The image of the soul I hate the most is that of an ocean. That does not do it for me. I actually believe the human female form might symbolize the soul or act as it's physical analogue the most closely of all manifest objects

Spinoza's argument against free will was not to say there was nothing to be done about changing one's experience and of those around you. Consider the following proposition:

Proposition 20:
This love for God cannot be tainted by emotions either of envy or jealousy, but the more people we imagine to be joined with God in the same bond of love, the more it is ​fostered.
Proof:
This love for God is the highest good ​that we can seek by the dictate of reason (by 4p28). It is common to all human beings (by 4p36), and we desire everyone to enjoy it (by 4p37). Therefore (by DOE23) it cannot ​be tainted by the emotion of envy ​nor (by 5p18 and by the definition of jealousy, ​for which see 3p35s) by the emotion of jealousy either. To the contrary (by 3p31) the more people we imagine to enjoy it, the more it must be fostered. Q. E. D.
Scholium:
We can in this same way show that there is no emotion that is directly contrary to this love by which this love can be destroyed; and therefore we can conclude that this love for God is the most constant of all emotions, and cannot be destroyed, insofar as it is related to the body, except with the body itself. We shall see later what nature it has, insofar as it is related to the mind alone. ​With this I have covered all the remedies for the emotions, or everything that the mind, considered in itself, can do in the face of the emotions. It is clear from all this that the power of the mind over the emotions consists:

First, in cognition of the emotions itself (see 5p4s).
Secondly, in the fact that it separates the emotions from the thought of an external cause which we imagine in a confused way (see 5p2 with the same 5p4s).
Thirdly, in the time, by which the affections related to things that we understand surpass those which are related to things that we conceive in a confused or mutilated fashion (see 5p7).
Fourthly, in the very many causes which foster the affections related to the common properties of things or to God (see 5p9 and 5p11).
Fifthly and finally, in the order by which the mind is able to order and connect its emotions with each other (see 5p10s as well as 5p12, 5p13 and 5p14).

But in order that this power of the mind ​over the emotions may be better understood, the first thing to note is that we call emotions great when we compare one person’s emotion with another’s and see that one person is assailed by a particular emotion more than someone else, or when we compare one and the same person’s emotions with each other and find that the same person is affected or moved by one emotion more than by another. For (by 4p5) the force of each emotion is defined by the power of the external cause compared with our own. The power ​of the mind however is defined by cognition alone, ​whereas its powerlessness, ​or passion, is estimated solely by privation of cognition, i.e. by that through which ideas are said to be inadequate. It follows from this that a mind is most acted on when inadequate ideas constitute its greatest part, so that it is distinguished more by being acted on than by acting. Conversely a mind acts the most when adequate ideas constitute its greatest part, so that, although there are as many inadequate ideas in the latter as in the former, it is still distinguished more by ideas that are related to human virtue than those that betray human powerlessness. Then, we should note that sicknesses ​of the spirit and misfortune mostly have their origin in an excessive love for something that is subject to many changes and that we can never control. For no one is anxious or worried about anything but what he loves; and offense, suspicion, enmity, etc. arise only from a love for things which no one can in truth possess. We easily conceive from this therefore what clear and distinct cognition can do in the face of the emotions, especially the third kind of cognition (on which see 2p47s) whose foundation is the very cognition of God. That is, insofar as they are passions, if it does not absolutely take them away (see 5p3 with 5p4s), it at least ensures that they make up a very small part of the mind (see 5p14). Then, it generates love for an unchangeable and eternal thing (see 5p15) which we in truth possess (see 2p45) and which for that reason is tainted by none of the faults that there are in ordinary love, but can always be greater and greater (by 5p15) and occupy the greatest part of the mind (by 5p16) and have broad effects upon it. And with this I have dealt with everything that concerns this present life. As I said at the beginning of this scholium, anyone will easily be able to see that in these few words I have covered all the remedies for the emotions, if he has paid attention to what we have said in this scholium and at the same time to the definitions of the mind and its emotions and finally to 3p1 and 3p3. It is now time therefore to move on to things that pertain to the duration of the mind without relation to the body.

