Philosophical Speculations

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 1:11 pm I suppose it depends on what is meant by Brahman ...

Paul Deussen states that the concept of Brahman in the Upanishads expands to metaphysical, ontological and soteriological themes, such as it being the "primordial reality that creates, maintains and withdraws within it the universe", the "principle of the world", the "absolute", the "general, universal", the "cosmic principle", the "ultimate that is the cause of everything including all gods", the "divine being, Lord, distinct God, or God within oneself", the "knowledge", the "soul, sense of self of each human being that is fearless, luminuous, exalted and blissful", the "essence of liberation, of spiritual freedom", the "universe within each living being and the universe outside", the "essence and everything innate in all that exists inside, outside and everywhere"

This is a useful quote. It gives the word 'God' as an option, but not in a sense that implies monotheism. I'd concede that this a subtle issue and that the word 'God ' is often a useful one, but it may also often be dangerously misleading. .

Peter Jones wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 1:24 pmThis is a useful quote. It gives the word 'God' as an option, but not in a sense that implies monotheism. I'd concede that this a subtle issue and that the word 'God ' is often a useful one, but it may also often be dangerously misleading.

I would tend to agree if monotheism is referring to a personified, gender-specific God 'out there' somewhere, but I'm not sure that is always the case, keeping in mind that "... nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘Look there!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” ... and that there is only one such kingdom of God, aka 'monotheism'. I give the sage Jesus the benefit of the doubt in referring to the 'Father' when proclaiming that "I and the Father are one", given that he surely knew he had to use the acceptable culture-specific terminology that the traditional Judaic audience he was trying to sway could easily relate to ~ after all, he was already considered a heretic by the status quo, patriarchal high priests, who, as it was, didn't take kindly to the notion of God being no less within their underlings, and which ultimately forced their hand in trying to put a stop to such a claim, by nailing its proponent to a cross.

Peter Jones wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 1:14 pm

AshvinP wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 12:50 pm Why would it be unorthodox? I grew up in Hindu home going to temple once a week and God was mentioned prettty often.

Well, yes. Indian religion has thousand Gods. But nondualism is not theism. Plotinus carefully and explicitly warns us against imagining that the Ultimate or 'The One' is God. Nondualism requires abandoning God, or, at least, conceding that whatever we are calling God we are It. It could be argued that Meister Eckhart, say, is a 'nondual theist', but he was writing at a time and place when it would have been suicidal to question monotheism, and even with all his care he was excommunicated. So Christian and Islamic mysticism has always had to be dressed up in theistic clothing - at least until quite recently. Even in the mid 20th century Schrodinger got into trouble for saying that inasmuch as there is a God he is it, as are we all.

But regardless there is definitely nondual Christian monotheism. This was discussed over in the Nietzsche thread.

I would disagree. There is definitely a nondual Christianity, as we see in the Philokalia, the sayings of the Desert Fathers, the Nag Hammadi Library, the Mystical Theology of Dionysius Echkart, Ruysbrooke and more recently the book A Course in Miracles and so forth. But this is not theism. Hence the horror of the Church at this doctrine. I would say Jesus taught the nondual doctrine, but regrettably the Church doesn't agree.

I suppose I'm being pedantic, but I don't think you'll be able to get the hang of mysticism while you believe it is theism.

We can ditch the word theism and just say there is no incompatibility between Judeo-Christian scripture, metaphysical non-dualism and a personal, supreme God as found in that scripture. In fact, it could be argued that scripture necessitates metaphysical non-dualism, and the reality is that the concept of anything other than non-dualism would not have occurred to any authors of scripture. Arguably not to any Christian theologians before the tail end of the Middle Ages. All of that is assuming "metaphysical dualism" means the existence of a separate yet equally real 'material' world which is not pervaded with living, conscious beings.

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:04 pm

Peter Jones wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 1:24 pmThis is a useful quote. It gives the word 'God' as an option, but not in a sense that implies monotheism. I'd concede that this a subtle issue and that the word 'God ' is often a useful one, but it may also often be dangerously misleading.

