Criticism

[JeffreyW]

JW ... I forgot who famously said man kann nicht nicht kommunizieren (one cannot not communicate), along the same lines
I would think that one can not not have a metaphysical position. My feeling is that you have this one core-belief that
metaphysics is bunk. And while I concede that we can not know anything for certain for me it is all about comparing
models and what makes sense. You are trying to rule out idealism based on a core-belief it seems and yet are arguing
for materialism (though when pressed you don't want to self-identify as one) and say that you are entangled with the
world etc.
So that's just what I came away with, think you said you are an analytic philosopher but that it all comes from beliefs/convictions is just
what I feel. You think consciousness has to do with you being entangled with the world or something, but what
does this really mean or where is the aha-moment for others?

You say that BK can not hold a candle to you because you have expertise...and at the same time say that nobody understands
consciousness. You say it takes years of thinking about these things.....and in contrast you fail to see that BK has dedicated his life to this?
He is approaching his fifties and you are
probably in your sixties, maybe seventies, so where is this inferiority that you are trying to assign to him coming from?

Bernardo has these 5 criteria to evaluate a position.
We discuss why mainstream physicalism fails on all key post-enlightenment values, such as coherence, internal consistency, parsimony, explanatory power and empirical adequacy.

I am interested why you don't want to play this game.
Is it really not possible that this is because you were schooled a certain way or that you have beliefs that you could
re-examine? Next to "the Germans" there are other schools of thoughts who believe differently, some, like Spinoza
are discussed in BKs idealism-course. And as you know "the Germans" were partly influenced by the East anyway.
You are a materialist, but materialism says that the essence of the world is quantitative and that it does not have
the qualities of experience, which means we are akin to a light-bulb in a world that doesnt exist.
To me this is what this is really all about, it is some times interesting what Goethe and Beethoven said, but to me the
5 pointers from above are much more important and a much healthier starting-point, thoughts?

Can you make a compelling case for your world-view, just like BK made for his? Can you explain why your way
of looking at things is not just something that sides with our view-point but why we are necessarily wrong?
Can you explain consciousness? Can you drill serious holes into the idealistic model?

Do not get this the wrong way:

Your bitterness an your wrong evaluation of BK who is supposedly building this monstrous money-machine for
his own gain and is actually a cult-leader has made me doubt your sense of judgement. This does not have
to do with what we agree or disagree on, it is simply nonsense. I know this might sound insulting, but there is
gold in the rubble, I think we are emotional beings and paying attention to our emotions can also help us
understand why we believe what - it is a much more serious force than we dare to think, when it comes to
what we believe about the world. Sorry for going Freud on you, Thoughts?

What I regret in many discussions of this sort is that the inability to drive home a position 100% is what
the critics are banking on, but they can often not make a coherent case of their own.

Myself, and I am sure many others here, have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours thinking, meditating,
reading, informing themselves etc to arrive at their conclusion, that is something I also wanted to add,
its not just you being the Lichtgestalt

Once we die we know for certain whats going on, can we find agreement on that or not?

One thing is for sure: Nobody can believe what he has not grokked. We can not accept what
we re not familiar with. I remember years before
I knew anything about BK doubting my own sanity to consider that the world could be mental.
It is pure torture. So from the many years that you have been thinking about things, how many
hours do you think you have tried to grok idealism? A couple of hundred to 500 I would hope,
in my opinion that is a minimum needed.

It’s hard to imagine anybody mistaking me for an analytic philosopher. i am fervently anti-analytic in every way.

[JeffreyW]

He (JW) also does not assign awareness to Being, but later says when Heidegger speaks of Dasein (being or existence), Dasein means consciousness to Heidegger. And probably he quoted him right, but I think maybe Heidegger did not think of ontological classes, but I see no reason not to think in terms of them just because he didn't.

