What is Your Story?

[Dark Matter]

Dark Matter wrote:

That’s all fine by me, but that’s no excuse for hate and bigotry.

Don't you agree that some myth may be dysfunctional?

All myths have psychological and sociological consequences. So does losing touch with myth.

[Dark Matter]

Belindi:

I'm not saying that Greta's narrative is wrong, only inadequate. I actually agree with a most of what she said, but to be useful a narrative has to speak to the whole person, not just the brain. Her's doesn't provide me with a sense of personal identity; it doesn't answer the question, 'Who am I?' Second, there's nothing there to undergird moral values apart from personal likes and dislikes. Third, it doesn't deal with the inscrutable mystery of Being itself.

[Steve3007]

Her's doesn't provide me with a sense of personal identity; it doesn't answer the question, 'Who am I?'

I think it is this natural human need to identify, to empathise, which causes many people to project human characteristics onto the non-human world. Theory of Mind is a powerful tool when applied to other humans and other living things so it's only natural to try it out on other things to see if it works there too.

[Belindi]

Dark Matter wrote:

Her's doesn't provide me with a sense of personal identity;

There actually are people who identify with the huge cosmos, and some of those people arrived at their identity via a so-called peak experience.

DM:

Her's doesn't provide me with a sense of personal identity; it doesn't answer the question, 'Who am I?' Second, there's nothing there to undergird moral values apart from personal likes and dislikes. Third, it doesn't deal with the inscrutable mystery of Being itself.

Second, pantheism can underpin ethics : please see Spinoza.

Third, do you refer to theory of existence as in 'ontology'? Well , pantheism is a monistic ontology. There is no rational need for a pantheist to deny feelings and personal attachments. A pantheist tries to understand reactive emotions including their own. A pantheist applies reason to The inscrutable mystery of being . The biological world is awash with ineradicable reactive emotions and reason can only improve that biological world of which we are a part.

[Dark Matter]

Dark Matter wrote:

Her's doesn't provide me with a sense of personal identity;

There actually are people who identify with the huge cosmos, and some of those people arrived at their identity via a so-called peak experience.

DM:

Her's doesn't provide me with a sense of personal identity; it doesn't answer the question, 'Who am I?' Second, there's nothing there to undergird moral values apart from personal likes and dislikes. Third, it doesn't deal with the inscrutable mystery of Being itself.

Second, pantheism can underpin ethics : please see Spinoza.

Third, do you refer to theory of existence as in 'ontology'? Well , pantheism is a monistic ontology. There is no rational need for a pantheist to deny feelings and personal attachments. A pantheist tries to understand reactive emotions including their own. A pantheist applies reason to The inscrutable mystery of being . The biological world is awash with ineradicable reactive emotions and reason can only improve that biological world of which we are a part.

How is anything you say here relevant? I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I don't need my story to be validated by anyone but me. That I find pantheism to be relatively barren does not excuse the hate and bias exhibited by Greta's comments.

[Belindi]

Dark Matter wrote:

That I find pantheism to be relatively barren ------

Emotional flatness is a disadvantage of pantheism. However most people are actually so reactive to emotions that in reality the reasoned approach to ethics and morality must be a good thing. Pantheism and a myth that includes a person or persons are not mutually exclusive. As always it's a good thing to avoid idolatry whatever myth rules your thinking and feelings.

[Sy Borg]

Explanation to the forum re: my alleged "hatred and bigotry".

Dark Matter is an uncritical Trump supporter and I have often rubbished Trump and his supporters. This is what he's talking about. I am not a fan of his cheap, unsubstantiated Twitteresque swipes so we clash at times.

Dark Matter, Greta wrote Is the world senseless? I think nature makes tremendous sense, and I see humans as part of nature..

That's a statement of the basic pantheist myth. The pantheist myth as founded upon nature= that which uniquely exists . It's an ontological theory of existence and Spinoza has derived ethics from it.

If you compare Mc Dowell whom you quoted 4. Myths are Narratives Representative of a Particular Epistemology or Way of Understanding Nature and Organizing Thought. For example, structuralism recognizes paired bundles of opposites (or dualities -- like light and dark) as central to myths. You see that Greta as pantheist subjects her ideas to the light of reason as opposed to the darkness of unreasoning reaction.

Whether or not Greta herself agrees that she is a pantheist I regard her as a pantheist because so much of what she writes is pantheist.

These so-called "myths" are not myths; they are organising thoughts. If everything is a myth then the word "myth" loses its meaning. It reminds me of the overuse of the word "illusion" - "everything is an illusion ..." blah blah. It's simply lazy, reducing the particular to fuzzy metonymic conceptual blobs that are ultimately rendered meaningless through commonality.

Theists often try to blur the line between myth and substantiated narratives, seemingly to reduce the credibility issue they have from believing in superstitions. They try to tell us that "everyone is doing it", that everyone believes in their own myths, but that is simply a misrepresentation via exaggeration. Of course we hominids have perceptual limitations so nothing we believe to be true can be truly substantiated, but that should not reduce the tangible efforts of scientists actually doing work to the musings of intuitive romantics; they are not equal.

Putting obfuscating labels aside, the real issue with "myths" is whether a person is prepared to put their "myth" aside for another when new information is received.