I would tend to agree if monotheism is referring to a personified, gender-specific God 'out there' somewhere, but I'm not sure that is always the case, keeping in mind that "... nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘Look there!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” ... and that there is only one such kingdom of God, aka 'monotheism'. I give the sage Jesus the benefit of the doubt in referring to the 'Father' when proclaiming that "I and the Father are one", given that he surely knew he had to use the acceptable culture-specific terminology that the traditional Judaic audience he was trying to sway could easily relate to ~ after all, he was already considered a heretic by the status quo, patriarchal high priests, who, as it was, didn't take kindly to the notion of God being no less within their underlings, and which ultimately forced their hand in trying to put a stop to such a claim, by nailing its proponent to a cross.

There are all sorts of assumptions here that I will not go into because this is a sensitive issue.
Philosophically there are versions of idealism. Those that reduce God to man(God apparently is not at it best right now), and there are others that do not reduce God to man. Know what, call it panentheism.
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Your assumption is that you are aware of the ideas that were among the Jews at that time, while in the Jewish tradition there were ideas that were considered occult and are expressed in scattered places in the Talmud. It can be said that Christian mystics ("Christian Kabbalists") later sought the conceptualization of these ideas in Kabbalah, and it is likely that such ideas were scattered among Gnostic and alchemical Jews.

Shaibei wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:55 pmThere are all sorts of assumptions here that I will not go into because this is a sensitive issue. Philosophically there are versions of idealism. Those that reduce God to man(God apparently is not at it best right now), and there are others that do not reduce God to man. Know what, call it panentheism.

Your assumption is that you are aware of the ideas that were among the Jews at that time, while in the Jewish tradition there were ideas that were considered occult and are expressed in scattered places in the Talmud. It can be said that Christian mystics ("Christian Kabbalists") later sought the conceptualization of these ideas in Kabbalah, and it is likely that such ideas were scattered among Gnostic and alchemical Jews.

Shaibei ... fair enough, and I don't claim to be all that knowledgeable about various ancient Judaic understandings of God. Nonetheless, surely the understanding of God espoused by those who saw the mysticism of Jesus proclaiming a "God in the midst of you" as heretical, such that they felt a stop had to be put it, was not deemed flexible or negotiable.

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 3:19 pm

Shaibei wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:55 pmThere are all sorts of assumptions here that I will not go into because this is a sensitive issue. Philosophically there are versions of idealism. Those that reduce God to man(God apparently is not at it best right now), and there are others that do not reduce God to man. Know what, call it panentheism.

Your assumption is that you are aware of the ideas that were among the Jews at that time, while in the Jewish tradition there were ideas that were considered occult and are expressed in scattered places in the Talmud. It can be said that Christian mystics ("Christian Kabbalists") later sought the conceptualization of these ideas in Kabbalah, and it is likely that such ideas were scattered among Gnostic and alchemical Jews.

Shaibei ... fair enough, and I don't claim to be all that knowledgeable about various ancient Judaic understandings of God. Nonetheless, surely the understanding of God espoused by those who saw the mysticism of Jesus proclaiming a "God in the midst of you" as heretical, such that they felt a stop had to be put it, was not deemed flexible or negotiable.

I leave that to historians. I doubt the sentence you quoted is enough to be considered heresy, since sentences of this style can be found in the Talmud, As "the Shekhinah (=God) speaks from the throat of Moses" etc

AshvinP wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 1:22 pm But let's see if we can get to the heart of this metaphysical issue, anyway. We need to explore what it means to claim something is "true". Can anything which is useful towards achieving human aims be untrue? (note truth does not necessarily imply what we should aim at; the Devil can be real but we don't need to follow him). I hold to the pragmatic definition of truths. Fittingly enough, if our aim with post-modern philosophy is to critique intellectual thought of the modern era, pragmatism is truly post-modern, because it is one of the most effective ways of making such a critique of rationalism, materialism, logical positivism, etc.

Contextuality of truth theories is fine. Coherence theory of truth suits well metaphysics and foundational mathematics, perhaps also how we try to make some sense of spiritual truths. It can be considered a process towards consensus building, without ever finalizing. I'm also rather fond of Badiou's dynamic, zeitgeist type truth theory.