Ethics: Proved in Geometrical Order (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy) (p. 231 -236). Cambridge University Press. Part 5, Power of the Intellect, or Of Human Freedom — Spinoza

I got up again, because I couldn't sleep, as usual.

One idea which I am familiar with about the gender of the soul is Jung's representation. Everyone has an anima and an animus side to the psyche, which is similar to the idea of yin and yang.The anima, which is the female aspect, is often projected by males onto females as lovers, and the animus, the male part in females is often projected onto males as lovers. This probably works a bit differently in gay and bisexual people. There is a similar idea to the anima in males expressed as the idea of the muse.

I see meditation as more of a process of attaining higher states of consciousness.I have also experimented a little with astral projection, or rather, I had some out of body experiences accidentally and decided to work with this more.

Art and the arts can be about self expression, but it can also be about entering into different states of consciousness and that is where it is more shamanic. The shamans did sometimes use stimulating herbs, but there are other ways to stimulate this including certain music.

Spinoza didn't believe in free will. When I was reading his Ethics at first I thought he was a compatibilist until he directly denied that any free will was real. I would guess Einstein was of the same frame of mind. This is indicated by his desire to fully understand God by finding a scientific "theory of everything". I see this as just Gnosticism — Gregory

Spinoza's expressed position on freewill was based on his understanding of Cause & Effect Determinism, for which he saw no gaps. (But he may not have been familiar with Pascal's statistical & probabilistic definition of Chance) Anyway, in lieu of religious consolation, perhaps he found contentment in philosophical freedom of imagination. However, in my Enformationism thesis, the inherent randomness of natural events allows a small degree of freedom for the human Will to act as a Cause. I have several blog posts to explain how I arrived at that conclusion.

Let me know, if you are interested in my variant of Compatibilism : Conditional or Contingent Freedom Of Will (via Veto). Only the Creator or Cause of the world system would have Absolute freedom to deviate from the inevitable chain of cause & effect. But, any broken links in the chain would seem to be a self-contradiction of He/r expressed Will in the program for evolution. Unless, of course, the Programmer intended for some creatures to have the power to make moral choices : by taking advantage of random deviations from determinism.

Einstein, likewise, saw no loopholes for exceptions to inevitable Causation. But he also didn't seem to believe in classical Fatalism. Perhaps the mere illusion of freedom was enough to give him some comfort in his prison cell. FWIW, Albert called himself an "Agnostic". :smile:

He was also an incompatibilist; in 1932 he said: I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_views_of_Albert_Einstein

Conscious-will could thus affect the outcome of the volitional process even though the latter was initiated by unconscious cerebral processes. Conscious-will might block or veto the process, so that no act occurs.The existence of a veto possibility is not in doubt.
___Benjamin Libet, the 'freewill' experiment
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/551587e0e4b0ce927f09707f/t/57b5d269e3df28ee5e93936f/1471533676258/Libet%2C+Do+We+Have+Free+Will%3F.pdf

My intention is to discuss ideas. People need to help themselves. — synthesis

Yes, the actual work is where the rubber meets the road.
In the Taoist practices (which I am more familiar with than the Zen), that element is strongly emphasized but also is in a complicated dialogue with ethics that want to define obligations and values in unambiguous statements. Accepting uncertainty does not locate oneself in a map of certainty.

But I take the point that the "intellectual" is not self sufficient.

Art and the arts can be about self expression, but it can also be about entering into different states of consciousness and that is where it is more shamanic. The shamans did sometimes use stimulating herbs, but there are other ways to stimulate this including certain music. — Jack Cummins

Don't recall if they're shamanic but there are techniques where just the breath is used. Anyway, never heard of art to induce different states of consciousness. I often experience flow (sometimes referred to as a peak experience, I think) while painting or other creative things but that doesn't sound like what you're talking about.

