The identity also has nothing to do with our abilities to name anything, pick anything out, etc. — Terrapin Station

Then what is identity in your view?

I also disagree with "subjective experience referes to something which is common (as in identical) to many different individuals." — Terrapin Station

So why is it that we say that many different individuals have subjective experience if different individuals cannot have anything in common? Is subjective experience something which only I have, or only you have, or neither of us have and someone else has, or no one has? If it is something that no one has, then this supports my claim of mistaken identity.

Nothing is common to many different individuals on my view. I'm a nominalist. Only particulars exist. — Terrapin Station

So, does "subjective experience" refer to something that a particular thing has, or is it just a nonsense notion to you? If it is a nonsense notion, then I think I am correct to say that your claim to be able to identify it, is a case of mistaken identity.

Obviously I don't agree with that. — Terrapin Station

You may not agree, but it's still obviously a case of mistaken identity. So you were wrong whether you admit to it or not. No matter how many particular materials you can identify, in whatever particular relations, involved in whatever particular processes, you have not identified subjective experience, so this is a false identity. "Subjective experience" refers to something which is common to many different individuals, therefore it cannot be identified by referring to particulars.

This is a classic example of category error, and such error indicates mistaken identity. Here's another example. Suppose someone asks you "what is 'red'?". No matter how many particular instance of red you produce, to demonstrate "what is red", you do not answer the question "what is 'red'?" with such demonstrations. Likewise, no matter how many particular instances in which you demonstrate material involved in particular relations, and particular processes, your producing these instances of subjective experience as examples, does not answer the question of what is subjective experience.

I see 'cause' as a vague term that can be perfectly safely used in cases where its vagueness does not present problems - which is in many areas of everyday life. — andrewk

Yes, "cause" is a vague term, but that is principally because it has many different senses, and it is used ambiguously. In philosophy this ambiguity is a invitation to equivocation.

Some philosophers like Aristotle's writing about causes. I find them akin to his writing about physics. For me, Aristotle is brilliant on ethics and logic, and the rest is of purely historical interest, like phlogiston. — andrewk

I don't think you should be so quick to dismiss Aristotle's clarification of the four ways in which "cause" was used. Though it appears in his "Physics", it is a logical work, clarifying the distinct ways in which the word was used, in an attempt to avoid the ambiguity referred to above. It was necessary to get this clarification over with prior proceeding with physics. There were actually six ways that "cause" was used, presented by Aristotle. The final two were "chance" and "fortune", which he dismissed as not proper use of the word, leaving us with the familiar four. Of the four, common usage over time has shied away from "material cause" and "formal cause", such that we do not use "cause" in these two ways any more. This leaves us with "efficient cause", and "final cause" as the two principal ways in which cause is used. So the ambiguity with the term is generally between these two distinct ways.

I'm not so concerned about 'final cause', and certainly wouldn't want anybody in the humanities to have to change their patterns of speech. — andrewk

You should be concerned with final cause though, because this is where the term "cause" is useful. As you explain, we can do science without "efficient cause", because we use concepts such as explanation and prediction. "Efficient cause" seems to require a certain logical necessity which cannot be logically validated. But "final cause" is based in the determination of a different type of necessity, we determine what is needed (necessary) to produce the desired end. The end itself is therefore of the highest order of necessity, validating the need for the means. When the end, that which is wanted, or desired, is determined, then what is needed to bring about that end can be determined, and this is "caused" to come into existence, by an act of willing. So the act of willing is a cause, in the sense of final cause. And as much as we can refer to prediction to explain the fact that we determine the means to the end through the use of prediction, we cannot explain the fact that the end is desired, and that we cause the existence of the means, for the sake of the end, by referring to prediction.

So let's go back to Pneumenon's example, of creating letters on the screen by hitting the keys. Hitting the keys is a means to an end. It is therefore an intentional act of willing. Assuming that we have fully dealt with the ambiguity between different ways of using "cause", why do you think that we should not use "cause" to refer to how intentional acts create things?

It's not an issue of causality, but identity. — Terrapin Station

To identify subjective experience as material is false identity.

It just claims that subjective experience is what particular material, in particular relations, undergoing particular processes, is like-- — Terrapin Station

So what about that particular matter, in particular relations, undergoing particular processes? Even if we assume that this is the cause of subjective experience, rather than caused by subjective experience, we still need to explain the existence of all these peculiar particulars. Of course it cannot be random chance which causes all this, so now we must assume a cause of all these particulars, and the effect is subjective experience. That multitude of particulars, therefore, is just a distraction.

The lunatic can go around shouting out great insight, but it's the ability to justify what you claim which makes you a respectable philosopher. That's because it's when you're within the process of justifying your assumptions, that you realize which intuitions are guiding you in the correct direction. Without this act of justifying, the insight you shout out is just random nonsense; which, by the way, constitutes a large portion of many posts. And there is no reason to provide the poster with the means to attract ones attention to such nonsense. Insight, without the capacity to express oneself appears as drivel.