Not sure what to make of American pragmatism, never looked deep into it. I've read Peirce only through lenses of general linguistics and semiotics. Let's start from wiki:

Epistemology (justification): a coherentist theory of justification that rejects the claim that all knowledge and justified belief rest ultimately on a foundation of noninferential knowledge or justified belief. Coherentists hold that justification is solely a function of some relationship between beliefs, none of which are privileged beliefs in the way maintained by foundationalist theories of justification.
Epistemology (truth): a deflationary or pragmatic theory of truth; the former is the epistemological claim that assertions that predicate truth of a statement do not attribute a property called truth to such a statement while the latter is the epistemological claim that assertions that predicate truth of a statement attribute the property of useful-to-believe to such a statement.
Metaphysics: a pluralist view that there is more than one sound way to conceptualize the world and its content.
Philosophy of science: an instrumentalist and scientific anti-realist view that a scientific concept or theory should be evaluated by how effectively it explains and predicts phenomena, as opposed to how accurately it describes objective reality.
Philosophy of language: an anti-representationalist view that rejects analyzing the semantic meaning of propositions, mental states, and statements in terms of a correspondence or representational relationship and instead analyzes semantic meaning in terms of notions like dispositions to action, inferential relationships, and/or functional roles (e.g. behaviorism and inferentialism). Not to be confused with pragmatics, a sub-field of linguistics with no relation to philosophical pragmatism.
Additionally, forms of empiricism, fallibilism, verificationism, and a Quinean naturalist metaphilosophy are all commonly elements of pragmatist philosophies. Many pragmatists are epistemological relativists and see this to be an important facet of their pragmatism (e.g. Joseph Margolis), but this is controversial and other pragmatists argue such relativism to be seriously misguided (e.g. Hilary Putnam, Susan Haack).

So far so good. Things can get thorny at closer look, but no main objections.

Correspondence theories of truth rejected, fine.

Peirce argued that there is no power of intuition in the sense of a cognition unconditioned by inference, and no power of introspection, intuitive or otherwise, and that awareness of an internal world is by hypothetical inference from external facts. Introspection and intuition were staple philosophical tools at least since Descartes. He argued that there is no absolutely first cognition in a cognitive process; such a process has its beginning but can always be analyzed into finer cognitive stages. That which we call introspection does not give privileged access to knowledge about the mind—the self is a concept that is derived from our interaction with the external world and not the other way around

This I can't agree with. Whether intended or not, this leads to rejection of idealism and introspective empirism, and categorical rejection of spiritual truths. Problem seems to be presupposition of ontological subject-object dualism, which does not have coherent justification.

Hilary Putnam has suggested that the reconciliation of anti-skepticism[18] and fallibilism is the central goal of American pragmatism.[citation needed] Although all human knowledge is partial, with no ability to take a "God's-eye-view", this does not necessitate a globalized skeptical attitude, a radical philosophical skepticism (as distinguished from that which is called scientific skepticism).

This is what we keep hearing from proponents of materialistic scientism. They reject philosophical skepticism (which is not "radical", but the foundation of philosophical inquiry), and allow only "scientific skepticism", because the former threatens their dogmatic metaphysical beliefs. Again, for umpteenth time, philosophical skepticism does not mean affirmation or negation of truth or knowing, it means investigation. This sound better:

Note that anti-skepticism is a reaction to modern academic skepticism in the wake of Descartes. The pragmatist insistence that all knowledge is tentative is quite congenial to the older skeptical tradition.

Here comes the crux:

Pragmatism was not the first to apply evolution to theories of knowledge: Schopenhauer advocated a biological idealism as what's useful to an organism to believe might differ wildly from what is true. Here knowledge and action are portrayed as two separate spheres with an absolute or transcendental truth above and beyond any sort of inquiry organisms used to cope with life. Pragmatism challenges this idealism by providing an "ecological" account of knowledge: inquiry is how organisms can get a grip on their environment. Real and true are functional labels in inquiry and cannot be understood outside of this context. It is not realist in a traditionally robust sense of realism (what Hilary Putnam later called metaphysical realism), but it is realist in how it acknowledges an external world which must be dealt with.

