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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: Rahz]
    #29658287 -

Rahz said:
...
So I think maybe we can agree, the "pure" reference is about what happens in the absence of conflict, when a high degree of balance is already in place. In such a condition nothing seems a means to an end beyond itself. That does border on a metaphysical stance but not a first order kind. It's a second-order claim about the relationship between conflict/balance and purposiveness.


'pure contemplation' still eludes comprehension from my point of view
while pure may apply with regard to distilled water being 99.9% pure
and pharamceutical cocaine may be 99.2% pure
variously free of adulterants or contaminants.

I do not think  it is fair to turn your whole philosophy into a complex excuse (framework) after accidentally using the word "pure" in conjunction with contemplation.

Instead an honest reflection likely shows that "pure" and "ideal" have wormed their way into philosophy from religions, and there once may have been a good meaning for it, in the general promotion of cleanliness, and fresh clothing, and fresh attitudes.

The twist comes with morality (often the most un-fresh of attitudes), and the odd notion of a pure woman, or a pure minded husband, free of taints of sin.

One can become entangled with notions of purity that drag roughly through conceptual cesspools that are anything but fresh, clean, or ideal.

Washing of hands and washing of feet, however, are great rituals for coming together and breaking bread, quaffing thirst, maybe singing or drumming, and catching up on the news.


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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: redgreenvines]
    #29658297 -

Quote:
I do not think  it is fair to turn your whole philosophy into a complex excuse (framework) after accidentally using the word "pure" in conjunction with contemplation.


You're assuming a lot there.

My use of pure was not an accident. It means "without further motive than the thing itself". Autotelic. This is a semantics issue that I've seen in you before when rejecting the idea of will by conflating it with "free will".

It was an off the cuff remark and not a thing that formed the basis for the philosophical framework, but rather an idea which stems from it. Perhaps you are having difficulty with my meaning and I'm glad to try and clarify, but it almost seems to be a strawman.


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rahz

comfort pleasure power love     truth awareness peace I am      I feel      I do     I love  I speak    I see    I know

why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.

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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: Rahz]
    #29658308 -

Rahz said:
Quote:
I do not think  it is fair to turn your whole philosophy into a complex excuse (framework) after accidentally using the word "pure" in conjunction with contemplation.


You're assuming a lot there.

My use of pure was not an accident. It means "without further motive than the thing itself". Autotelic. This is a semantics issue that I've seen in you before when rejecting the idea of will by conflating it with "free will".

It was an off the cuff remark and not a thing that formed the basis for the philosophical framework, but rather an idea which stems from it. Perhaps you are having difficulty with my meaning and I'm glad to try and clarify, but it almost seems to be a strawman.


but events that occur in the mind (such as contemplation) are sensory or reflexive in origin,
events in the mind are neither pure nor impure in origin, unless the filter of morality is enforced.

the word pure is what is troubling and perverting a clearer assessment of whatever you were trying to put forth (I have forgotten completely the context).

I do remember contesting the use of the term will many times as well, and even though it is a historically popular term in philosophy and especially politics and economics, the mechanism of will has no clarity, and the use of it becomes sloppy or at best a placeholder for something the user does not know.

If Autotelic means having an internal purpose or being an end in itself, rather than serving an external goal or reward, and if you are using this term to describe a contemplation - the fault is that contemplations which are mental content sequences do not have internal purposes - nor do they have external purposes, but they do have dependent origination and contribute their form as origin to what follows, as do all mental contents.

skirting the use of 'pure' and of 'will' can make the text clearer and more meaningful, but it involves delicacy when referring to the famous thinkers of the past who got to where they did by using these words, and hoodwinking the perplexed.

Let it not be a straw man tangent, but a functional tangent. I can think of no example of a "pure contemplation", and if you must use the phrase in your thesis, please prepare an example of this rare species.


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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: redgreenvines] * 1
    #29658313 -

Dogs can be strong-willed. There is will, when you consider a big, excited dog. And this 'will' goes contrary to what the human prefers to happen.  You can put a leather leash on a dog and try to train it to heel, however, sometimes the dog is too strong-willed. A big, excited dog that is not well trained .... you don't take the dog for a walk, it takes you for a walk. 

As for purity... I had a lady friend once who claimed she 'got her purity back' by breaking up with me. Whether or not there is purity, the word 'purity' certainly seduces and wins the hearts and minds of many.  We all like the idea that our water is relatively pure of contaminants.

In my case, there is some measure of chlorine in the town water. So, purity is one of those things that the more you scrutinize and look for it, the more it eludes. Experience or consciousness appear as a mixture.  Purity is always relative, for instance pure bars of gold:

Achieving 100% pure gold in any real-world, macroscopic quantity is scientifically impossible.