It is quite interesting that you do paint because not that many people do. If you do get peak experiences while doing so that is important in it's own right, and you probably don't need to worry about shamanic techniques.

I'm not worried about shamanic techniques, :grin: I'm curious about how art can be about entering into different states of consciousness. Maybe I'm taking you too litterally?

Maybe this observation belongs on a more Spinoza specific thread but the determinism relates to how something is either caused by itself or by something not itself. That is quite different from viewing the matter as whether one can insert a cause between other causes. The point of "God" not being able to do it is pointing to a structural problem with the question more than offering an opinion about what is possible.

I don't think the discussion among the Plato and Aristotle people about natures is relevant to gender questions. I'm a nominalist and a body just is what it is. I define a male as he who is masculine in their soul and normally becomes female in love. A female is the reverse. A transsexual or hermaphrodite is defined, not by their bodies, but by the masculine or feminine nature of their souls. I imagine that all people born with male bodies are male, ect. The female form, when compared to the male, is nature's model of the soul. Daoists have a practice where they punch the penis at one of several pplaces and force the semen back into their body (and into the bladder). This way they do not lose yang but instead get yin from their sex partner. Obviously they aren't fully turning on their anima but maybe it is a wise practice. I don't know anything however about Indian tantra

I meant to write pinch, not punch lol. Autocorrect

Ye if you have an article on compatabilism do link it for me. It's one of my favorite topics. I've had threads on it

Why do people need religious beliefs and ideas? Plato defined Man as " - a being in search of meaning"

What gives us meaning differs between people. Most are happy with what the world provides since IMO they repress the deeper needs of the heart and often find themselves winning the world but losing their souls. As a result, they age feeling empty. Can we admit that meaning is relative and our God is meaning. But suppose meaning is not found in the world; can a person with the help of society awaken to the needs of the heart? Is the purpose of modern society to indoctrinate or to awaken? How can it help us to awaken? Can philosophy help us to realistically feel what is called the human condition and why we are as we are?

Simone Weil wrote "The Need for Roots" as she was in the hospital with TB. France was recovering from the war and was concerned how it can recover.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/weil.html

Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation
Profession of Faith

There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.

Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.

Another terrestrial manifestation of this reality lies in the absurd and insoluble contradictions which are always the terminus of human thought when it moves exclusively in this world.

Just as the reality of this world is the sole foundation of facts, so that other reality is the sole foundation of good.

That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations.

Those minds whose attention and love are turned towards that reality are the sole intermediary through which good can descend from there and come among men..................................

She offers a beginning. We must distinguish between the facts of science and the values which enter the essence of Man from a higher conscious source beyond the limitations of Plato's cave. She suggests that it is through the influence of certain minority already able to receive from above which makes it possible, They make it possible for the being of Man and scientific knowledge to become balanced and complimentary

Can Man open to receive this influence or is he doomed to lose it as his being deteriorates into fragmentation and becomes lost in the trees forgetting the needs and reality of the forest?

This is the human problem as I understand it. Can society become able to serve the normal urge for conscious evolution or is it doomed to further the devolution of the being of Man? Perhaps conscious evolution is not possible for society but only possible for individuals.

But I take the point that the "intellectual" is not self sufficient. — Valentinus

For all but the very, very few, the intellectual is a snare in many different ways. First, it warms you with wonderful thoughts of oneness with all The Universe, and then brings the hammer down as you get caught once again in the revolving door of life and death.

As wonderfully meaningful and poetic are the teachings of, The Dao, one must completely let it go and instead embrace it's essence lest you go down the rabbit hole of infinite duality...

Reading Zhuangzi, the release from duality is becoming more circumspect about saying what essence may be of anything. And thus all the jokes told to signal all the effort to point this out breaks the rule they seek to establish.