Well, I suppose, somewhat reluctantly, I'm going to have to delve into Heidegger, if I'm to comment about Dasein in any comprehensive way. Initially, from what I can glean from Wiki, for Heidegger, at least, Dasein is not referring to some fundamental, uncaused, irreducible ontological state, but seems to refer specifically to what it is to be a human being, as opposed to some speculation about transpersonal Being. Of course, it can be said that they are inextricably entangled. But reading further into it, I'm must concede that it does become quite convoluted and tortuous in trying to discern what exactly he is referring to by Dasein. However, I will continue to delve into it, and trust that it might eventually become clearer, with some edification herein from the promoters of Heidegger, who have actually read his work.

Dasein is man, sprung out of Being. What distinguishes man from all else is its ability to experience the world in a poetic way (Besinnen), which it does for Being to experience itself.

[JeffreyW]

Mark ... As for understanding what JW is getting at (if I can presume to speak for him), it might be helpful to keep in mind that he is not committing to an ontological primitive, and is quite content to leave that as a mystery, and thus is not into ontology at all. At most, if he's referring at all to some fundamental, uncaused, irreducible state, he calls it Being, and that beyond that there is nothing else definitive that can be said about it, including whether it is essentially aware or non-aware. In either case, making either claim opens up an explanatory can of worms, in terms of how it accounts for the apparency of this relational subject><object dynamic experience, with all of its spatiotemporal phenomena, including these thought forms. BK is into ontology, and has committed to going with aware Being, and its immanent ideation, then attempts to make a cogent explanatory case, however provisional it may be. But to expect JW to make such a case for how to derive awareness from non-aware Being is a moot point, because he hasn't committed to any such fundamental ontological premise. Rather, it's all forever a mystery, and thus pointless to attempt any explanation as to how for example 'energy', having inexplicably arisen from Being, comes to be experienced, or exactly 'who' the fuck cares.

Right, it actually does not matter whether the Being is ontological/fundamental or not. What matters is whether it is conscious or not and whether conscious experiences are immanent to it or somehow "emerge" from it. The latter case leads to the "hard problem", but JW seems to take the "mysterianism" position and simply ignore it.

Right. What you forgot to add is that JW is now part of a powerful cult that spans the globe and that we have certain rituals here.
As a "tier 5"-member of this forum I am allowed to make "tier 5"-requeststs - what I opted for is demanding from JW without delay
that he may cite an entire Hoelderlin-poem "auf Deutsch" and post it here asap. When can we expect to get it?

Mark

Und mit perfektem deutschen Akzent zugleich?

Eugene: How did you ever conclude I have no interest in ontology? The question of Being is the purest and most radical approach to ontology.

[JeffreyW]

Mark ... As for understanding what JW is getting at (if I can presume to speak for him), it might be helpful to keep in mind that he is not committing to an ontological primitive, and is quite content to leave that as a mystery, and thus is not into ontology at all. At most, if he's referring at all to some fundamental, uncaused, irreducible state, he calls it Being, and that beyond that there is nothing else definitive that can be said about it, including whether it is essentially aware or non-aware. In either case, making either claim opens up an explanatory can of worms, in terms of how it accounts for the apparency of this relational subject><object dynamic experience, with all of its spatiotemporal phenomena, including these thought forms. BK is into ontology, and has committed to going with aware Being, and its immanent ideation, then attempts to make a cogent explanatory case, however provisional it may be. But to expect JW to make such a case for how to derive awareness from non-aware Being is a moot point, because he hasn't committed to any such fundamental ontological premise. Rather, it's all forever a mystery, and thus pointless to attempt any explanation as to how for example 'energy', having inexplicably arisen from Being, comes to be experienced, or exactly 'who' the fuck cares.

Right, it actually does not matter whether the Being is ontological/fundamental or not. What matters is whether it is conscious or not and whether conscious experiences are immanent to it or somehow "emerge" from it. The latter case leads to the "hard problem", but JW seems to take the "mysterianism" position and simply ignore it.

Because it cannot be answered and Metaphysics offers no valid explanations, just the beckoning of Syrens inviting to crash on the shores.

[JeffreyW]

I should warn you that it is impossible to converge to a single and coherent interpretation or understanding of Heidegger's philosophy even if you are fluent in German (and if you are not then don't even try...)

