relations fixed in place - it is dynamic ever-evolving experience". The conclusion that we always go "back to track 1", that "suffering remains endemic everywhere", "personal salvation won't last", etc., basically denies the ever-evolving essence of Reality. It is a view born of a rather myopic understanding of human history and the unfolding of our own experience throughout life. That denial, or implicit acceptance of fixed Reality, also makes us misunderstand free will. We think of it as a static property that we either have or don't have, rather than a gradation of inner experience. The more our desires are aligned with the actual structure of Reality and therefore the experiences which result from acting on those desires, the more free we become. Heidegger remarked, "we are still not yet Thinking". Likewise, we can say "we are still not yet Free". But that does not mean higher Thinking and Freedom are forever lost to us. We can embark on a path to Thinking and Freedom and thereby realize some fruits of that path right now in this lifetime. I am not trying to casually dismiss any evil-suffering in the world like apologists tend to do, or casually dismiss spiritual reality as skeptics tend to do, but, at the very minimum, withhold judgment until I have developed my own experience-thinking much further. One thing we should know for certain is how much we don't yet know.

Are you saying that consciousness is evolving in such a way that there would be less and less suffering ? Or am i misunderstanding you here ?

I don't think about free-will as something binary we have or don't have, like i said in the other comment, i find the idea conceptually untenable, this passage from "What the buddha taught" sums up my thoughts

“If the whole of existence is relative, conditioned and interdependent, how can will alone be free ? Will, like any other thought, is conditioned. So-called 'freedom' itself is conditioned and relative. Such a conditioned and relative 'Free Will' is not denied. There can be nothing absolutely free, physical or mental, as everything is interdependent and relative. If Free Will implies a will independent of conditions, independent of cause and effect, such a thing does not exist. How can a will, or anything for that matter, arise without conditions, away from cause and effect, when the whole of existence is conditioned and relative, and is within the law of cause and effect? Here again, the idea of Free Will is basically connected with the ideas of God, Soul, justice, reward and punishment. Not only is so-called free will not free, but even the very idea of Free Will is not free from conditions.”

― Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught "

[AshvinP]

Yes, and that is why I mention - "Reality is not comprised of a static set of beings and relations fixed in place - it is dynamic ever-evolving experience". The conclusion that we always go "back to track 1", that "suffering remains endemic everywhere", "personal salvation won't last", etc., basically denies the ever-evolving essence of Reality. It is a view born of a rather myopic understanding of human history and the unfolding of our own experience throughout life. That denial, or implicit acceptance of fixed Reality, also makes us misunderstand free will. We think of it as a static property that we either have or don't have, rather than a gradation of inner experience. The more our desires are aligned with the actual structure of Reality and therefore the experiences which result from acting on those desires, the more free we become. Heidegger remarked, "we are still not yet Thinking". Likewise, we can say "we are still not yet Free". But that does not mean higher Thinking and Freedom are forever lost to us. We can embark on a path to Thinking and Freedom and thereby realize some fruits of that path right now in this lifetime. I am not trying to casually dismiss any evil-suffering in the world like apologists tend to do, or casually dismiss spiritual reality as skeptics tend to do, but, at the very minimum, withhold judgment until I have developed my own experience-thinking much further. One thing we should know for certain is how much we don't yet know.

Are you saying that consciousness is evolving in such a way that there would be less and less suffering ? Or am i misunderstanding you here ?

I don't think about free-will as something binary we have or don't have, like i said in the other comment, i find the idea conceptually untenable, this passage from "What the buddha taught" sums up my thoughts

“If the whole of existence is relative, conditioned and interdependent, how can will alone be free ? Will, like any other thought, is conditioned. So-called 'freedom' itself is conditioned and relative. Such a conditioned and relative 'Free Will' is not denied. There can be nothing absolutely free, physical or mental, as everything is interdependent and relative. If Free Will implies a will independent of conditions, independent of cause and effect, such a thing does not exist. How can a will, or anything for that matter, arise without conditions, away from cause and effect, when the whole of existence is conditioned and relative, and is within the law of cause and effect? Here again, the idea of Free Will is basically connected with the ideas of God, Soul, justice, reward and punishment. Not only is so-called free will not free, but even the very idea of Free Will is not free from conditions.”

― Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught "

I do happen to conclude consciousness is evolving toward ever-higher integration of perspectives, and it is the fragmentation of perspectives which actually leads to what we call "evil" and "suffering". Our current perspective is so far out on the 'periphery' of the One essential Mind, lost in complex webs of experience, that we find it very difficult to 'trace back' that experience to its Source. The more we are able to trace back, the less we will desire to engage in harmful behavior, as we come to realize how we are actually harming our higher Self through that behavior. All that being said, my main point is that the skeptical dismissal of spiritual reality is a refusal to even consider this possibility to begin with. It is (unconsciously) ruled out from the beginning of the analysis. The quote you provided shows how we need to reconsider our understanding of "free will" into a more livingly experienced one, in my view, not that we are all deterministically conditioned with no hope of transcending the strict "laws" of necessity. Those "laws" only come to meaningful fruition in our spiritual (thinking) activity, so there is no reason to assume that same activity cannot move beyond those "laws".

[Lysander]

"THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

Why do we exist? The answer, according to the major monotheistic religions, including the Catholic faith in which I was raised, is that an all-powerful, supernatural entity created us. This deity loves us, as a human father loves his children, and wants us to behave in a certain way. If we’re good, He’ll reward us. If we’re bad, He’ll punish us. (I use the pronoun “He” because most scriptures describe God as male.)

My main objection to this explanation of reality is the problem of evil. A casual glance at human history, and at the world today, reveals enormous suffering and injustice. If God loves us and is omnipotent, why is life so horrific for so many people? A standard response to this question is that God gave us free will; we can choose to be bad as well as good."

I perfectly agree, the problem of evil really makes a mockery of many lofty, aerial, disconnected speculations that abound in many religious and metaphysical circles. In that respect i find monotheistic religions extremely childish and impotent. The proposed solutions to the problem of evil also seems to me really handwavy.

For instance, let's talk about free-will, first of all not all suffering is man made, some extreme form of suffering like natural disasters or just https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_headache has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with free-will. Besides, libertarian free-will is conceptually absurd, i wouldn't even say that it exists or doesn't exist, it doesn't even make sense conceptually and enough holes have been poked in it - persuasively IMHO - for instance see Galen Strawson basic argument against free-will https://www.informationphilosopher.com/ ... strawsong/

I don't see how idealism changes anything to the fact that we always act based on anterior reasons, after all, we can't act based on information/knowledge/wisdom we don't have, nor be moved by an aspect of our personality or temperament we don't have, and we either act based upon reasons, or we would act randomly, randomness isn't free-will.

Even if we assume that free-will is real somewhat, free-will only allows you to act based on natural constraints, for instance in can't fly using free-will, nor can i make myself feel intense euphoria by just willing it, i can't cause physical pain on someone who has a genetic immunity to pain https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condit ... y-to-pain/ but in the monotheistic religions, god is the creator of the natural constraints, having free-will doesn't say anything on why we should have bodies conductive to such extreme level of pains as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_headache , why tootache should have the level of intensity they have, or mental pain be as intense as in severe cases of insomnias or clinical depression. The reverse conditions doesn't exist - clinical euphoria - , it doesn't say anything on why our tendency to crave and attach is strong but the ascetic/contemplative path is extremely hard, after all, it would be perfectly plausible to have a situation where it's 50%/50% and half the world is following a contemplative path and the other half is following sensual and other wordly pleasures.

But the notion of free-will, besides being extremely problematic in itself, is used in handwavy fashion to skirt the problem of evil. For the reasons i enumerated, those attempts seems to me superficial and lacking in multiple aspects.

The existence of evil makes sense to me theologically. Many reasons.

For example, why do you, specifically, deserve to live in a world of perfect goodness? If you were an angel, you would be born in an angelic realm. The complain against evil is really asking why you weren't born into a Utopia. And this is man's lack of humility to think he knows better than God.

