Existentialism...

earl said:
You're just not credible when you say you examine the evidence objectively Tao. In fact haven't even taken a peak at the evidence already posted here by physicians, not that I think you would objectively examine it. In fact, the one time when you couldn't logically discount what a physician said you simply resorted to claiming he was simply lying. Objective?:rolleyes: I suspect you're about the only 1 here who might really believe you are capable of objectivity when it comes to this sort of thing- well you and maybe CZ. You have a set worldview which everyone who has been here more than 1 year is well aware of and no amount of evidence will ever sway you. In that sense you are a fundamentalist. In fact, given that, seems rather silly for me to engage you in dialogue. Dialogue with fundamentalists is usually an exercise in futility. earl
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Perhaps I should start by believing Dr Kubler-Ross who believes that NDE'rs have sex with spirits? Or Dr Raymond Moody who used the testimony of people taken years after they had the experience? I think not. i prefer to look at the evidence such as this by a Dr. Tomasz S. Troscianko of the University of Bristol who provides an explanation for one of the most reccurant themes in NDE's:
If you started with very little neural noise and it gradually increased, the effect would be of a light at the centre getting larger and larger and hence closer and closer....the tunnel would appear to move as the noise levels increased and the central light got larger and larger....If the whole cortex became so noisy that all the cells were firing fast, the whole area would appear light.
That is a description of someones brain begining to fire up again as an anasthetic wears off.

So please Earl, stop calling me a liar in your roundabout way. I have looked at this subject, at length. The conclusions I have reached are that the jury is awaiting a lot more evidence, not just the speculative junk published so far.
 
path_of_one said:
I concur with Tao- you don't need to be a theist to have morality. Ethics and empathy are part of being a social creature, and a person can learn from nature itself what it is to live a good life. It's common sense that humans are social and need the group to survive and propagate- and more than this, to be happy. All living beings also need the larger natural system as a whole in order to ensure life for future generations. In supporting the social group and the natural world, we can find all the essential ethics for a good life- caring for others, being sustainable, and so on.

The problem with human beings is that we are so socially adapted that we can actually perpetuate maladaptive cultural "rules" that are detrimental to real ethics and also to our long-term survival. What worked through common sense when we were hunter-gatherers, living in small groups and seeing the results of our decisions directly doesn't work in a global capitalist and overpopulated situation.

The way I see it, as a panentheist, is that God is all over the place- in us and all around us. Our opportunity to learn harmonious action with the whole, to have a good and happy life, and to connect to that "Something More" if we so desire is all around us and in every day and every being and every moment. So I figure that if someone doesn't want to "believe in God" it doesn't mean s/he won't be communing with God, at least my sense of what God is.

That said, of course one can choose disharmony or be too lazy to care... which is not only unethical and against what I would say is "Divine Order" but also is just plain stupid. As we can see with environmental deterioration and widespread poverty and violence, the results of this speak for themselves. Again, it's pretty much common sense to me.

As for myth, in the animist traditions, these stories encoded information useful for survival and long-term sustainability much of the time. Information beyond things like the golden rule that were specific to the ecology of a group's particular place. As such, they are/were useful ways to memorize and hold to a bulk of information. They are great learning tools for many humans, as it works with how our brains function, and they have the bonus of making us emotionally invested, thereby ensuring our commitment to proper behaviors. While I find the value of the world's religions in general ethics to hold true, we have largely lost the value of religion for practical matters such as health, economics, and sustainability. I find that to be a shame, because it's apparent that, on the whole, we haven't filled in the void with something else. Of course science has lots to say, but without getting the billions of fellow global citizens on board with proper behavior, we continue to screw over each other and our planet.
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hi po1, take out 'g#d' and replace it with consciousness and you have the same underlying reality of human existence making a stand within an already lived in world, differentiated by whatever cultural matrix one finds oneself in. Sartre by emptying consciousness or the mind of substance made it coextensive with the outside world, so no brain in a vat scenario, which he was in his excruciating phenomenology trying to refute [this solipism we still have a tendency to revert to as private as our mind seems].

Yes the state has taken over ethics from religion [in Christianity anyways] as protestantism in particular has emphasised individualism and personal salvation above communalism and made way for secularism [lots of articles on how christianity may have helped in this]. So one can understand why religions, as institutions, want everybody to be in the same boat to reinvigorate and implement homogenous universal morals [thinking of Islam here as well as the other biggies]. We in the west however cannot return from our relativised and enlightened history to a previous paradigm, though we can forge a new communalism on a small scale since trust is paramount in any human interactions, which cannot be achieved in large scale monoliths which have screwed us up in our memories of the past.
 
China Cat Sunflower said:
"...existence is prior to essence", says Sartre. The idea of existentialism is to take man as one finds him, describe his actual situation as it exists, then ask questions specifically about that. This is similar to what postmodernism attempts, which is an examination of surfaces. Why start with the surface? Because one avoids the paradox of meaningless meaning which infests any speculation of essence preceding existence.

That probably didn't help.