Maybe this observation belongs on a more Spinoza specific thread but the determinism relates to how something is either caused by itself or by something not itself. That is quite different from viewing the matter as whether one can insert a cause between other causes. The point of "God" not being able to do it is pointing to a structural problem with the question more than offering an opinion about what is possible. — Valentinus

Yes. That's two different ways of looking at Causation and Determinism. Animals are differentiated from inanimate objects by their ability to cause themselves to move. But that's not much of a philosophical issue. The debatable question is whether the animal can make moral choices. For example, most animals seem to follow the First Commandment of "thou shalt not kill thine own kind". Predators sometimes fight amongst themselves, but seldom actually kill their rivals. But is that moral restraint built into their genes, or is it a situational choice? We can only guess about their motives. Bet humans can tell us why they did what they did. And they can lie about it. Yet few of us would admit to ourselves that "the devil made me do it". We tend to accept responsibility for our positive actions, and deny being self-caused in the case of negative or immoral acts.

However, a God is assumed to be able to do anything that is logically possible. So, the creator of this world might be faced with a choice : a> build a mechanical world that always does exactly what it is programmed to do (efficient, but boring!), or b> create a smoothly-running world that evolves into an uncertain & interesting future. Option <b> could be achieved by merely adding an element of randomness to the mechanism of option <a>. The latter is what we see in Darwinian Evolution : a continuous chain of Cause & Effect, but with statistically probable effects, instead of absolutely certain consequences.The Freewill vs Determinism debate would be a waste of time, if our world was completely determined or absolutely random. But it seems to be a delicately balanced blend of both. Hence, evolution makes a Natural Selection between the options presented by random changes. And humans make their own artificial selections between forks in the moral highway, based not on chance, but on personal preferences. Randomness is the "structural problem" in an otherwise flawless machine for replication of identical clones.

With those alternatives in mind, I have created my own personal theory of FreeWill within Determinism. It's not based on any particular religious doctrine, or philosophical authority. It's also grounded on neither Theist nor Atheist assumptions, but on a moderate philosophical position. This theory is how I justify the assumption that my socially significant choices are free-enough to make me morally responsible, and morally laudable. :cool:

Evolution -- a game of chance : https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/evolution-a-game-of-chance-observations/ .

Rationalism versus Fatalism : Freewill Within Determinism
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page67.html

My discussion of Jung's ideas about anima and animus was not meant to be a discussion of gender, as construed in the modern world. Jung's ideas were never developed in that context at all, but more in the context of ideas such as Taoism, Plato and other philosophers. He was speaking of the psyche in a philosophical sense.

You suggest that conscious evolution is not possible for society but for the individual. Perhaps what may be true is that in past times it was only possible for rare individuals to explore conscious evolution. It could be that with education and technology, that it is becoming possible for more and more people to begin and pursue this possibility. Of course, it is far more than just a matter of having information. It requires a lot of time and energy. I do wonder if the period of self-isolation for great numbers at the present time could give rise to many going in that direction, as a possibility.

I am not sure if you are taking me too literally, in talking about art leading into other dimensions. With or without, I do feel as if there are other dimensions. It could be the idea of parallel universes spoken by scientists. However, I do believe that there are other dimensions, which do exist and it is from this that ideas and images arise in the first place. I do think that the mythical ideas arise on this level.

What is another dimension and how does art lead you there?

I know that many people believe in four, of five dimensions, at least. The fourth includes time and there is the one of intersubjective experience, as well as the imagination. Carl Jung spoke of the importance of dreams and those coming from the collective unconscious. I do believe that the idea of the collective unconscious is useful for thinking about as a source from which images and stories evolve.

I think we assume science and technology are the same thing. They are not. Human beings have always had technology but we did not always have science. Learning a technology does not improve our understanding of life and does not lead to wisdom as science greatly improves our understanding of life, moral judgment, and makes democracy as rule by reason possible. Technology does not lead to wisdom as science does. Education for technology has always been the education of slaves. It is not the education of men. — Athena

You maybe right but I doubt whether there is a well-defined line of demarcation between the two. To my reckoning, the fact of the two being, in a sense, out of phase - technology preceding science - has no bearing on what many have acknowledged viz. that at the heart of every piece of tech we've invented lies a scientific principle. Take for example the wheel - it's a good way to get around the problem of friction.

