Interesting. So then you will clearly be able to show me how you have gained that knowledge, will you not? Moreover, since you have transcendental knowledge regarding transcendental proofs, I take it you already know what they are. So please outline me what a transcendental proof would consist in, and also what the object of transcendental knowledge is. Since you have gained this transcendental knowledge, this should be easy for you!

You would only be able to recognize it if you knew clearly what is transcendentally true and what is not.

Yes indeed. I see that you do not want to share your knowledge of the transcendental or of what a transcendental proof would look like. So I will proceed with a definition of transcendental to advance our discussion.

I propose sir, that transcendental is anything that cannot be investigated with physical instruments (meaning instruments of physical sciences - microscopes, etc); anything that knowledge of the structure of the physical world as investigated by physical instruments would not reveal. Is this in accordance with your understanding of transcendental sir?

freedom has never, until the last 200 years, been understood as the ability to do whatever you want — Agustino

This reminds of a Ford car company ad I keep being spammed with:



Every time it comes on I want to stab my ears. The definition of freedom you dispute is now totally ingrained, sadly.

Yes indeed. I see that you do not want to share your knowledge of the transcendental or of what a transcendental proof would look like. So I will proceed with a definition of transcendental to advance our discussion.

I propose sir, that transcendental is anything that cannot be investigated with physical instruments (meaning instruments of physical sciences - microscopes, etc); anything that knowledge of the structure of the physical world as investigated by physical instruments would not reveal. Is this in accordance with your understanding of transcendental sir? — Agustino

The truth that I know transcendentally that you are wrong cannot be investigated physically.

Indeed. But this is very important, because worldviews are the glasses through which we see, perceive, feel and navigate our own experience and the world. A worldview which is not in agreement with our basic human essence is going to be ruinous to our well-being, and we will not be able to perceive it unless we change the glasses :) . So it's important for people to realise the tremendous effect worldviews have. Maybe if they do, they will be interested to experiment with changing glasses, just out of that nagging curiosity which progressives always display :).

Ok perfect, so it seems you agree with the definition then. Fine! So if we know what the transcendental is, what would count as adequate proof given its essence? Would we ask for scientific experiments to be run? Would we count repeatability as strong a factor as we do in the physical sciences? Will we still nevertheless expect there to be a way for each person - granting only that they desire and are willing to persevere sufficiently in their attempts - to nevertheless replicate an experience? Would we expect multiple sources of evidence to be corroborated together, and outnumber those who state the opposite?

I think sir, that granting the essence we cannot expect scientific experiments to be run - it would be unreasonable, as we already accepted that the instruments of science are inadequate for this job. I also think that granting that there is no help from physical instruments, and man must rely only on his own experience, we cannot expect repeatability to be systematised. There will be no system to reproduce a given experience. Nevertheless, we do expect, if the transcendental is what we said it is, that people would be able to arrive at the same experiences described by others if they so desire and are willing to do what it takes and strive for the experience - this is to say, we would expect the experience to be common, if indeed the transcendental is what we said it is. And finally we would expect the transcendental landscape to be corroborated by multiple sources which outnumber those who state the opposite is the case, just like we expect the geographical landscape to be corroborated by multiple sources which outnumber those who state otherwise. Do you agree sir? If so, then what shall we say about the transcendental truth that you know? Can it be proved according to this criteria? :)

No what you are arguing for is a shared agreement about beliefs of the transcendental.
Not transcendental truth.

But experiences vary and we do not all agree.

There are different religions for this reason.

Take for example that Muslim transcendental truth of honor killing ones daughter.
Do you agree with that?

Many Muslims report that they experience the truth of this tradition from a transcendental source.

So no I don't agree with your criterion.

Shared agreement does not equal proof.

Agustino, light of my way, love of my heart, where have you been?

No what you are arguing for is a shared agreement about beliefs of the transcendental.
Not transcendental truth.

But experiences vary and we do not all agree.

There are different religions for this reason.

Take for example that Muslim transcendental truth of honor killing ones daughter.
Do you agree with that?

Many Muslims report that they experience the truth of this tradition from a transcendental source.

So no I don't agree with your criterion.

Shared agreement does not equal proof. — m-theory

Sir, I take it then that you have a better idea of what proof of the transcendent should consist in. So please go ahead and outline it for me, and please explain how it's suitable to the definition towards which we have both expressed our agreements! :)

Agustino, light of my way, love of my heart, where have you been? — Bitter Crank

On the other forum :P (does that count as a form of promiscuity?)

I don't remember it being like that in the old days. — Mongrel

When were the old days?