Your inability to find a coherence in Heidegger is not the fault of Heidegger. It is there for those who are willing to make the effort. It must be done in the original German.

[JeffreyW]

Rather, it's all forever a mystery, and thus pointless to attempt any explanation as to how for example 'energy', having inexplicably arisen from Being, comes to be experienced, or exactly 'who' the fuck cares.

I don't think JW ever said it is "forever" a mystery. In response to me, he said there are evolutionary reasons to think we have already started piercing the veil of intellectual cognition to reach deeper, more numinous layers of Reality via "esthetic knowledge". But I am sure he can elaborate on that later.

No need to elaborate, you said it well.

[JeffreyW]

Mark ... As for understanding what JW is getting at (if I can presume to speak for him), it might be helpful to keep in mind that he is not committing to an ontological primitive, and is quite content to leave that as a mystery, and thus is not into ontology at all. At most, if he's referring at all to some fundamental, uncaused, irreducible state, he calls it Being, and that beyond that there is nothing else definitive that can be said about it, including whether it is essentially aware or non-aware. In either case, making either claim opens up an explanatory can of worms, in terms of how it accounts for the apparency of this relational subject><object dynamic experience, with all of its spatiotemporal phenomena, including these thought forms. BK is into ontology, and has committed to going with aware Being, and its immanent ideation, then attempts to make a cogent explanatory case, however provisional it may be. But to expect JW to make such a case for how to derive awareness from non-aware Being is a moot point, because he hasn't committed to any such fundamental ontological premise. Rather, it's all forever a mystery, and thus pointless to attempt any explanation as to how for example 'energy', having inexplicably arisen from Being, comes to be experienced, or exactly 'who' the fuck cares.

Right, it actually does not matter whether the Being is ontological/fundamental or not. What matters is whether it is conscious or not and whether conscious experiences are immanent to it or somehow "emerge" from it. The latter case leads to the "hard problem", but JW seems to take the "mysterianism" position and simply ignore it.

Because it cannot be answered and Metaphysics offers no valid explanations, just the beckoning of Syrens inviting to crash on the shores. It remains that I find no real reason to assume elemental consciousness.

[JeffreyW]

JW ... I forgot who famously said man kann nicht nicht kommunizieren (one cannot not communicate), along the same lines
I would think that one can not not have a metaphysical position. My feeling is that you have this one core-belief that
metaphysics is bunk. And while I concede that we can not know anything for certain for me it is all about comparing
models and what makes sense. You are trying to rule out idealism based on a core-belief it seems and yet are arguing
for materialism (though when pressed you don't want to self-identify as one) and say that you are entangled with the
world etc.
So that's just what I came away with, think you said you are an analytic philosopher but that it all comes from beliefs/convictions is just
what I feel. You think consciousness has to do with you being entangled with the world or something, but what
does this really mean or where is the aha-moment for others?

You say that BK can not hold a candle to you because you have expertise...and at the same time say that nobody understands
consciousness. You say it takes years of thinking about these things.....and in contrast you fail to see that BK has dedicated his life to this?
He is approaching his fifties and you are
probably in your sixties, maybe seventies, so where is this inferiority that you are trying to assign to him coming from?

Bernardo has these 5 criteria to evaluate a position.
We discuss why mainstream physicalism fails on all key post-enlightenment values, such as coherence, internal consistency, parsimony, explanatory power and empirical adequacy.

I am interested why you don't want to play this game.
Is it really not possible that this is because you were schooled a certain way or that you have beliefs that you could
re-examine? Next to "the Germans" there are other schools of thoughts who believe differently, some, like Spinoza
are discussed in BKs idealism-course. And as you know "the Germans" were partly influenced by the East anyway.
You are a materialist, but materialism says that the essence of the world is quantitative and that it does not have
the qualities of experience, which means we are akin to a light-bulb in a world that doesnt exist.
To me this is what this is really all about, it is some times interesting what Goethe and Beethoven said, but to me the
5 pointers from above are much more important and a much healthier starting-point, thoughts?