Another reason. Only God can be Perfectly Good. So his Creation implies a necessary distance from Perfect Goodness and the measurement of this distance we call evil. Again, the complaint about why there is suffering sounds like "Why am I not born into a Perfectly Good Utopia in union with God?" Well, do you deserve that as you are right now? Or, being honest with yourself, would you need some moral transformations before being worthy of that? Hence, Heaven is your opportunity.

This is the way I've thought about it anyway.

[Jim Cross]

There is a third option: commitment. If one evaluates options and finds one much more plausible than the others, one can commit to it in spite of not being completely certain. This applies particularly to religion, where some form of Pascal's Wager holds. Not that if one refrains from commitment one will end up in hell, but that the gains from spiritual practice will be missed, while if there are no such gains, one has lost nothing.

Scott, I tend to agree. Indeed, one might not even evaluate but rather "fake it to see if you make it" as in just running an experiment to see if it generates, reinforces or demolishes the starting assumption or belief. I believe that "commitment" is another word for "devotion" to a practice. Spirituality and science, like marriage, are practices requiring strong devotion, especially when tempted toward disbelief. Meaning is found in relationship.

The discipline of commitment or devotion is an extremely powerful mental tool, the personal meaning of which can only be discovered (or rejected) through one's personal practice. One of my favorite descriptions of the power of devotion (commitment to practice) is found in Chapter 12 of the Bhagavad Gita, which has been a core scripture informing my own rather eclectic approach.

As an important caveat, I want to emphasize that I am not proselytizing or advocating for the so-called "superiority" of "my" way. I'm only sharing a description of what has been useful to me in my participation in the dance of a Divinely Integrated Diversity or Great Mysteriousness.

The problem with this seemingly pragmatic argument is that it requires finding one particular position more plausible.

That is, I find a spiritual view most plausible therefore I might benefit from a spiritual practice.

There is always an opportunity cost so it does not come with no potential for loss. You could argue the reverse.

That is, I find a materialistic view most plausible therefore I might benefit from a scientific practice to understand the world rather than waste time on spiritual pursuits.

[Papanca]

"THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

Why do we exist? The answer, according to the major monotheistic religions, including the Catholic faith in which I was raised, is that an all-powerful, supernatural entity created us. This deity loves us, as a human father loves his children, and wants us to behave in a certain way. If we’re good, He’ll reward us. If we’re bad, He’ll punish us. (I use the pronoun “He” because most scriptures describe God as male.)

My main objection to this explanation of reality is the problem of evil. A casual glance at human history, and at the world today, reveals enormous suffering and injustice. If God loves us and is omnipotent, why is life so horrific for so many people? A standard response to this question is that God gave us free will; we can choose to be bad as well as good."

I perfectly agree, the problem of evil really makes a mockery of many lofty, aerial, disconnected speculations that abound in many religious and metaphysical circles. In that respect i find monotheistic religions extremely childish and impotent. The proposed solutions to the problem of evil also seems to me really handwavy.

For instance, let's talk about free-will, first of all not all suffering is man made, some extreme form of suffering like natural disasters or just https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_headache has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with free-will. Besides, libertarian free-will is conceptually absurd, i wouldn't even say that it exists or doesn't exist, it doesn't even make sense conceptually and enough holes have been poked in it - persuasively IMHO - for instance see Galen Strawson basic argument against free-will https://www.informationphilosopher.com/ ... strawsong/

I don't see how idealism changes anything to the fact that we always act based on anterior reasons, after all, we can't act based on information/knowledge/wisdom we don't have, nor be moved by an aspect of our personality or temperament we don't have, and we either act based upon reasons, or we would act randomly, randomness isn't free-will.