Sir, I take it then that you have a better idea of what proof of the transcendent should consist in. So please go ahead and outline it for me, and please explain how it's suitable to the definition towards which we have both expressed our agreements! — Agustino

I have already made it clear that there is no transcendental proof.

You can claim whatever you want and say it is transcendentally true.
That does not make it true in any way except that you believe it.

I have already made it clear that there is no transcendental proof.

You can claim whatever you want and say it is transcendentally true.
That does not make it true in any way except that you believe it. — m-theory

Well sir, if you hold it axiomatically that there is no proof that can be offered, then you have been quite disingenuous in asking me to offer you one no? Because you would outright deny it, by this very axiom. So sir, if you will ever be interested and open to experience of the transcendental, and interested to expand your knowledge about it, then you will have to be willing to discern, given the nature of the transcendental, what would constitute as proof. Until you develop interest in this, it will not be beneficial to you to axiomatically claim there is no proof. Proof is something we decide upon given the essence of the subject, and you have agreed on the essence.

But experiences vary and we do not all agree.

There are different religions for this reason.

Take for example that Muslim transcendental truth of honor killing ones daughter.
Do you agree with that?

Many Muslims report that they experience the truth of this tradition from a transcendental source.

So no I don't agree with your criterion.

Shared agreement does not equal proof. — m-theory

No - actually they don't. There's social traditions - such as women have to wear the hijab - and then there's VALUES - such as women have to dress DECENTLY. The values are present in all the world's main religions,the same values. The social traditions may be different. Sexual purity and virginity are important values in all religions again - what is to be done in cases of impurity is a social custom and is different. So I think you need to sharpen your understanding of what values are, and differentiate them from social traditions which are founded upon those values. Yes, I think it is wrong to honor kill your daughter - because sexual purity isn't the only value out there, and the moral landscape is hierarchical - some values are more important than others. Social traditions may be critiqued, but only once values are understood.

You seemed to miss the point.

Claiming something is transcendentally true does not make it true.

For example some claim that we must follow the teaching of the prophet Mohammad is a transcendental truth.

Would you agree that it is a transcendental truth?

If you don't agree then you are saying that some people are wrong about what is transcendental truth.

Regardless or cultural differences appeals to the transcendental truth are made.

You seemed to miss the point.

Claiming something is transcendentally true does not make it true.

For example some claim that we must follow the teaching of the prophet Mohammad is a transcendental truth.

Would you agree that it is a transcendental truth?

If you don't agree then you are saying that some people are wrong about what is transcendental truth. — m-theory

A statement is not trasncendental, no. What the statement refers to may be transcendental. Following a way isn't one of those things. Values, meanings, significance - those things are transcendental. And of course, merely claiming something is transcendentally true doesn't make it so, neither did my proof criterion claim it does make it so. Have you failed to read that it should be possible for any person, if they truly want and are open towards it, to have the same experience and hence find the same value as someone else? - Validate it through their own experience?

And honour killing your daughter is NOT transcendental - neither is following the teachings of Prophet Mohammed. These are actions, which may be initiated upon VALUES, which are indeed transcendental. The actions definitely aren't. Killing your daughter is located in this world, most definitely - it's a physical event. So of course it's not transcendental.

Once again even people that are truly open towards the transcendental disagree about what is true and what is not.

And claiming something is transcendentally true does not mean it is necessarily true at all.

So again, you can claim you know something transcendentally all you want.
That claim does not prove anything about the transcendental and it certainly does not mean what you claim is just true.
All it means is that you have a belief that something is true.

Again it does not matter that these are actions, what matters is people claim these things are based on transcendental truths.

Once again even people that are truly open towards the transcendental disagree about what is true and what is not. — m-theory

No actually they don't disagree. There is no major world religion which claims that sexual partners should be promiscuous or otherwise be unfaithful to one another for example. None. So why do you think different cultures, different religions, in different time frames have always agreed upon this? Chance? No - it's because these values have been perceived to be true for human beings - or at least for MOST human beings.

And yes, of course there have been exceptions. But there have also been exceptions in geographical maps which are wrong. That doesn't mean no map is correct. Most geographical maps state the same thing, this is corroborating evidence towards the conclusion that they are accurate descriptions of reality. If we disbelieve them, no problem, we can go out there and check for ourselves. Same here.

Again it does not matter that these are actions, what matters is people claim these things are based on transcendental truths. — m-theory

Yes, so what? You're not speaking to "people" - you're speaking to me. So why does it matter what they say? That's clearly nonsensical given the definition we both accepted, as I've explained.

You believe you know what is transcendentally true.

So what.

A lot of people believe they know things are transcendentally true.