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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: redgreenvines]
    #29658314 -

Contemplation as a polaristic consideration was just a topical example. Nothing is set but it's reasonably not prominent enough to make it's way into the thesis. The use of pure was an off the cuff remark and while it wasn't an accident (as I've tried to demonstrate) it won't feature in the thesis. In so much as I have reason for avoiding that, it would be because of it's color. But I'm not trying to be absolutely formal here in conversation.

I understand what you mean by "clear"... but what do you mean by clear? Are clarity and purity not very similar words? Should I object to your usage of clarity? A "clear assessment" implies an ideal, unconditioned perspective that is somehow untainted by the filter of the assessor's own neurological bias.

Seems like saying "I think people shouldn't refer to themselves in first person".


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rahz

comfort pleasure power love     truth awareness peace I am      I feel      I do     I love  I speak    I see    I know

why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.

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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: Rahz]
    #29658317 -

I think of a clear assessment as one that can be exemplified and checked.
it is clear because it is not obstructed by foggy notions or esoteric methods.
this would mean that the elements or notions of the thing can be grasped clearly (unobstructively), and that their significant interactions and required articulations can be observed in all examples.

Clear means un-obstructed. Pure is a different thing from clarity, because it requires precision testing to prove the claim or (horribly) an authority who has vetted it (and this introduces ugly precedents).

poetically both may imply honesty or directness


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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: redgreenvines] * 1
    #29658322 -

Defining clear as unobstructed is fine, but it relies on the exact same structure as defining pure as autotelic. Both simply describe something being free from extraneous elements. In my case, secondary motives (which I explained up front when you first asked). In yours, conceptual fog.

I reject your distinction, holding me to a formality while giving yourself metaphorical room, but... I accept your usage of clear. I dig what you're saying, no shovel.


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rahz

comfort pleasure power love     truth awareness peace I am      I feel      I do     I love  I speak    I see    I know

why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.

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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: Rahz]
    #29658337 -

did you claim to provide an example of "pure contemplation" without secondary motives?

I am still parked in the lot that says motive is always a matter of perspective, and once isolated it is usually a mis-reading of dependent origination - i.e. what is the functional definition of motive, such that one could designate primary and secondary qualities to this perceived construct (in some parallel dimension -along with will (and free will to boot))


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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: redgreenvines]
    #29658340 -

Do you think autotelic is uncaused magic?

If "motive" is just an illegitimate construct because it lacks an uncaused physical core, then "meaning", "truth", "clarity", and "assessment" are equally illegitimate. They are all just cognitive constructs, sensory and reflexive in origin arising dependently without any "pure" or objective anchor. Meaningless.

You are actively posting on a philosophy board, using linguistic symbols to convey meaning, trying to persuade me to adopt a clearer assessment, with the obvious motive of refining the debate.

But by your own definitions, I should perhaps reject your contribution as meaningless.


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rahz

comfort pleasure power love     truth awareness peace I am      I feel      I do     I love  I speak    I see    I know

why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.

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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: redgreenvines] * 1
    #29658374 -

The debate over free will is often made less clear by shifting between different meanings of free: freedom from coercion, the ability to have done otherwise, and authorship of one's actions. Some arguments may therefore establish a conclusion about one kind of freedom while presenting it as a conclusion about free will in general.

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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: Rahz]
    #29658432 -

Rahz said:
Do you think autotelic is uncaused magic?

If "motive" is just an illegitimate construct because it lacks an uncaused physical core, then "meaning", "truth", "clarity", and "assessment" are equally illegitimate. They are all just cognitive constructs, sensory and reflexive in origin arising dependently without any "pure" or objective anchor. Meaningless.
..


I think autotelic is an understatement that people can get away with when other things matter more. It sounds sophisticated, if it is simply doing things that are pleasurable, then we can skip the whole motivation analysis that just goes everywhere, and even skip the term that adds unnecessary complexity. whatever.

meaning is not illegitimate in context of personal meaning, and separately in the meaning of words or cyphers.
truth is awkward and when not about physics and or faithful documentation, it is about honesty which is very important.
clarity is clear, out of the shadows, and unblocked.

but now I have simply aggravated you, I am a bit tight on word usage, particularly when ambiguity is a cheat, otherwise let Derrida lead on - undecidability rocks.

Quote:
In Jacques Derrida's philosophy, undecidability is the structural condition where a text, concept, or choice resists fixed binary oppositions and cannot be resolved by a simple rule, formula, or dialectical solution



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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: teknix] * 2
    #29658619 -

Quote:
I am not claiming that ātman and process naturalism should be treated as equally probable.


Then I can reply to the first of your two responses in brief by saying that I don't hold any disagreements with what you present.