Most these discussions involve argumentation. In my opinion, what is important is not the assertion but the argument which supports the assertion. To put the assertions in bold is just an annoyance, like someone shouting at you.

I, for example, loved 180 Proof's posts precisely because he made effective use of fonts, styles, colors, etc. to emphasise the important ideas - someone could get it almost at a single glance. — Agustino

You like skimming the text, reading only what the author presents as the important ideas. How do you know that your idea of what is important is the same as the author's?

BAM - THIS IS A BIG CENTRED HEADLINE
This is so great you just can't refuse it! — Agustino

Are you here to advertise?

Perhaps the problem is that "The philosophy forum" is a bit of a misnomer. Perhaps you could rename it : "The subset of philosophy that allows for the deletion of posts based on arbitrary judgement and a hidden agenda forum." I know it is a bit of a mouthful, but at least you would avoid the risk of being done for false advertising. It could also be a point of difference between this forum and other philosophy forums. — A Seagull

What do you suppose that "hidden agenda" is? Or is it too well hidden for you to know?

How worthwhile is love which does not have an effect in action? Whether it's filio, eros, storge, or agape, It exists as an action we wish to carry out or do carry out. I would say that the "thing of love" is action from which comes the noun "love". — Bitter Crank

The effect of love is the action. But the cause, love, is something different from the action. We know that love is distinct from the action which it causes, because each action has a beginning and an ending while love persists, prior to, and after, the effects (the particular actions) which it causes.

We love by acting in a family, with erotic objects, or among community. — Bitter Crank

I agree, we love by acting, but this is to use "love" as a verb. And this fosters the utterly meaningless "I love you" which I referred to. Unless we qualify the act which we are calling "love", any act could be love. You've given numerous examples, but the possibilities are infinite unless we restrict what it means to love. When we enact this restriction, then only particular types of actions can be said to be acts of love. Now "love" does not refer to the act itself, it refers to a category, or class of actions. "Love" is now a noun, referring to a thing, a concept.

We could leave "love" as a verb, referring only to the act of loving. But this leaves "love" completely meaningless because absolutely any act could be said to be an act of loving. So in reality, we use "love" to classify a particular type of act, and this makes love something other than the act itself. Therefore it is more appropriate to say that "we express our love by acting", rather than to say "we love by acting". The latter being redundant, meaning "we act by acting" without the qualifying noun, the concept of what it means to love.

I'd say it's a noun, but it's listed in my dictionary as both, and if I say "I love you" it's clearly being used as a verb. However, doesn't "I love you" mean that I have love for you, so the meaning of the verb is resolved by referring to the thing, "love", the noun? So I'd say it's more fundamentally a noun.

If there was an action being referred to when I say "I love you", we could describe the particulars of that action. We cannot though, because there are very many, very different, activities involved with love. Instead, we use "love" as a generality which refers to many different actions. So there are many particular activities which demonstrate the generality, "love". Since it's a generality it's existence as a thing, a noun, is as a concept. It is what we attribute to actions in predication, the action itself being the subject, and love being the predicate, the property, X act is an act of love.

Therefore, "I love you" doesn't really mean that I am engaged in the act of love, because there is no such particular act, which could be identified as the act of love, so this would be utterly meaningless. It means that I am engaged in many different acts, all of which are manifestations of the love which I have for you. Or in the terms of platonic participation, each act, participates in the Love which I have for you, giving that act its meaning, as an act of love. Plato's "The Symposium" provides a very good discussion of "what is love", and the fundamentals for the very important distinction between the passive and active elements of reality. I believe that if we lose track of this distinction, we lose our bearing on reality. We must apprehend the act as coming from the thing. In this case, the thing is the concept of love.

You assert that the activity is itself love, but then you speak of activities as possessing love. Do you not see the difference? Your claim is that love is the activity itself, then you speak of love as a property of the activity. Which do you believe is the truth? Is love the activity itself or is love a property of the activity?

The activity itself is love, but the determining factor is one compelled by a "good will" - good and love work in unison to moral considerations stemming from reason and guide our subjective actions within the external world. — TimeLine

You still don't seem to be understanding what I'm saying. Each particular activity has a description proper to itself. For instance, I gave my friend my car keys so he could borrow my car. That is an activity. We might conclude deductively that it is a loving activity, with the premise that this type of activity displays love. But there is absolutely no way that the activity itself "is" love, because the activity is identified by the description and is what it is according to the description. To conclude that it is a loving activity requires a further premise.. How do you justify such a claim that the activity itself is love?
It needs to be justified because you keep reasserting it, and building your argument on that unjustified claim.

Yes, but not all activities are of love... — TimeLine

Now you are saying that activities are "of love". This is inconsistent with "the activity itself is love", and demonstrates that you probably do not really believe in "the activity itself is love".