Ecological functionalism is fine and in tune with coherentist justification. The problem is unproblematized subject-object division, rejection of introspection and acceptance of only "external world", which does not allow for spiritual coherentism of holographic relations. These methodological and metaphysical limitations mean in practice exclusion of idealism, animism etc., and hence truth theory of pragmatism is not consistent or coherent with it's claim of metaphysical pluralism.

Despite it's perhaps well-intended intentions to do otherwise, as presented by wiki, pragmatism becomes and remains materialism and scientism in disguise.

SanteriSatama wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 3:38 pm Ecological functionalism is fine and in tune with coherentist justification. The problem is unproblematized subject-object division, rejection of introspection and acceptance of only "external world", which does not allow for spiritual coherentism of holographic relations. These methodological and metaphysical limitations mean in practice exclusion of idealism, animism etc., and hence truth theory of pragmatism is not consistent or coherent with it's claim of metaphysical pluralism.

Despite it's perhaps well-intended intentions to do otherwise, as presented by wiki, pragmatism becomes and remains materialism and scientism in disguise.

I don't know what you are reading... everything you posted re: pragmatism suggests the opposite to me. Except that one part about Peirce, which I agree is troublesome. I don't know much about Peirce and resonate much more with William James' approach. The latter clearly did not devalue spirituality or embrace any sort of materialism/scientism. James' pragmatic approach is very compatible with healthy skepticism and idealism. The last section you quoted is especially important - that challenge to idealism of Kant, Schopenhauer, etc. is critical to maintain metaphysical continuity of experience-knowledge. It is essentially the same critique launched by Nietzsche and Heideggerian phenomenology.

So I think we are now on the same page with regards to why I do not see any major problem with Cantor's set theory math - because pragmatically, it is not untrue. We are not comparing it to an 'objective' state of reality out there, but to other conceptual systems which are tools in pursuit of various human aims. You seemed to be on board with the pragmatic perspective on truth until the segment on Peirce, which implied a subject-object division. I agree that is a problem and that aspect of pragmaticism, to the extent that Wiki is accurate and it actually exists, should be discarded.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:28 pm I don't know what you are reading...

This:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism

I know nothing of William James. Wiki is not very trustworthy, it reflects biases of writers and editing process, but still, a starting point for trying to get some sense of a meaning of a term.

So I think we are now on the same page with regards to why I do not see any major problem with Cantor's set theory math - because pragmatically, it is not untrue. We are not comparing it to an 'objective' state of reality out there, but to other conceptual systems which are tools in pursuit of various human aims. You seemed to be on board with the pragmatic perspective on truth until the segment on Peirce, which implied a subject-object division. I agree that is a problem and that aspect of pragmaticism, to the extent that Wiki is accurate and it actually exists, should be discarded.

Not so fast. Your claim is that instrumentalism of physicalism and it's applied math should reflect back to domintate metaphysics, where foundational thinking in pure mathematics belongs. Seems I read the "core tenets" of pragmatism too superficially. Does the argument boil down to Coherence theory of truth vs. Coherence theory of justification? This seems a promising avenue of investigation, but first, let's note:

Robert Fogelin claims to detect a suspicious resemblance between the theories of justification and Agrippa's five modes leading to the suspension of belief. He concludes that the modern proponents have made no significant progress in responding to the ancient modes of Pyrrhonian skepticism.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justifica ... stemology)

In terms of empirism, both introspective (intuition) and extrospective (Zeno's paradoxes, IRL Achilleus beats the turtle), as well as logic, postulation of 'completed infinity' is not a coherent theory of truth on the foundational level of mathematics. As a speculative thought experiment which does not claim any truth value, different story. Agreed so far?

So, what is left is the question, how coherent is the pragmatic justification, which is ethical discussion about our aims and purposes.