Chris
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yes since essences implies universals doesn't it and existentialists are concerned with the ontology of human existence, which sartre defines as a brute fact, contingent and gratuitous, and is particularised in that each 'body subject' has a particular p.o.v. unique to their way of being. Is that why postmodernism has a bad name, the superficiality of surfaces? Presumably a logical extension of existentialism in describing what is, and acting authentically to each particular situation one finds oneself in. And the rise of relativity.
 
Perhaps I should start by believing Dr Kubler-Ross who believes that NDE'rs have sex with spirits?
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D@mn fine argument for rearranging one's cognitive bias' I should think. ;)
 
Hmmm sex with spirits sounds incongruent to me.

Some dreams can be wild and not make the slighest sense. And then you can have dreams that reveal meaningful things to you. I don't let the first kind put me off the latter.
 
nativeastral said:
yes since essences implies universals doesn't it and existentialists are concerned with the ontology of human existence, which sartre defines as a brute fact, contingent and gratuitous, and is particularised in that each 'body subject' has a particular p.o.v. unique to their way of being. Is that why postmodernism has a bad name, the superficiality of surfaces? Presumably a logical extension of existentialism in describing what is, and acting authentically to each particular situation one finds oneself in. And the rise of relativity.
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Examining surfaces, what quickly becomes clear is that they are, for the most part, constructed of collages of symbols and artifacts: little bits of things, removed from any direct contextual link to meaning, floating about in hyper reality, and available for arrangement in self-referential clumps. This refers to everything from urban architecture to literary style to advertising to political brand making. It is the post modern reality.

Chris
 
I don't think that existentialism, overall and in a more contemporary sense, provides for an obligation to morality. With all due respect to the geniuses of Sartre, Tillich, and Kierkegaard, they were trying to have their theological-philosophical cake and eat it too. Relativism scares the crap out of pruny old church men.

Chris
 
Avi said:
Here is someone not on your list, Martin Buber. I read two of his books, one philosophical, I and Thou and the other one religious, Baal Shem Tov:



It is true that dialogue frames our daily activity and life in general, and it does almost seem digital in our moving between these different modes of interaction.

It makes me wonder about the role of prayer. It almost seems like this is a hybrid mode. You are doing something deeply individualistic, but as part of a group.



The author and a tree :), I love that one !! I have to admit I have not had a dialogue with a tree recently, but maybe I need to rethink that one :). I bet there are some other posters here who have these dialogues ! Does it mean a meeting of the minds ? Is our influence affected by these meetings, dialogues, etc. ? What about a reader and a book ? Are we in dialgoue with the author ? Or in monologue with ourselves ?



And aren't these monologues some of our most important experiences ? Is this where we take some of the new information which we learn in our dialogues and transform it into ourselves ? I think this topic is making me ask more questions than giving me answers :) . Existentialism :D !

Should I quit my day job and become an existentialist :D ?

By the way, Buber was a Jewish existentialist.

Martin Buber - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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this is similar to sartre's pre/reflective consciousness; pre when totally absorbed before any sense of 'l' pops up to distance 'it' and then the phenomena/being becomes an object in the refective.

Didn't realise gestalt therapy was started at this time

Gestalt therapy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and that buber was involved

Erhard Doubrawa: Gestalt Therapy - Martin Buber, the Anarchist

from what l'm getting from heidegggar he was trying to destroy 200 years of analytic dualist philosophy and the 'myth of the mental', the subject/object distinction [which as l've mentioned before science is trying to dissolve too but only to iron out 'mere' subjective experiences and to fit theories into homogenous computational models].
 
Avi said:
Existentialism is the philosophical analogue of abstract expressionist painting :D.



Jackson Pollock, No. 5, 1948. Such works employ random naturalistic methods, with deliberate and intelligent designs and expressions— such that the work is understood to be a creation, and not just an accident.

Abstract expressionism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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l was thinking more of the existential angst poertrayed in the scream!

T

Art can convey more than words and we forget what a lot of these existentialists were living through at the time and how the world seemed groundless and uncertain post theism and pre modern!
 
nativeastral said:
l was thinking more of the existential angst poertrayed in the scream! Art can convey more than words and we forget what a lot of these existentialists were living through at the time and how the world seemed groundless and uncertain post theism and pre modern!
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NA, I agree, Munch's Scream is a better example of existentialism.
 
China Cat Sunflower said:
I don't think that existentialism, overall and in a more contemporary sense, provides for an obligation to morality. With all due respect to the geniuses of Sartre, Tillich, and Kierkegaard, they were trying to have their theological-philosophical cake and eat it too. Relativism scares the crap out of pruny old church men.

Chris
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true, but everything changes, however imperceptibly, even the eternal truths of church dogma has been tweaked and differential hermeneutics applied with each new generation; l think all aspects of society and culture have been touched by existentialism, which together with the previous rise of the personal responsibility ethos of protestantism supported individualism. The countries that embraced those philosophies are more secular than most [denmark, germany, france?].
 
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