Partial thoughts, images, and sounds, all smashed together. No, we have not experienced dreams in a complete sense, but each piece of our dreams seem to have came from fragments of previous experiences. One may dream of a loved one who has passed on, we have seen that person; they may "say" or "do" something, such as performing an action that was habitual to them, we've seen/heard/ felt that before. — Lone Wolf

I don't thing my dreams come from fragments of previous experience. This is completely inconsistent with what I experience in dreaming. What I experience is mostly new experiences in my dreams, with just a few, but very few, fragments of previous experience. So for instance, your example of a dream about a loved one. Let's say the loved on is Fred. In the dream, Fred may look nothing like Fred, and not act at all like Fred, but only because my mind for some reason designates the person as "Fred", do I recognize this individual as Fred. But It's very clear to me that the dream does not consist of fragments of past experiences of Fred, because Fred in the dream is doing things which Fred would not normally do, and upon waking, I see that Fred in the dream, didn't even look like Fred in real life. So the question is why did my mind even think it is Fred who is doing these things?

This activity is described through actions like brotherly love, erotic love, familial love, love of a child, unconditional love etc &c. — TimeLine

I don't see how any one of these is an activity. We can look at actions, and infer that there is brotherly love there, or whatever kind of love is there, but the inference is of something different than the action. We describe specific actions, but the described actions are not the same as the inferred love. We can only infer love with another premise, that such and such actions are indicators of love. But still the actions are not the love itself.

The intellectual love of God is the highest of these activities because God encompasses all things and it is, quite simply, to become one with the activity itself; the pursuit of God is the pursuit of Good and an immature or selfish love can present itself in people that may love one person or thing but not another. — TimeLine

Are you saying that this claimed activity, which you call "love", is a type of pursuit? Are all activities of pursuit activities of love then? How is this any different from desire?

I believe dreams to simply be partial thoughts, images, and sounds that we have experienced throughout our days; particularly those that been thought on recently. — Lone Wolf

Clearly dreams are not something which we have already experienced, they are completely made up, imaginary.

Okay - obvious. So what? I don't really get your point. It seems to me to be some abstruse theoretical reasoning that doesn't do much to help us gain any insights into the subject matter... — Agustino

I was pointing out the contradiction between your claim "God is Love", and "God is loving". I'm still trying to get you to realize that "God is equivalent to Love" is a mistaken interpretation.

Call it 'faculty' or 'higher intellect' or what you like. A possibility to comprehend the incomprehensible doesn't follow from there being limits to human knowledge, nor from things that we don't comprehend yet; obviously it is an arbitrary assumption. — jkop

What follows from there being limits to the human intellect, is twofold: 1) that there are things which are incomprehensible to us, and 2) the possibility of a higher intellect. You put 1) and 2) together and you have the possibility of an intellect which can comprehend what is incomprehensible to us. Where is the arbitrary assumption? It appears to me like the only arbitrary assumption here is your arbitrary assumption that this is an arbitrary assumption.

What remains arbitrary is the assumption of a faculty with which it would be possible to comprehend the incomprehensible. That's what's arbitrary and used ad-hoc by the religious and the mystics. — jkop

As I explained, it is not arbitrary. We apprehend that there are limits to the human intellect. Because of these limits, there are things which the human intellect cannot comprehend. We assume that a higher intellect can comprehend these things, and this is not at all arbitrary. So it is based in the recognition that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible due to the deficiencies of the human being, not because of the properties of the thing itself. The thing itself is intelligible, but only to an intellect higher than the human intellect.

I don't follow this. — Agustino

If you define "love" in one way, then define "love" in another way, then the two definitions contradict each other.

No, an emotion is a response to an action or inaction and love is an action. — TimeLine

Love is not an action. If it were, you could produce a description of that action which you call love, the thing acting, and the exact motions which the thing was carrying out. But there is no particular action called love, so it is impossible to describe that act. Love is a feeling, an emotion which inspires one to act. It is not an action itself, and that is why many different actions can be described as loving acts.

There is no action called "love", because love is what we attribute to the action, as a property of the person acting. The various different actions which are described as loving actions have their own descriptions, they are not love itself.

There is no real direct relationship between emotions and love but rather our emotions themselves play a determinative role that compels feelings that express our inability and ability to act, a passive language so to speak. — TimeLine

I don't see how you can separate love from emotion. Love is an emotion. If you impose such a separation, what you refer to with "love" is not love at all, because love as we experience it, and what we always refer to with the word "love", is an emotion.

Love itself is moral consciousness, the latter of which is an autonomous and authentic condition of reason that willingly gives love or goodness to all things (love of God) without bias to particular objects or people, a capacity basically and consciousness is an awareness. — TimeLine

Love is not moral consciousness. You even say, "the latter", referring to moral consciousness, "gives love", indicating that love is something other than moral consciousness, it is what is given by moral consciousness.