Yeah, unless you're an Orwellian. As the song says

"When you believe in things
That you don't understand,
Then you suffer ..." — 180 Proof

Not when they are beautiful things because it is as we make it and when we believe in beautiful things that is what we make.

You maybe right but I doubt whether there is a well-defined line of demarcation between the two. To my reckoning, the fact of the two being, in a sense, out of phase - technology preceding science - has no bearing on what many have acknowledged viz. that at the heart of every piece of tech we've invented lies a scientific principle. Take for example the wheel - it's a good way to get around the problem of friction. — TheMadFool

Sure there is science behind technology, but when the science is not known it doesn't matter. It matters a lot when the science is known. That is when we step away from superstition and realize our power to overcome evil.

We have culture wars in the US between those who trust in science and those who don't. There are real consequences to this, such as over a million avoidable deaths, and a huge avoidable economic problem resulting from following a leader who lies to us, and I am blown away that someone who lies to us can be very popular. But it is more than this. It also involves having faith in what we can achieve, or faith in supernatural beings of good and evil, and rushing to self-destruction like lemmings rushing over a cliff. It is a barbaric criminal justice system, versus a correction system that actually corrects the problem. So much changes with science that I think the difference is important. Technology without wisdom is a very dangerous thing. Our morality is higher with science and our reality can be very bad without it.

... and full circle :point:

thinking hurts a lot more than just making shit up. — 180 Proof

thinking hurts a lot more than just making shit up. — 180 Proof

For sure, the notion that we can fly is making up shit, right?

in the Christian tradition it was often viewed as the war of good against evil. — Jack Cummins

The notion of evil is curious to me. Doesn't it go with a belief in a supernatural being of evil and demons? I can see a big problem with ignorance and things like drinking from a polluted well spreading disease, but what is evil? Do we need a concept of evil or will the notion of ignorance service?

As someone who works as a creative (graphic designer) I can say that the general formula for creative ideas is to saturate yourself with material related to the design problem, put the problem aside for a while to let the subconscious do its work, and then brainstorm. If other dimensions are involved in that process I’m completely unaware of it.

↪Nikolas
You suggest that conscious evolution is not possible for society but for the individual. Perhaps what may be true is that in past times it was only possible for rare individuals to explore conscious evolution. It could be that with education and technology, that it is becoming possible for more and more people to begin and pursue this possibility. Of course, it is far more than just a matter of having information. It requires a lot of time and energy. I do wonder if the period of self-isolation for great numbers at the present time could give rise to many going in that direction, as a possibility. — Jack Cummins

Do you accept the possibility that perennial philosophy has always existed? Those who do believe that conscious evolution is not the result of learning anything new but rather remembering what has been forgotten. Why it has been forgotten and why the world struggles against remembering is another question. The seeker of truth defies the world by making the necessary efforts for remembering.

The education and technology of the world actually increases the acquired tendency to forget since they are not included within a conscious perspective but just the mechanical reactions normal for organic life on earth responding to earthly and cosmic influences. Life in the jungle for example is not a conscious action but rather an orderly mechanical reaction following the cycles of life supporting the earth. It is the same with society as a whole explained in Ecclesiastes 3.

The needs of the earth supplied by the transformation of substances along with acquired habits including those of animal Man sustain the acquired needs of the earth.

Yet there is something in Man which didn't arise from the earth but rather has descended from above. It has the need to live and to consciously evolve. It is this seed of the soul so to speak that the energy or essence or unsecularized religion is directed at. Only a few in the modern age of technology and education can have a need strong enough to "remember" and question imaginary progress while remembering and opening to the human potential for conscious evolution