Even if we assume that free-will is real somewhat, free-will only allows you to act based on natural constraints, for instance in can't fly using free-will, nor can i make myself feel intense euphoria by just willing it, i can't cause physical pain on someone who has a genetic immunity to pain https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condit ... y-to-pain/ but in the monotheistic religions, god is the creator of the natural constraints, having free-will doesn't say anything on why we should have bodies conductive to such extreme level of pains as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_headache , why tootache should have the level of intensity they have, or mental pain be as intense as in severe cases of insomnias or clinical depression. The reverse conditions doesn't exist - clinical euphoria - , it doesn't say anything on why our tendency to crave and attach is strong but the ascetic/contemplative path is extremely hard, after all, it would be perfectly plausible to have a situation where it's 50%/50% and half the world is following a contemplative path and the other half is following sensual and other wordly pleasures.

But the notion of free-will, besides being extremely problematic in itself, is used in handwavy fashion to skirt the problem of evil. For the reasons i enumerated, those attempts seems to me superficial and lacking in multiple aspects.

The existence of evil makes sense to me theologically. Many reasons.

For example, why do you, specifically, deserve to live in a world of perfect goodness? If you were an angel, you would be born in an angelic realm. The complain against evil is really asking why you weren't born into a Utopia. And this is man's lack of humility to think he knows better than God.

Another reason. Only God can be Perfectly Good. So his Creation implies a necessary distance from Perfect Goodness and the measurement of this distance we call evil. Again, the complaint about why there is suffering sounds like "Why am I not born into a Perfectly Good Utopia in union with God?" Well, do you deserve that as you are right now? Or, being honest with yourself, would you need some moral transformations before being worthy of that? Hence, Heaven is your opportunity.

This is the way I've thought about it anyway.

Not only i didn't say anything about "deserving", but the notion of "desert" "angel" "angelic realm" etc seems to me so cartoonishly manichean, so full of holes, that i would just waste your time and mine by going into it. I don't share any of the presuppositions you take for guaranteed, disagreement is one thing,but not sharing any common ground or any pressuposition makes conversing just impossible, a waste of time and energy.

[Papanca]

Yes, and that is why I mention - "Reality is not comprised of a static set of beings and relations fixed in place - it is dynamic ever-evolving experience". The conclusion that we always go "back to track 1", that "suffering remains endemic everywhere", "personal salvation won't last", etc., basically denies the ever-evolving essence of Reality. It is a view born of a rather myopic understanding of human history and the unfolding of our own experience throughout life. That denial, or implicit acceptance of fixed Reality, also makes us misunderstand free will. We think of it as a static property that we either have or don't have, rather than a gradation of inner experience. The more our desires are aligned with the actual structure of Reality and therefore the experiences which result from acting on those desires, the more free we become. Heidegger remarked, "we are still not yet Thinking". Likewise, we can say "we are still not yet Free". But that does not mean higher Thinking and Freedom are forever lost to us. We can embark on a path to Thinking and Freedom and thereby realize some fruits of that path right now in this lifetime. I am not trying to casually dismiss any evil-suffering in the world like apologists tend to do, or casually dismiss spiritual reality as skeptics tend to do, but, at the very minimum, withhold judgment until I have developed my own experience-thinking much further. One thing we should know for certain is how much we don't yet know.

Are you saying that consciousness is evolving in such a way that there would be less and less suffering ? Or am i misunderstanding you here ?

I don't think about free-will as something binary we have or don't have, like i said in the other comment, i find the idea conceptually untenable, this passage from "What the buddha taught" sums up my thoughts

“If the whole of existence is relative, conditioned and interdependent, how can will alone be free ? Will, like any other thought, is conditioned. So-called 'freedom' itself is conditioned and relative. Such a conditioned and relative 'Free Will' is not denied. There can be nothing absolutely free, physical or mental, as everything is interdependent and relative. If Free Will implies a will independent of conditions, independent of cause and effect, such a thing does not exist. How can a will, or anything for that matter, arise without conditions, away from cause and effect, when the whole of existence is conditioned and relative, and is within the law of cause and effect? Here again, the idea of Free Will is basically connected with the ideas of God, Soul, justice, reward and punishment. Not only is so-called free will not free, but even the very idea of Free Will is not free from conditions.”

― Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught "

I do happen to conclude consciousness is evolving toward ever-higher integration of perspectives, and it is the fragmentation of perspectives which actually leads to what we call "evil" and "suffering". Our current perspective is so far out on the 'periphery' of the One essential Mind, lost in complex webs of experience, that we find it very difficult to 'trace back' that experience to its Source. The more we are able to trace back, the less we will desire to engage in harmful behavior, as we come to realize how we are actually harming our higher Self through that behavior. All that being said, my main point is that the skeptical dismissal of spiritual reality is a refusal to even consider this possibility to begin with. It is (unconsciously) ruled out from the beginning of the analysis. The quote you provided shows how we need to reconsider our understanding of "free will" into a more livingly experienced one, in my view, not that we are all deterministically conditioned with no hope of transcending the strict "laws" of necessity. Those "laws" only come to meaningful fruition in our spiritual (thinking) activity, so there is no reason to assume that same activity cannot move beyond those "laws".

I see, thank you for taking the time for clarifying.

[Lou Gold]

Ashvin says, "I do happen to conclude consciousness is evolving toward ever-higher integration of perspectives, and it is the fragmentation of perspectives which actually leads to what we call "evil" and "suffering". Our current perspective is so far out on the 'periphery' of the One essential Mind, lost in complex webs of experience, that we find it very difficult to 'trace back' that experience to its Source."

I'm sympathetic toward this view and note that "tracing back" may be quite a challenge because our thinking itself carries the baggage of old errors, or as has been said, "You cannot solve a problem with the thinking that created it." Might it not be easier to find the source as suggested by Ramana Maharshi saying, "I see God in the tree because I see the tree as a tree." About the problem of suffering and the Glory of God, one might meditate on "The Queen of Trees" which is streaming for free here >>>

[Eugene I]

Let's focus on something more concrete, i'll take Advaita Vedanta as a starting point because it seems to me as the most idealist-friendly spirituality. In advaita vedanta, there is no separation between god (or the Self, not that both have exactly the same meaning) and the personal, we are all one. Here is my problem with this, it's not even a problem about plausibility, it seems perfectly plausible to me, just horrific. Yes, an exceptional person can find peace by having its will aligned or whatever - or for you, it would be the path of knowledge, but let's focus just on Advaita here as an example, then we can examine another paradigm - it can access the timeless, or itself be the timeless ... for a time, but as long as suffering is endemic everywhere, this is still a personal salvation that won't last, after bodily death we are back to square 1 and since we are all one, there is no difference between this person and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Junko_Furuta , and this happens endlessly and you can endlessly be Junko Furuta ? I just find this extremely horrifying, materialism is a soothing philosophy compared to this.

I agree that the classical Advaita paradigm leaves only two static alternatives: either the cyclic rebirth, or the non-manifested Brahman self-awareness. Notice thought that in the Advaita beliefs the liberated souls (mukti) do not go to "square one" of reincarnation, but switch to the ever-lasting non-incarnating samadhi state. However, even within Advaitic tradition there is a sahaja-samadhi school that interprets samadhi as an active and further ever-evolving personalized state, but just a more advanced state of knowing (Jnana) which is not subject to the cycle of ignorant rebirths but still allows a to continue a personalized existence and evolution. So, in a way, the sahaja-samadhi is the next developmental step along the evolution of the universal consciousness compared to the ajnana (ignorant) state. Buddhist views are fairly similar.

[Eugene I]

The problem with this seemingly pragmatic argument is that it requires finding one particular position more plausible.

That is, I find a spiritual view most plausible therefore I might benefit from a spiritual practice.

There is always an opportunity cost so it does not come with no potential for loss. You could argue the reverse.

That is, I find a materialistic view most plausible therefore I might benefit from a scientific practice to understand the world rather than waste time on spiritual pursuits.

But why the scientific practice requires the materialistic view? I see nothing wrong or contradicting with holding non-materialistic views and still doing scientific practice. Max Plank was idealist by the way.

There is also another more inclusive position, which is to benefit from both scientific practice and spiritual pursuits, as long as the chosen philosophical views do not preclude someone from doing that.

[Lou Gold]

Ross Douthat´s recent Op Ed piece in the NYT seems to fit well into this discussion.

A Guide to Finding Faith

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