It is very easy to demonstrate that love is separate from moral consciousness. A person can love another person, and commit immoral acts, for the sake of the beloved, so clearly love is other than moral consciousness. An individual can love everyone in one's own community or state, and commit immoral acts against members of another community for the sake of those loved.

Sorry John, my conflict was with your association of emotions to the concept of love, the latter of which I was attempting to elucidate as being moral consciousness stemming from an autonomous agent of reason and thus can only be reasonable and good. — TimeLine

Love, when guided by reason will be good, but this does not exclude the possibility of misguided love. Therefore we cannot say that love can only be reasonable and good. This claim produces an unreasonable definition of "love", saying, "love can only be good". We still have to deal with the misguided love, as in my examples above, one who commits an immoral act out of love. Under your definition of love, we would have to say that this is not really love. But clearly it is love, because if we deny all these instances when one might commit an immoral act for the sake of the beloved, we would have nothing left as love. That's why we must allow that love is an emotion and it is not necessarily reasonable. It does not stem from reason, but it may be guided by reason.

If we do have a choice to control our decision making process then there is another decision making process faced with the same dilemma. — Purple Pond

I do not see the need for another decision making process, and the infinite regress you refer to. Yes, we often do refer to further decisions, but this is not necessary. Why can't we just randomly pick yes or no without referring to any further choice if we want?

What's ad-hoc and non-philosophical is the arbitrary assumption of a faculty for comprehending things beyond comprehension. — jkop

It's not an arbitrary assumption though, it's an identification. What is identified is that which is beyond human comprehension. It is identified as intelligible in principle, but unintelligible to the human intellect. This is due to apprehended deficiencies in the human being. There are some things which the human being cannot comprehend. To claim that it is intelligible in principle though, requires the assumption of an intellect higher than the human intellect, which can comprehend it. If there is no such intellect, capable of comprehending what is beyond the capacities of the human intellect, then we cannot correctly claim that this part of reality is intelligible.

I think it's fair to say that hatred and even indifference are modes of love, or care. We hate or are indifferent to some thing(s) only on account of our love for some other thing(s). With such negative emotions, our love is merely misplaced: we just care about the wrong things due to narrow understandings. — John

Even if we assume that all emotions are modes of love, it doesn't follow that we have our being in love. Our being consists of activities in the physical world, activities which are willed. And will is distinct from emotion because it is by means of will that we control our emotions. I think that if we wanted to say that we have our being in love, we must associate love with will. But love is associated with emotions, and good is associated with will. That is why theologians generally associate being, or existence, with good.

The point I argued earlier though, is that generally we associate good with will. Actions which we apprehend as good are what is willed, and those we apprehend as bad we avoid with will power. Love, we associate with emotions, and we recognize it as a good emotion. It may be allied with will, because of its nature as good, assisting us in avoiding bad emotions, but love is still not itself the good which is willed. Emotions must remain passive in relation to will, in order that they do not cause actions, allowing that we may choose the good. No emotion, not even love, ought to be the cause of an act, because only reason distinguishes bad from good. If an emotion such as love, were to cause an act, without the interference of reason and will power, there is a higher probability that the act could be bad. Your claim that "hatred and even indifference are modes of love", casts light on this situation.

It's a nuanced question with many possible interpretations and answers. It is said in Christian teaching that humans are made in the image of God. Spinoza says all phenomena are modes of the one substance, God. If God is love then we, just like He, do not merely love, but are modes of love, even if we do not recognize it. — John

Clearly, we cannot say that a human being is love. We do have love, but we have other emotions as well, and some of these contradict "love", so we cannot, under all conditions, have love. Therefore we cannot say that a human being is love. We can attribute to the human being the property of love, but we cannot say that the human being is equivalent to love.

An image images the thing in particular ways, not in every way. If it imaged the thing in every way, it would be the same as the thing, and not an image. If God is Love, then human beings do not image God in this way, because a human being is not love.

It is true we are not God, but that does not mean that God is not us, or that we are anything but God. You are not your body, perhaps, but from that it does not follow that you body is not you. You have a body, and your body is (at least) a part of you, and as such is you (even if not the whole of you). It's really all down to language and the senses of the words we use. — John

There are two principal ways that "Is" is used, One signifies predication, the other signifies equivalence. In the case of predication, one might say, "God is us", meaning that we are the property of God, but we are not God. But predication is not what we are discussing here. Aqustino explicitly claimed that "God is Love" means that God is equivalent to Love. That is the interpretation we are dealing with. However, if we interpret the "is" as predicating "love" to "God", then love is a property of God, not equivalent to God, we say "God is Loving", and the problem disappears. That is my recommendation, to interpret "God is Love" as predication rather than equivalence.

My argument is that in the Gospel of John, it is stated many times that God loved, or God loves, so this is how we should interpret "God is Love", as predication, not as a statement of equivalence.