Can you make a compelling case for your world-view, just like BK made for his? Can you explain why your way
of looking at things is not just something that sides with our view-point but why we are necessarily wrong?
Can you explain consciousness? Can you drill serious holes into the idealistic model?

Do not get this the wrong way:

Your bitterness an your wrong evaluation of BK who is supposedly building this monstrous money-machine for
his own gain and is actually a cult-leader has made me doubt your sense of judgement. This does not have
to do with what we agree or disagree on, it is simply nonsense. I know this might sound insulting, but there is
gold in the rubble, I think we are emotional beings and paying attention to our emotions can also help us
understand why we believe what - it is a much more serious force than we dare to think, when it comes to
what we believe about the world. Sorry for going Freud on you, Thoughts?

What I regret in many discussions of this sort is that the inability to drive home a position 100% is what
the critics are banking on, but they can often not make a coherent case of their own.

Myself, and I am sure many others here, have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours thinking, meditating,
reading, informing themselves etc to arrive at their conclusion, that is something I also wanted to add,
its not just you being the Lichtgestalt

Once we die we know for certain whats going on, can we find agreement on that or not?

One thing is for sure: Nobody can believe what he has not grokked. We can not accept what
we re not familiar with. I remember years before
I knew anything about BK doubting my own sanity to consider that the world could be mental.
It is pure torture. So from the many years that you have been thinking about things, how many
hours do you think you have tried to grok idealism? A couple of hundred to 500 I would hope,
in my opinion that is a minimum needed.

It’s hard to imagine anybody mistaking me for an analytic philosopher. i am fervently anti-analytic in every way.

Why should anybody accept coherence, internal consistency, parsimony, explanatory power and empirical adequacy adequacy as the determinants of truth?

[AshvinP]

I would never use the word “just” to modify poetic. Poetic thought is the way to experience truth as non-reductive esthetic understanding. There is far more profound truth in a Beethovens symphony than in all the works of Einstein.,

I see the roles exactly reversed from what you ask. Science exists to feed the practical needs of technology and take us to the edge of what can be objectified, where they mystery beckons to us with all new questions - it shines a beacon on where the poets are to meet. For me it is far more interesting fro what it discovers that it can’t explain than for what it can.

Let me rephrase the question - why can't the esthetic inquiry and knowledge form the basis of an entirely new, objective, rigorous, and precise science? If we have moved past the Cartesian dualism of knowledge which is "subjective" as opposed to "objective", then what is still preventing that new science from developing?

Now that is an interesting and timely question as we realize that the universe is essentially non-computational and without our conceptions of time, space, and deterministic causality. Traditional scientific method has thus hit an impassible roadblock and without rethinking its approach will proceed no further. I would eliminate “objective” from your list because the inheritance of subject/object metaphysics is the underlying hindrance. I would also question “precise”, as it presumes a preciseness in the underlying reality which I doubt exists. It does require a more “imaginative” non-reductive approach while avoiding metaphysical assertion - a big problem now in physics. I think Roger Penrose and Carlo Rovelli are small steps in that direction. I’m especially intrigued by Penrose’s notion that reason is not the most elemental feature of consciousness, but rather what he calls intuition, which he sees as our ability to not only follow rules, such as a computer, but also understand the why and transcend rules. He also eliminates subject/object metaphysics with his idea of entangled consciousness. Rovelli’s important step is to think metaphorically/poetically about observations.

JW,

Thanks, I can only comment briefly now but definitely want to explore the above further later. I agree that Intuition is most "elemental" cognition now, although I would probably avoid that term for other reasons. Have you read Steiner's Philosophy of Freedom (Spiritual Activity), which is a phenomenology of perception-cognition, and also discussion of his "ethical individualism" in contrast to nearly all other modern metaphysical views? If not, then I think you would really appreciate it. It is available in German and English for free at www.rsarchive.org/books.

[Mark Tetzner]

Und mit perfektem deutschen Akzent zugleich?

Eugene: How did you ever conclude I have no interest in ontology? The question of Being is the purest and most radical approach to ontology.

Dass Du das nicht kannst weiss ich schon, aber das ist nicht schlimm. Bless us with it for the fun of it.
Mark