Yes if you're not interested in the transcendental, like you seem not to be, indeed, then my claim (or that of other people for that matter) is irrelevant to you :)

I think that last paragraph speaks to classical liberalism misunderstanding of identity. People are never seperate to the identity and culture they express-- their culture they partake in always defines them.

To be a citizen of country, the with same rights, includes that personal and cultural identity, assuming that person is considered part of the country and considers themselves belonging to that society. In reading identity and culture as separate to society, the classical misunderstands the role of identity and how it may be in conflict with society.

The result is absurd situations, like mentioned in this thread, where acts like condemning ISIS are treated as some measure of just how well people fit.

Saying whether ISIS is terrible isn't are measure of how well a person's indentity and culture fit with our society. It's just postering to make people in the West feel a bit better.

Every time there is an attack, we hear the same bluster about how Muslims are meant to be condemning it, as if somehow such public declarations in the West were a solution to the schism in culture between the West and Radical Islam.

The issues of identity and culture run far deeper. Here the problem is not how much Radical Islam is condemned in the Western media. It's about the relationship of people's identity and culture and our society.

This obsession with condemntion points scoring is, and many on the Left recognise this, just an excuse to vilfy Muslims. It's not Radical Islam and the people who followed who are the problem, but rather any Muslim at all, for not doing enough to stop (supposedly) members of their own community, for (supposedly) Islam is always a culture and identity seperate to our society.

But this forgets that ISIS and Radical Islam is not the community of many Muslims. For many Muslims, Islam is part of their lives and identity within Western culture. They are actually with us, not ISIS. Stopping Radical Islam doesn't, in principle, fall on them anymore than it does on us, for they no more share it values than we do.

It's insidious. Not only does it vilfy Muslims, but it prevents us from making the distinction between Muslims who are a part of our society (with their identity and culture) and the Radical Islam which will never fit. It quite literally hindering the very thing, an Islam together with the values of the West, which it supposedly wants so badly.

I am interested in pointing out that your claims about the transcendental are no different than anybody's claims about the transcendental.

Again anybody can claim they know something from transcendental truth.

That does not mean they actually know anything at all except that they believe.

When were the old days? — Bitter Crank

Tom Brokaw? Am I wrong? Did he spin the news every night?

I liked Brokaw, he slurred his words in just the right tempo.

Yes, I don't think the Alt-right can be anything but nostalgic. Nick Land, says that the Alt-right are foundational, they can't be dialectical. A progressive agenda is lost on them because they cannot go beyond their foundations. Any give and take on their part is a movement towards the center, negating their foundations. The ultimate nostalgia.

I haven't looked at any of them. I'm a little worried that they'd just turn my stomach.

Hard to disagree with that. I do see the danger of failing to recognize the distinction you pointed out and so abetting the kind of oppression we set out to oppose.

In general there is an odd tendency to see sex as preferably 'free market' in a context where most people despise an unrestrained 'free market.' This is, no surprise, dependent on whether you benefit from the freedom of the market (and let's not kid ourselves, sex is a commodity with a class structure built into it). — The Great Whatever

Yeah, and it's interesting to speculate further on how it pans out. Regardless of the outcome of the election, this reproductively disadvantaged cohort aren't going anywhere and their relative numbers are likely to increase as the wealth gap increases and technology advances. As polygyny is an inherently unstable form of sociosexual organization, certainly in a democracy, it may turn out to be the bug in the system of the neo-liberal enterprise that leads to its demise. My tentative prediction is that we are either headed towards authoritarianism in the states (with a Trump or equivalent at the helm), in which the gap is actually likely to balloon and then burst in serious social upheaval, or the US reverts back to a more enforced egalitarianism like social democratic Europe that reduces the wealth gap and thus the reproductive gap. You then get a kind of irony where what is most in the Alt-Right's interest is something like the Bernie Sander's revolution. The caveat here is that that only applies to the economics. A social-conservatism with more emphasis on families, reduced levels of divorce, and less licentiousness would also suit. Not sure though of the extent that those two can be combined.

There is no major world religion which claims that sexual partners should be promiscuous or otherwise be unfaithful to one another for example. None. So why do you think different cultures, different religions, in different time frames have always agreed upon this? Chance? No - it's because these values have been perceived to be true for human beings - or at least for MOST human beings. — Agustino

They've tended to agree on these values for very straightforward evolutionary reasons. It's in men's reproductive interest not to be cuckolded. Those that were would tend to nurture the genes of more cunning rivals and fail to pass their own on. Hence the evolved tendency in men to value faithfulness and fear promiscuity in their female mates. The virgin / slut dichotomy is built in to the male psyche. As for women, it should be obvious that promiscuity in men is a threat to their and their offspring's monopoly on men's resources. You don't need any transcendental magic to explain this stuff.