Or again, if we accept that we are not God, but think we live and breathe and have our being in God, then if God is Love we live and breathe and have our being in love (although of course it is always possible that we do not recognize that). — John

The point though, is that our "being" is more than just love. If our being was just love, then there would be no hatred in the world. But there are such things, things which contradict "love" within our being, and we cannot deny this. To deny this, and claim "our being is love", is to produce some useless fantasy which does not represent reality at all. If human beings are the image of God, then God may have these other properties as well, so we cannot say God is equivalent to Love if human beings are an image of God. In philosophizing we must respect reality, or there is no point to the philosophy, it's just imaginary fantasy. So what's the point in saying "our being is love" when it's clearly not true? Love is one part of our being.

Why can't both God is Love and God is loving be true? :s You seem to be taking a very black and white approach to the issue. — Agustino

They could both be true, but this would require that "love" is defined differently for each. "God is Love", and "God is loving" can only be both true through equivocation, and equivocation is a fallacy, so they cannot both be true. One describes God as love, the other describes the activities of God as loving. Either "Love" describes the activities of God or "Love" describes God Himself, one or the other.

Since the being itself is distinct from the activities of that being, then the use of "love" to describe the being is distinct from the use of "love" to describe the activity of the being. So if "God is loving", and "God is Love" are both to be true, then this requires two distinct meanings of "love", one referring to the being, the other referring to the activities of that being.. But two distinct meanings of "love" does not allow for reconciliation between "God is Love" and "God is loving" because "love" refers to something different in each of these cases. So these two must remain contradictory.

You seem to be assuming that the apostle John thought in a manner that philosophers are sometimes thought to think, rather than thinking like a poet. You seem to believe that, if he had noticed it, he would have realized that he misspoke when he declared that God is Love. Ironically it is what you say that seems contradictory, because you acknowledge that in saying this he spoke metaphorically, and yet you claim that he "mistakenly spoke a contradiction". If his declaration is taken as a metaphor, there is no contradiction. — John

I agree that if you allow that what John said, with "God is Love", is metaphoric, then there is no contradiction. By saying that it is metaphoric we allow that "love" has a meaning different from when he used "love" the other times. So he speaks in metaphor, and "God is Love" does not really mean what we might think it means. There is no contradiction as long as we recognize that this is metaphor, and not really meant to mean God is love.

If God holds the world in being as an act of love, if He feels infinite love for every being, if He is the source of all love, if Love is our highest Good, our highest aspiration, our very God, and if God is the ultimate object of all human love, what better way could this be poetically expressed than to say "God is Love"? — John

But God isn't all there is to Love, as human beings love as well. So to express :"love" as equivalent God is inadequate, because human beings love as well, and human beings are not God.

Suppose that human beings think, just like God loves. So we say human existence "is" thinking. Well what about all those animals which think, but are not human? Now what about all those human beings who are loving yet are not God? How do we deal with that if "love" is equated with "God"/

In the one case it is implied that "God" is equivalent to "Love", to say "God", is to say "Love", they are synonymous, "God is Love". In the other case it is implied that God is a being with the attribute of love. God showed his love". If one of these two is true, it excludes the possibility of the other (i.e., if God is Love it is impossible that God is a loving being, because "love" according to the other is an attribute, not a being). Therefore it is contradiction to say both, like saying the subject is equivalent to the predicate. It requires equivocation with the term "is".

I suggest to you, that when John says "God is Love", this is spoken metaphorically. As evidence that this is metaphor, look at how may times John uses "love" as an attribute of God in comparison to how many times John says God is Love. We should conclude that what John meant, is what he said numerous times, that God loved, God showed his love, and when he mistakenly spoke the contradiction, "God is Love", this was meant metaphorically. This is consistent with what I said earlier, which is also argued by St. Augustine, that the act of creation is the most loving act. This act causes existence for no other reason or purpose, except that it is good. It is an act which is the epitome of love. But it is a fallacy to conclude that the thing which carries out this act, "God", is Love itself.

The context is The Bible, if that helps. It is basic to all schools of Christianity. Really as this is a philosophy forum, it is hardly the place to have such arguments. — Wayfarer

The context is John 4:8, and it is promptly contradicted at John 4:9.

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

In many places John says "God loved the world", then he says "God is love". Here he says "God showed his love". So as I explained earlier, there is a big difference between the act of loving, as in "God loved the world", and love itself, as a thing, as in "God is Love".

So which is it, that you believe, does God love us, or is God love itself? One describes God as an active loving being, the other describes God as a passive thing, "Love".

But since God must be the source of Love, and in the beginning there was only God, then it seems to follow that from the divine point of view, Love does not require an external (although even God's Love was directed outwards towards the creation that was to come). — Agustino

Here, you talk about "God's Love", and that God is "the source of Love", yet earlier you claimed "God is Love". Can we settle on some form of consistency here? Is God a loving being, such that we can talk about "God's Love", or is it as you claimed earlier, that God is Love? There is nothing worse for the theological project than inconsistent principles.