Back to the topic, I see myself as much more of a panvitalist than a pantheist, that reality consists of layers of living systems - the Earth, the solar system, the galaxy (and no doubt particular regions in the galaxy that we don't understand yet), galactic clusters and superclusters, the cosmic web ... all living systems, of which biology is just one. This means that death is not as we think it is, simply an observation that an entity is currently in a passive state within a larger living system, having lost its own particular system.

If you are a Spinozan, I am more of a de Chardinian :)

[Dark Matter]

Reason and emotion are inter-reactive. While it is true that pantheism is a monistic ontology, it is also true that self-awareness entails an ontological understanding that is at the very least a limited form of dualism.

Note: Spinoza’s heavy reliance on axioms is too problematic. For example, if God is infinite substance, then how can any kind of evil or falsehood occur? Spinoza’s answer is that error and falsehood arise from inadequate knowledge of God, but that contradicts his notion of God’s absoluteness. Put another way, that which can deny God is, in a certain sense, superior to or apart from God.

[Sy Borg]

DM, I think your first objection is the one most important to you - you see Spinozan and natural concepts as "sterile" because, when you face dark hours, you cannot talk to a universe. At least some level of anthropomorphism is needed.

The logical issue here is that one does not beseech the universe for things. It's nature and thus doesn't speak English :)

Instead, you breathe, reinforcing your connection with the Earth. Ever notice that the roots of trees look very much like the bronchi and bronchioles, the branches in lungs? We are as firmly rooted to the Earth's atmosphere as trees are rooted to its soil. So when you breathe in with a quiet mind, letting the "breath do the talking", this is roughly the same as asking an anthropomorphic God for actualising qualities such as peace, courage, clarity and so forth.

Far from sterile, seeing reality as natural rather than supernatural systems is very direct, not requiring (but not excluding either) the use of creative imagination as a conduit. Life is difficult so I don't judge any conduit that people use to prop themselves up, as long as it's for "personal use" and not evangelised and interfering.

[Belindi]

Greta wrote:

These so-called "myths" are not myths; they are organising thoughts. If everything is a myth then the word "myth" loses its meaning. It reminds me of the overuse of the word "illusion" - "everything is an illusion ..." blah blah. It's simply lazy, reducing the particular to fuzzy metonymic conceptual blobs that are ultimately rendered meaningless through commonality.

It's useful to call the organising narrative of a people or a person, a 'myth'. Not every organising thought is in narrative form. Some organising thoughts are mathematical or scientific formulae. Other organising thoughts are memories of an event, or a plan, or a map. Myths are characterised by narrative form. Not every narrative is durable enough or whole enough to be an organising thought.

I gather that Dark Matter's main criticism of pantheism is that as myths go, pantheism lacks immediate application to the human. Few people can recall Spinosa's Ethics sufficiently to apply Spinoza's pantheism to an ethical problem that requires a fast solution. In those cases the organising narrative that includes a human being is more immediately accessible especially perhaps when ethics or morality is concerned. This personal aspect of a really useful myth is what is particularly powerful about Christianity.

[Belindi]

Dark Matter wrote:

While it is true that pantheism is a monistic ontology, it is also true that self-awareness entails an ontological understanding that is at the very least a limited form of dualism.

But self awareness is enhanced when you know that mind and body are aspects of the same substance. Dual aspect which is monism is not Cartesian dualism.

Dark Matter, you also wrote earlier:

All myths have psychological and sociological consequences. So does losing touch with myth.

Some myths such as the Nazis' Aryan People myth are dysfunctional and are set up by cynics for their own ends. Another sort of dysfunctional myth is the ideology which is not made by cynics but is held to be true by persons who are less knowledgeable than they should be compared with their contemporaries' awareness.

[Dark Matter]

Dark Matter wrote:

While it is true that pantheism is a monistic ontology, it is also true that self-awareness entails an ontological understanding that is at the very least a limited form of dualism.

But self awareness is enhanced when you know that mind and body are aspects of the same substance. Dual aspect which is monism is not Cartesian dualism.

Indeed. But that's much more akin to panentheism -- a term from which many people recoil simply because God is part of the equation -- than pantheism.

[Belindi]

Pantheism : God and nature are the same. So God is there without any need for an extra substance.

However I guess that your reference to God ( 'Panentheism) is aimed at God as he who is the Good .I note that your favourite philosopher is Paul Tillich.

Tillich's idea of God is that he is indeed the Good, and that the Good is still incompleted and is in process of being completed. Is that right?

I am sorry you are a Trump supporter, DM.

[Dark Matter]

Dark Matter, you also wrote earlier:

All myths have psychological and sociological consequences. So does losing touch with myth.

Some myths such as the Nazis' Aryan People myth are dysfunctional and are set up by cynics for their own ends. Another sort of dysfunctional myth is the ideology which is not made by cynics but is held to be true by persons who are less knowledgeable than they should be compared with their contemporaries' awareness.

Something has to fill the vacuum when society's prevailing myth (i.e., God) fails. Nazism did that (and still does for some people). Nietzsche even predicted what would happen.

[Dark Matter]

Tillich's idea of God is that he is indeed the Good, and that the Good is still incompleted and is in process of being completed. Is that right?

No. Tillich famously said that God is the ground of being-itself. He used the term “God Above God” to give contrast to the common image of God as something that has being. But then, a lot of religions say that and are summarily ignored by atheism.

In any case, just because Tillich is my favorite philosopher doesn't mean I agree with everything he says.