There is a tendency toward provisional belief, but I can simply say I suspect awareness is part of "the process". I use those quotes as a segue into replying to the second post. For a long time I've had a problem with strict dualism of physical/mental or material/spiritual. Even if something can be explained as physical, it's still "spiritual" if it already was. Materialists are operating through spiritual means the same as spiritualists, and spiritualists are operating through material means. It's just the gist/behavior of what's being critiqued that's different, which can be talked about without invoking special spirituality or the lack of it.

Gnosis is an interesting case. Perhaps not special but not one I take casually as I've had experiences that are difficult to relate. In so much as I formed notions about them, the notions themselves are not the actual mind state. In so much as I can remember the mind state, there are no words to properly grasp it. Examining oneness afterward, it makes sense in so much as there is logic I can convey, but that logic always has it's limits which are necessary to make experience intelligible.

That doesn't mean that such experiences cannot be informative or transformative. Aside from the fault of describing realizations as truth, they can provide a push into considering something that is/can be logical that I was biased against previously. I would say there is some truth to every possible notion, but it may be that the words or postulations from the words aren't in alignment with the actual experience, and it's possible to overstate what actually transpired.

If we can take something from such experiences allegorically, or bring biases into light of judgement, and do those things in a way that that are reasonable or testable and pragmatic, that's the value in relating it. Beyond that it's a personal experience I question trying to convince others of, and it seems a good idea to spend some time contemplating before formulating probabilistic ideas or provisional beliefs and suspicions.

Regarding the hard problem, I agree it is a hard problem. I don't take a strong view on it because I have no evidence or logic to support any particular ontology. I suspect awareness is part of the process of reality but there is a mystery there I won't deny, which is different from the apparent certainty some have in first level metaphysics. I also don't suppose the process is physical in an exclusionary way, or spiritual in an exclusionary way. But with that being the case, it doesn't necessarily follow that atman is true.

Do you suspect atman is a fundamental reality?

If so, why? I think maybe you've already stated that there's more logical reason to suspect dependent process, so I am curious about why you would still favor it.

If atman is a fundamental reality, why would that be important? As times has gone by, first order metaphysics makes less and less sense to me as a necessity, even in having an interest in alternatives to the mainstream. As well, they can be highly problematic or helpful (arguably), without necessarily being true, though there's a line of logic that states that if something is held as true that's not true, trouble is likely. This is essentially The Buddha's logic, atman related to clinging to a fixed self being a source of dukkha.


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rahz

comfort pleasure power love     truth awareness peace I am      I feel      I do     I love  I speak    I see    I know

why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.

Edited by Rahz (09/01/26 12:22 AM)

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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: Rahz] * 1
    #29658720 -

I am not personally suspecting that ātman is fundamental to reality. I was using ātman as a counterexample to an inference rather than a metaphysical suspicion (or seeming). I personally haven't had gnosis of ātman nor would an experience of it's absence be possible and I cannot provide a rational metaphysical argument that conclusively proves or disproves it. Some approaches treat experience as primary and therefore use different axioms when discursive reasoning reaches its limits, but I am not adopting that approach here. I am comfortable speaking in terms of provisional seemings or suspicions, since they do not claim metaphysical certainty or require further deduction. I think that saying "ātman seems unlikely" is an epistemic judgment, rather than a proof of its impossibility.

For example; if free will is the capacity of an agent to deliberate, respond to reason, form intentions, and guide action in accordance with those intentions, without coercion or external compulsion then I provisionally regard free will as real because deliberation and choice appear in fundamental experience as meaningful alternatives arising through reflection and reasons. This is a seeming grounded in experience, not a metaphysical proof that the will is uncaused or independent of conditions. Free will may ultimately be compatible with determinism, emergence, or causal dependence. I am treating experienced agency as provisionally trustworthy in this case.

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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: Rahz]
    #29658734 -

If I take experience as my fundamental epistemic starting point, I begin with the fact that awareness is present and that changing bodily, sensory, emotional, and cognitive contents arise within an apparently continuous field of experience. Attention, memory, self-modeling, conceptual interpretation, and deliberative agency develop within that process. I treat these features as provisionally real, while remaining agnostic about their ultimate metaphysical basis.

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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: Rahz] * 1
    #29658793 -

that is a very even handed approach!


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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: teknix]
    #29658856 -

I appreciate the distinctions. We seem to have similar views.

Quote:
if free will is the capacity of an agent to deliberate, respond to reason, form intentions, and guide action in accordance with those intentions, without coercion or external compulsion then I provisionally regard free will as real because deliberation and choice appear in fundamental experience as meaningful alternatives arising through reflection and reasons. This is a seeming grounded in experience, not a metaphysical proof that the will is uncaused or independent of conditions. Free will may ultimately be compatible with determinism, emergence, or causal dependence. I am treating experienced agency as provisionally trustworthy in this case.