So the Scriptures state unequivocally that God is Love and you do not believe it? What kind of other evidence would you want that Christianity holds that God is Love? — Agustino

From whatever I've read in Christian theology, God is known to be a Trinity. You can find the Trinity well described by St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and others. Augustine explains the Trinity by reference to the three parts of the intellect, Aquinas explains it as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being the relationship between Father and Son.

That wayfarer can produce an out of context quote from one of Jesus' disciples saying "God is Love", really does nothing for me. Nor does your repeated insistence that God is Love help to sway me. What I need as "evidence", is for you to establish logical consistency between "God is a Trinity" and "God is Love". For instance, you might argue that "Holy Spirit" when described as the relationship between Father and Son, is equivalent to "Love". However, I would reply that there is a physical aspect of this relationship, a temporal continuity of existence, which makes it more than just a relationship of love.

The Trinity isn't found in the Gospels. — Bitter Crank

There is sometimes a big difference between what is taught by the Church, and what is found in the Gospels. The Gospels need to be interpreted. For instance, you will not find within the Gospels, Jesus claiming to be Son of God, he claims to be Son of Man. yet in many Churches it is taught that he is Son of God.

Love is manifested by God. God loved the world so much, He sacrificed his Son for the salvation of the world. Love is the reason for keeping God's commandments. John 14:15 -- If ye love me, keep my commandments.And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever. Love is the beginning and end of the story. Right? — Bitter Crank

I agree about the importance of love, I just do not agree with equating love with God, for the reason stated. It puts God internal to the human beings who have love. That Love is not equated with any person of the Trinity is evidence that God is not equated with Love.

The equivalence between Love and God is essential to Christianity. It's almost the very heart of Christian revelation. Kierkegaard for example discusses this at length in Works of Love. — Agustino

You and wayfarer seem to believe this, but I haven't seen any support for this other than an out of context quote from wayfarer. I strongly believe that love is extremely important to Christianity, and that it is central to the teachings of Jesus. But I do not believe that the equivalence of God and Love is essential to Christianity. You are denying that I can call myself Christian, because I think that God is the Trinity rather than God is Love, and that's completely ridiculous.

But regardless, I suggest you look at what Christianity teaches - NOT the philosophers. — Agustino

I don't see how you can make such a distinction. The teachings of Christianity are derived from philosophy. Even if Christians draw their teachings directly from the Gospels, the passages need to be interpreted, and they are interpreted by means of philosophy. So in the case of religion, you cannot distinguish between what Christianity teaches, and what the philosophers teach, because it is all the teachings of philosophers. It is however the case, that some philosophers teach a different thing than others.

Perhaps you mean "God Loves us"? But this is very distinct from "God is Love". The former places God as external to us, and the latter places God as internal to the person who has love.

I've read a large stack of Christian theology, and I've only come across God is a Trinity. The three members of the Trinity are interpreted in numerous different ways, but I haven't yet come across an interpretation which claims Love as one of the members of the Trinity. Therefore I have to disagree with your claim. I think your mistaken

I believe that you can quote scriptures to support just about anything. But we can know quite clearly, that according to Christian doctrine, God cannot be equated with love. God is known as a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We can say God is Father, God is Son, and God is Holy Spirit, but unless you can demonstrate that one of these, such as Holy Spirit, is equivalent to Love, we cannot say God is Love.

So defining Love with respect to something external is a grave mistake according to the Christian - much like something external cannot be used to define Substance. — Agustino

Contrary to this, I believe it is a mistake to remove the relationship of an external object from "love". To do this, as you proclaim, will necessarily remove the thing being loved, leaving only the possibility of self-love. Love always has related external objects, other beings. There must be something loved, or you have a meaningless "love". You might call the being which is being loved, a subject, but nevertheless that subject is external, so your categorization of such emotions, with respect to external and internal, is misguided. You cannot remove emotions from their relations with the external without producing fictitious representations of those emotions.

Instead, I suggest that we can categorize these emotions according to their temporal relation to the external. Emotions such as desire and love precede human acts, the human actions themselves being the expression of good in the external world. Emotions such as pleasure and joy follow the good act. So it is more appropriate to class love with desire, as an emotion which causes good in the external world, and to class joy with pleasure, as emotions which are caused by good in the external world. There is no point in trying to describe certain emotions as isolated from the external world.

In relation to God, the good act is the creation of the external world. The reason why God created is Love. The act of creation was carried out for no purpose other than that God apprehended it as good. So it is an act of pure love, because it was carried out for no reason, or purpose, except that it was good. Human beings may act in a very similar way. They can carry out actions for no purpose other than that the acts are apprehended as good, and these are acts of love. Carrying out such actions produce pleasure and joy within the human being.