1) Does calculus in it's current form, and as long as there are no better alternatives available for the specific technical aims that it serves, justify subjecting pure mathematics as a whole to the applied mathematics of calculus, do the instrumental aims justify violating the coherence theory of truth on the foundational level of pure mathematics, so that mathematics needs to be founded on Cantor's paradise/joke?

In my view not, but you are free to disagree. If you disagree, the discussion moves onto next level:

2) How do the justifications derived from aims of calculus relate to other human aims? Do instrumentalist justifications lead to the fragmentation of the post-modern condition, so that anything can be derived from any and all aims, or is there necessity for some some sort and level of coherence when we compare different aims and their implications? If it works, as Dawkins justifies physicalism and it's cornerstone of calculus, should it work to make us Dawkins' bitches?

Okey, using Dawkins as an example is a rhetorical stunt, not a steelman argument. Please make your own best argument, what aim of calculus could be so high and noble, that it would justify polluting pure mathematics, to justify violating coherence theory of truth as well as many other competing justifications, with Cantor's paradise/joke?

If you don't mind, I offer my own best steelman attempt for justification. The aim of targeting a big space rock so accurately, that we can prevent a big fiery rock falling from sky and wiping away much or most of life. That is a very noble aim!

On some subconscious, archetypal level, it is not unplausible that the essence, the manifest destiny of Western spirit has been exactly that: cultural level possession to serve that aim and develop for Mother Earth an antidote against big fiery rocks falling from the sky. A madness inflicted by Mother Earth on some of her children, for a justified cause for a creative process and all the collateral damage the process has splashed out. This steelman argument would entail that Western civilization has not been using, it has been used in a way that is not without its cruelty of being possessed by the justified madness.

Here's my counterargument from metamodern zeitgeist of reconciliation with modernism. Maybe we have now become on some level mature enough to liberate Western civilization from it's noble aim, to delegate and distribute the aim more evenly between other civilizations and their space technologies, so that we can further develop and maintain the technological ability to defend Mother Earth, to create conditions for more smooth and less violent evolution both biologically and spiritually. Advances in computation theory and pure mathematics are bringing better alternatives to old calculus. There are no more strong enough reasons to hold pure mathematics captive to the technological teleology, and we can liberate pure mathematics and its spiritual implications to other purposes, perhaps even more magnificent and noble.

SanteriSatama wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 6:09 pm

AshvinP wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:28 pm I don't know what you are reading...

This:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism

I know nothing of William James. Wiki is not very trustworthy, it reflects biases of writers and editing process, but still, a starting point for trying to get some sense of a meaning of a term.

So I think we are now on the same page with regards to why I do not see any major problem with Cantor's set theory math - because pragmatically, it is not untrue. We are not comparing it to an 'objective' state of reality out there, but to other conceptual systems which are tools in pursuit of various human aims. You seemed to be on board with the pragmatic perspective on truth until the segment on Peirce, which implied a subject-object division. I agree that is a problem and that aspect of pragmaticism, to the extent that Wiki is accurate and it actually exists, should be discarded.

I think you would like William James. He's the guy who wrote about "anesthetic revelation" after experimenting with nitrous oxide. He is probably best known for his book on the Varieties of Religious Experience and being a founder (or co-founder) of pragmatic philosophy. There is an excellent book on him, Peirce and Oliver Wendell Holmes (famous Supreme Court justice) called The Metaphysical Club.

SS wrote:Not so fast. Your claim is that instrumentalism of physicalism and it's applied math should reflect back to domintate metaphysics, where foundational thinking in pure mathematics belongs. Seems I read the "core tenets" of pragmatism too superficially. Does the argument boil down to Coherence theory of truth vs. Coherence theory of justification? This seems a promising avenue of investigation, but first, let's note:

Robert Fogelin claims to detect a suspicious resemblance between the theories of justification and Agrippa's five modes leading to the suspension of belief. He concludes that the modern proponents have made no significant progress in responding to the ancient modes of Pyrrhonian skepticism.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justifica ... stemology)

In terms of empirism, both introspective (intuition) and extrospective (Zeno's paradoxes, IRL Achilleus beats the turtle), as well as logic, postulation of 'completed infinity' is not a coherent theory of truth on the foundational level of mathematics. As a speculative thought experiment which does not claim any truth value, different story. Agreed so far?