I find that agreeable, but I think most people do so it's not the central/historical debate about free will, which you pinpointed earlier as uncaused agency.


--------------------
rahz

comfort pleasure power love     truth awareness peace I am      I feel      I do     I love  I speak    I see    I know

why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.

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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: Rahz]
    #29658871 -

Rahz said:
I appreciate the distinctions. We seem to have similar views.

Quote:
if free will is the capacity of an agent to deliberate, respond to reason, form intentions, and guide action in accordance with those intentions, without coercion or external compulsion then I provisionally regard free will as real because deliberation and choice appear in fundamental experience as meaningful alternatives arising through reflection and reasons. This is a seeming grounded in experience, not a metaphysical proof that the will is uncaused or independent of conditions. Free will may ultimately be compatible with determinism, emergence, or causal dependence. I am treating experienced agency as provisionally trustworthy in this case.


I find that agreeable, but I think most people do so it's not the central/historical debate about free will, which you pinpointed earlier as uncaused agency.


capacity is a grab bag container term for several things that are recognizeable, but  these things are actually neurological phenomena that deserve to be recognized as associative mental sequences, in the context of mind as part of body.

saying that this is the the capacity to do those things, does not separate it from body which has the same capacity, and mind which has the same capacity.

what I do not like about it is that it puts a 3rd agent into the picture which is fake. Service of the free will idea does not clarify things, it imposes an extra cognitive tangent for no benefit.


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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: redgreenvines]
    #29658919 -

Rahz said:
I appreciate the distinctions. We seem to have similar views.

Quote:
if free will is the capacity of an agent to deliberate, respond to reason, form intentions, and guide action in accordance with those intentions, without coercion or external compulsion then I provisionally regard free will as real because deliberation and choice appear in fundamental experience as meaningful alternatives arising through reflection and reasons. This is a seeming grounded in experience, not a metaphysical proof that the will is uncaused or independent of conditions. Free will may ultimately be compatible with determinism, emergence, or causal dependence. I am treating experienced agency as provisionally trustworthy in this case.


I find that agreeable, but I think most people do so it's not the central/historical debate about free will, which you pinpointed earlier as uncaused agency.


I may have pinpointed a central fault line, but I am not claiming that uncaused agency is the only meaning of free will or that every argument about freedom must establish it. My point is narrower: arguments can move from one sense of freedom to another without acknowledging the shift. In particular, an argument may establish freedom from coercion or ordinary authorship while presenting that result as an answer to the deeper question of ultimate sourcehood. Whether uncaused agency is required is precisely what libertarians and compatibilists disagree about.

I am not identifying free will with uncaused agency. I am distinguishing a more modest, experienced form of agency from the stronger metaphysical claim that an agent must be an ultimate, undetermined source. My argument supports the former provisionally; it does not establish the latter.

It is possible that the person is the agent, rather than agency being produced by or being some separate entity. I wasn't building a Cartesian theater.

Edited by teknix (09/01/26 12:43 PM)

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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: Rahz]
    #29658927 -

A Cartesian theater posits an inner observer; an immortal spirit posits an enduring metaphysical subject; a vajra may refer to an indestructible principle, awareness, or spiritual reality; an infinite regress is the problem that arises if any proposed subject or controller requires a further subject or controller behind it.

My account does not establish or exclude a Cartesian theater, an immortal spirit, or a vajra-like basis of consciousness. It begins with the person’s experienced capacities for deliberation and action and leaves the underlying metaphysics open. Any theory that introduces a further observer or controller behind the person would need to explain how it avoids an infinite regress.

The metaphysical terminus in these cases;

Immortal spirit: the spirit itself as the fundamental subject of consciousness and agency. It is treated as not needing a further inner observer. This stops the regress by positing an irreducible subject, though it leaves open how the spirit exercises agency.

Vajra body, light body, ot rainbow body: an indestructible or extremely subtle continuum of consciousness and embodied awareness underlying ordinary physical and psychological processes. Whether that continuum is ultimately a subject, a process, or an expression of awakened awareness depends on the framework being used. My account neither affirms nor denies that possibility; it only notes that treating it as an additional controller would recreate the homunculus problem.

The person as agent: the person as an integrated psychological and biological subject. Deliberation and choice terminate in the person’s own capacities and activities, rather than in a further agent behind the person.

Edited by teknix (09/01/26 01:09 PM)

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Re: Philosophies compared [Re: Rahz]
    #29659491 -

The hard problem is close to pure contemplation in my view, because if one cannot comprehend the role of evolution, the hard problem is real.

You either open that door, or you fear it, don't go there, and search for alternatives where whatever role evolution had in our inherited becoming, stopped somewhere.

Our minds either evolved or they didnt, and the hard problem only exists in the later.



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I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.


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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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