There is often a tendency amongst philosophers to confuse the Christian God of Abraham with the Neoplatonist God of the Philosophers. — Agustino

There is but one God. And I'm sure you recognize that the only truly Neo-Platonist conception of God is the one put forth by the Christian St. Augustine. So this claimed distinction between a Christian God and a Neo-Platonist God is completely unjustified.

At the bitter end he was ALONE - God didn't save him from his enemies. I find it ironic and sad that Jesus died alone, abandoned by God who he loved and believed in while so many after him died in relative peace by believing in him. — TheMadFool

If I remember the storyline correctly, Jesus only exclaimed "Why hast Thou forsaken me?" when he was given water to drink instead of the prescribed vinegar.

And I've avoided Spinoza's definition because of the attachment to an external cause required by it - defining it that way does not fit in with the Christian picture where God = Love. — Agustino

I can't agree with this. In the "Christian picture" love cannot equal God, because love is something that we as human beings can possess, or do. And although loving might brings us closer to God it cannot make us God.

Love in this way cannot have an external cause, because there is nothing external to love to begin with. — Agustino

And this statement is very confusing as well. If you are using "love" in the normal way, as something which human beings possess, or do, then love is internal to us. But you say this right after you equate love with God, therefore you put God within human beings. But we cannot have God being solely within human beings, or else God would just be a fiction made up by the human mind. Therefore God must be something more than just Love.

In what order should these be?

---->apprehension of God ---->virtue ---->apprehension of the good ---->love

or

---->virtue ---->apprehension of the good ---->apprehension of God ---->love

or something else? — Bitter Crank

I would equate apprehension of God with apprehension of the good because I do not think that one can apprehend God without apprehending good, and I think that any supposed apprehension of the good cannot be the true good if it doesn't involve apprehension of God. Virtue follows from this because virtuous acts are good acts, and require apprehension of good, they are not good by chance. Love follows from virtue because we are not inclined to love the vicious, and as the saying goes, "love grows".

This is reflected in our daily lives. We will not act virtuously unless we apprehend good. If the good apprehended is a true good, this will guarantee a virtuous act. A true good is one which may be judged as consistent with God. Love is what we give to others, and despite the fact that we are encouraged to forgive, and love our enemies, I do not think it is possible to love a person who displays no apprehension of good, unless it is perceived that this is good.

Agustino seems to argue that love is some sort of primary instinct, such that we are naturally inclined to love, then good and virtue follows from this love. So for instance, a mother would love her baby despite the fact that the baby displays no virtue, or apprehension of good, and therefore does not demonstrate that it "deserves" love. The baby grows, it apprehends good, and becomes virtuous, so this goodness and virtue follows from the mother's love. My argument is that the mother's love of her baby follows from an apprehension of good.

Yeah, well this just reinforces unenlightened's point "the whole notion of mental illness is flawed".

I largely agree with this up to the last statement that "virtue brings into existence love" because "love" seems to be a primary phenomena, not coming from something else. Also, how would virtue bring love into existence? — Bitter Crank

I think the issue here is how we define "love". It is a broad term, and we could be referring to a thing called "love", or we could be referring to the activity of loving. Most often we use the term broadly and ambiguously, perhaps equivocatively. When I say "virtue brings into existence love", I mean love as a thing, and we class this thing as a virtue. We can look at the existence of virtuous acts and conclude, there is love there. But if we say that a loving attitude is required for virtuous acts, and we call this loving attitude "love", then we have Agustine's perspective in which love precedes virtue.

I am not so quick to call this attitude, which is required for virtue, "love". You ask, "how would virtue bring love into existence?", and I think it is only by apprehending good, or virtue, that we are moved to love. If we place love as prior to apprehending good, as Agustino does, that apprehending good follows from loving acts, then we allow that love may move us toward either good or bad. If we observe human acts, as loving acts, with no prior apprehension of good, we have no means to distinguish true love from other forms of love which are not so true. But if we say love can only move us toward the good, and only true love is real love, and therefore good pure and simple, then it is necessary that we apprehend good prior to loving, in order that our loving actions be only good, and not a mixture of good and bad.

So I believe that the attitude which is required for virtue is an apprehension of the good, not "love", which is one (a very important one) of the virtues. And "love" itself, if it is to be understood as necessarily good, must follow from an apprehension of good. To put this in perspective of Jesus' message, I would say that true love can only follow from, after, apprehending God, as the apprehension of good. It is not through loving that we apprehend God, but through our apprehension of God that we behave lovingly.

One doesn't need to be mentally ill to commit suicide. — Bitter Crank

But this is exactly the proposition I am question, and merely stating it doesn't prove it. It appears to me like the will to commit suicide would be a defining element of mental illness. Doesn't the mind serve to support ad protect oneself? To will an end to oneself is of course contrary to this, so why wouldn't this be called metal illness? Do you believe that the mind serves a purpose other than to support and protect oneself?

You aren't going to quote me Margaret Thatcher, "there's no such thing as society" are you?