So, what is left is the question, how coherent is the pragmatic justification, which is ethical discussion about our aims and purposes.

1) Does calculus in it's current form, and as long as there are no better alternatives available for the specific technical aims that it serves, justify subjecting pure mathematics as a whole to the applied mathematics of calculus, do the instrumental aims justify violating the coherence theory of truth on the foundational level of pure mathematics, so that mathematics needs to be founded on Cantor's paradise/joke?

I don't know what you mean by "subjecting pure mathematics... to applied mathematics". Cantor's math is just a tool in a toolkit - if it's the best tool to get any specific job done, then it's the tool which should be used.

The question of which aims we should be pursuing is of course more complex, although Nietzsche would say it must be a job which serves to further the individual qualities which make our lives meaningful. So if it's something which feels oppressive, like it's forcing us to do something we have no interest in doing, and leads to strong negative emotional reactions, like anger, frustration, resentment, etc., and stifles our creativity, ambition, etc., then it's a safe bet that it is not an aim worth pursuing.

In my view not, but you are free to disagree. If you disagree, the discussion moves onto next level:

2) How do the justifications derived from aims of calculus relate to other human aims? Do instrumentalist justifications lead to the fragmentation of the post-modern condition, so that anything can be derived from any and all aims, or is there necessity for some some sort and level of coherence when we compare different aims and their implications? If it works, as Dawkins justifies physicalism and it's cornerstone of calculus, should it work to make us Dawkins' bitches?

Okey, using Dawkins as an example is a rhetorical stunt, not a steelman argument. Please make your own best argument, what aim of calculus could be so high and noble, that it would justify polluting pure mathematics, to justify violating coherence theory of truth as well as many other competing justifications, with Cantor's paradise/joke?

If you don't mind, I offer my own best steelman attempt for justification. The aim of targeting a big space rock so accurately, that we can prevent a big fiery rock falling from sky and wiping away much or most of life. That is a very noble aim!

On some subconscious, archetypal level, it is not unplausible that the essence, the manifest destiny of Western spirit has been exactly that: cultural level possession to serve that aim and develop for Mother Earth an antidote against big fiery rocks falling from the sky. A madness inflicted by Mother Earth on some of her children, for a justified cause for a creative process and all the collateral damage the process has splashed out. This steelman argument would entail that Western civilization has not been using, it has been used in a way that is not without its cruelty of being possessed by the justified madness.

Here's my counterargument from metamodern zeitgeist of reconciliation with modernism. Maybe we have now become on some level mature enough to liberate Western civilization from it's noble aim, to delegate and distribute the aim more evenly between other civilizations and their space technologies, so that we can further develop and maintain the technological ability to defend Mother Earth, to create conditions for more smooth and less violent evolution both biologically and spiritually. Advances in computation theory and pure mathematics are bringing better alternatives to old calculus. There are no more strong enough reasons to hold pure mathematics captive to the technological teleology, and we can liberate pure mathematics and its spiritual implications to other purposes, perhaps even more magnificent and noble.

So I started answering this in previous section before seeing the question. I will stick to that answer and expand to say the aims must be considered from an individual perspective (maybe family) if we want to make any spiritual progress. Once we get to the level of state, nation, planet, extra-terrestrial civilizations, etc., then we are just picking and choosing frames of reference which serve to make the argument work in favor of our personal preferences. And we are also dealing with a level of complexity that is near impossible to analyze in normal waking consciousness.

A major part of my spiritual faith is believing what works best to stimulate my innate individual sense of meaning, what JP refers to as "orienting mechanism", is also what works best for larger scale systems. That is also a fundamentally Darwinian evolutionary perspective, and thinkers like Hoffman and Peterson have done a good job showing we are only beginning to understand the deep and far-reaching implications of natural selection, let alone sexual selection, epigenetics and what have you. That is the reason for the obvious affinity between such thinkers and pro-individual sovereignty, anti-collectivist stances.