From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Thu Apr 07 2005 - 08:13:04 BST
Hi Mark --
I'll be polite to anyone who's willing to consider my ideas -- even
antagonists!
Seriously though, I did misread the double negatives in this statement:
> The primary
> function of religious belief systems is to facilitate the denial of
> personal annihilation upon death. (That now makes sense to me.)
One thing that should be clear by now (and that probably accounts for
softening your antagonism) is that I'm not an advocate of religion; I'm an
advocate of the core belief which drives people to religion. The tendency
of agnostics like yourself is to counter with "That's not philosophy -- it's
faith in a belief system". To which I say, our knowledge of physical
reality is faith in a belief system. Why, therefore, is philosophy (which
may or may not claim to be empirically based) any less a belief system?
msh:
> But why do you feel it's necessary to inject "spirituality" into
> philosophy, that's the question. Whose void other than your own are
> you seeking to fill?
You're forcing my hand here, as my intention was to complete my survey of
the MD before making my case. But...what the hell, it's fairly obvious
where I'm heading with this challenge thing. Frankly, I was struck by the
following thought that I found at the LifeNotes webpage (which is apparently
the work of an anonymous Christian writer):
"If you believe that your existence may end at physical death, you are
accepting the idea that 'nothing' may follow death, and you are by
definition accepting the possibility that 'nihilism' is correct. Once we
realize that the acceptance of nihilism is a necessary consequence of our
humanistic beliefs, or non-beliefs, we will be able to decide for ourselves
if what we currently believe to be true, is what we really want to believe
is true. Until we understand the nature of 'nothing', we may well have
difficulty appreciating 'anything'."
It occurred to me that the desire for "continuity" is not only universal in
humans, but on a par with the desire to survive in life. This is true
whether one believes in a deity or not. As egotistical as it sounds,
assurance of continuity may well be man's highest value. Survival in life
(for a normal life-span at least) is assured by our biological metabolism;
there is no such assurance for pyschic continuity beyond the death of our
biological organism. Such assurance can only come from a belief system
based on reason and faith. For lack of a better word, I've called this core
belief "spirituality". And I repeat my assertion that a philosophy which
does not address this core issue is pointless because it offers no meaning
for man's existence.
> Perhaps I misread your tone, but in an earlier
> post you mentioned Bertrand Russell with what seemed to be
> admiration. It's hard to imagine a philosopher less concerned with
> philosophy's misssing "spirituality" than BR, yet he lived a long
> productive life full of spiritually fulfilling political activism.
I mentioned Russell and James because they are representative of the
post-modern philosophies to which the MD group subscribes, along with
Wittgenstein, Whitehead, Merrell-Wolf, Derrida, and Rorty, among other names
that have been tossed around here.
> Well, so far, to me, and unlike the "pagan derived dogma," the
> ontology of Essentialism isn't even understandable, so I can't
> arrive at the question of its plausibility.
It looks as if I've got some work to do. (Maybe I should write a novel. ;-)
Ham asked:
> May I then note YOUR answer to my challenge as "Yes"?
msh:
> No. I guess I wasn't clear. To me the idea of returning to nothing
> after a long and useful life brings with it a profound sense of
> peace. If answering Yes to your question means I'll spend eternity
> wrestling with the logical disconnects of people who, say, work
> themselves into a lather over their government's euthanization of a
> single woman while remaining oblivious to that same government's
> policies of exterminating hundreds of thousands of living, vibrant,
> INNOCENT people around the world, well then.... back to the
> beginning of this paragraph...
Must I arm wrestle with you to get a direct answer? Please choose option 1
or 2.
> ham:
> I would say that the purpose [of religion] is to engender
> hope for the continuance of personal awareness.
>
> msh:
> That's because, for you, the continuance of your personal awareness
> is of primary importance. For you, and many others apparently, any
> hope, even false hope, is preferable to none at all. For me, every
> second stolen from focusing on the indisputable fact of THIS life,
> THIS here and now, and on how what we do affects the lives of others,
> is a second wasted in egocentric reverie.
I certainly don't deny the value and importance of life. But are we giving
it full value if we don't know its meaning (or don't believe it has any) in
the cosmic sense?
> You're right in claiming that this craving for
> personal survival beyond death is at the core of religion; but to
> suggest that it is at the core of philosophical inquiry is
> ahistorical nonsense.
Ahistorical nonsense? Do you deny that philosophy is the single, most
eminently suited discipline in our culture for applying reason, logic and
sensibility to finding the meaning of life?
> I don't think the MOQ was developed to make
> people feel better about their chances for personal immortality.
Correct. Unfortunately, neither does it address what you and I agree is the
core issue of religious belief.
> Pirsig himself said a metaphysics isn't right or wrong, it's merely
> more or less useful in describing reality as we perceive it. For me,
> the usefulness, and uniqueness, of the MOQ derives from its expansion
> of the notion of empircism to include value awareness, right or
> wrong, good or bad, right along with the power of scientific
> observation.
To judge the "correctness" of metaphysics from a scientific viewpoint is
like judging a piece of music by a printout of its soundwaves. The reason
we have metaphysics is because physics is too restrictive to give us the
full picture, and because it cannot deal with human values. But it's always
going to be hypothetical.
Ham:
> I believe a design presupposes a designer; creation presupposes a
> creator. William James asserted that we can't have "truth or
> falsehood" without a physical world. These are the extremes of a value
> system, and his statement implies that we cannot have value without a
> primary source of value.
>
> msh says:
> I certainly agree with the first two sentences above.
Bravo!!
> But I don't
> see how his statement in sentence 2 implies that we cannot have value
> without a primary source of value. Maybe it's the word "primary"
> that bothers me, suggesting as it does a first and independent cause.
> We, every last one of us, are the sole determinants of value. IMO,
> of course.
If that's intended as an argument for your conclusion, it's non-sequitor.
> Since my own awareness of design followed by creation has so far
> ALWAYS involved a human agent, I tend to discount the notion of a
> non-human designer. I mean, I can imagine some non-human being like
> a Clingon designing and building some nifty new battle cruiser And I
> even see that this commonality of creativity, between Humans and
> Clingons, might be well described as anthropocentric Essence. But to
> suggest that this Essence exists independently of Humans and
> Clingons, like some sort of stardust or etherous vapor, that it could
> exist without any human-like agent at all, is, well, to put it
> politely, incomprehensible.
Despite your existentially-bound imagination, you are unwilling to accept
what might be true on the basis of your inability to comprehend the details.
Human comprehensibility is an exceedingly limited and dimensionally
distorted tool for acquiring knowledge. I can assure you that you've
accepted many concepts in this world as true without comprehending the
details. Do you fully comprehend the biological immunity system, quantum
physics, DVD recording, bureaucratic bungling? Oh yes, you know they're
true because you've seen what they can do. We humans are not privileged to
directly access absolute truth; but that doesn't mean there isn't any. A
coherent and properly presented metaphysical thesis is not "jargon"; it is a
scheme or rationale (ontology) for the ineffable that is sufficient for
conceptual understanding. One may comprehend the Value of such an ontology
even if the working details are left to its Designer.
Thanks for the opportunity. I'll expound on my ontology at a later time.
(It would help if I knew specifically what you don't understand.)
Still essentially,
Ham
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