Society exists, and it exists in various functions, forms, and demographics. It's not a phantom. It is also a useful "placeholder" for several subsystems of society: the economy, foreign trade, the education system, the mental health system, the welfare system, religious organizations, labor, corporations, the government--all sorts of things. — Bitter Crank

"Society" is a phantom notion because it's a manmade object which is immaterial. It has many material manifestations, such as school houses, courts, town halls, etc., but to assign to "society" some kind of causal power, requires that one adopts a metaphysics whereby immaterial things such as ideas have causal power. The only way I see that it is possible for ideas to have causal power, is through the willful actions of individual human beings. Ideas do not have causal power the willful actions of individual human beings do. This forces a reduction of "society" to the actions of individual human beings. So in the context of "society is a cause of mental illness", what is really being said here is that an individual's interactions with other individuals is a cause of mental illness.

More specifically though, since "society" refers to this immaterial aspect, which is best described as concepts and ideas, laws, or perhaps ideology in this case, then to blame society for mental illness is to blame this interaction of ideas and ideologies between individuals. But this opens a whole can of worms, because we cannot say that an individual who has unstable ideas is mentally ill, as this is how we develop and grow our knowledge, by allowing our ideas to evolve. Furthermore, we cannot say that a person who has stable ideas which are inconsistent with others (bad or incorrect), is mentally ill, because this person must be held morally or legally responsible.

But one becomes dysfunctional in relation to a social environment, and that is what we call 'mental illness'. The same mentality that functions stably in one environment breaks down in another. Whereas another mentality might respond in the opposite way. — unenlightened

If I understand you correctly then, what we call "mental illness" is an inability to adapt to one's changing social environment. Depending on the individual, a different sort of social environment might trigger the mental illness. Would you say that if given the necessary social environment, every one of us would suffer mental illness? There is no one who can adapt to every possible social environment?

According to the quoted passage, it is quite likely that the adaptation you refer to requires methylation and demethylation of DNA. I had to research this methylation, because it's new to me. It appears like H3C binds itself to the DNA molecule, so the DNA may or may not have H3C. And this affects the activities of the DNA. If I understand correctly, H3C cannot exist freely, it is too unstable and must be bound to oxygen or something. Do you have any opinion as to how it is possible that H3C can move around freely within the living organism, what moves it to and from the DNA?

There is something primal a person has to overcome in order to consciously inflict pain. It's a precarious path. — Mongrel

It's not difficult at all to overcome the resistance to consciously inflict pain. We quite often do this with our dealings with animals, in training and husbandry. It is a simple part of the occupation. There are two aspects to overcome, one is the noise, or actions, which the animal makes indicting it is in pain, and the other is the moral feeling of guilt, this is wrong to inflict pain on this animal. The former, the noise and behaviour enhances, or even brings about the latter, the guilt. So the desired procedure is to inflict just enough pain to induce the desired behaviour, without the animal displaying its pain, then the animal behaves with no evidence of pain, and no feeling of guilt for the trainer. The well trained animal then doesn't even require pain, just a signal, a reminder, an indication that pain could be coming if it doesn't behave. We take this to the extreme with slaughter. Quick and easy is no display of pain, and no feeling of guilt.

Of course there may be some human beings who go the opposite way, and start to enjoy those noises and actions which indicate pain. Then we have to judge those individuals are they suppressing their guilt, or are they mentally ill?

I think this is wrong. Love is totally unrelated to pleasure, in fact, love often motivates one to willingly undertake enormous suffering. Love is more related to meaning than pleasure. Love is closely related to joy, but not to pleasure. Pleasure cannot co-exist with pain, but joy (and love) can co-exist with suffering. — Agustino

I don't understand this. You are separating joy from pleasure. But isn't joy a form of pleasure? How can joy be separated from pleasure if joy is a form of pleasure? So if love is related to joy, and joy is a form of pleasure, how do you separate love from pleasure? Your claim that pleasures and pains cannot co-existence is meaningless, because we can experience pleasure in one respect while simultaneously experiencing pain in another respect.

Yes and no. Love is rather that which makes virtue possible in the first place. And just like the eye which makes seeing possible isn't itself an object in the field of vision, so too love isn't exactly a virtue like any other kind of virtue. Rather all the other virtues depend on it - it plays the role that Agathon played for Plato's Forms. — Agustino

This doesn't make sense either. You are saying that love is like an organ of the body which makes virtue possible. But we now that virtue is dependent on the intellect, it requires clear reasoning, and rational decisions. Virtue does not require love, love requires virtue, which requires intellect. Intellect brings about rational decisions, which brings about virtue, and virtue brings into existence love. So it may be the case that love is the desired end, but love is not what makes virtue possible, you have this inverted. It is the desire for love, which indicates a wanting, or privation of love, which might bring about virtue, not love itself. And as the desired end, why would you not call love a form of pleasure?