• Tom Storm
    9.4k
    :up: I'll ponder whether I agree.

    In any case, we do not - and cannot - go beyond appearance.Manuel

    I tend to agree but I guess that depends upon what we mean by appearance - in recent history we have certainly devised instruments that allow us to go beyond (ordinary) appearance and these tools seem to tell us that solid matter is almost entirely empty. And let's not get into quantum speculations.

    And in a separate vein, is it not the case that people who claim to be enlightened are able to see beyond appearances, at least in part? Is this not a goal of mediation, etc? I'm not personally in the higher consciousness business but I am curious about the framing of these things.
  • Tom Storm
    9.4k
    But notice that among what this excludes is - the subject! There is no conceptual space in all of this for the actual scientist. Which in some sense is what Bishop Berkeley is attempting to restore. He's saying something like, look, unless this is real for someone, then what kind of reality does it have? Phenomenology was to bring all of this out and make it explicit, but the germ of the idea is there in Berkeley (and Descartes for that matter, who is often credited as the forefather of phenomenology.)Wayfarer

    You put it very well, I understand the reasoning and I am sympathetic. And what smatterings of phenomenology I have read certainly resonates.
  • Wayfarer
    23.6k
    Yes, science is metaphysics - in large part, not entirely - because they try to tell us what that nature is.Manuel

    Not necessarily what it is but how it appears - and it's an important distinction.

    Neils Bohr: “Physics is not about how the world is, it is about what we can say about the world”.

    Werner Heisenberg: “What we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.”

    In any case, we do not - and cannot - go beyond appearance.Manuel

    I'd be careful there, it's a big statement!

    :pray:
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.5k
    I don’t find the justification for the given “alters position with time”, with your “fourth dimension of space”.Mww

    To be more specific, it is Einstein's principle of the "relativity of simultaneity", which allows time to be the fourth dimension of space. This provides for "spacetime" where time is the fourth dimension of space.

    By conceiving "temporal position" as relative rather than absolute, the conceived flow of time is dependent on spatial references. This allows an equivalence between spatial distance and temporal distance enabling transformations. The need, or purpose, of the "relativity of simultaneity" is to establish light speed as a constant within the conceptual framework of relativity.
  • Manuel
    4.2k
    I tend to agree but I guess that depends upon what we mean by appearance - in recent history we have certainly devised instruments that allow us to go beyond (ordinary) appearance and these tools seem to tell us that solid matter is almost entirely empty. And let's not get into quantum speculations.

    And in a separate vein, is it not the case that people who claim to be enlightened are able to see beyond appearances, at least in part? Is this not a goal of mediation, etc? I'm not personally in the higher consciousness business but I am curious about the framing of these things.
    Tom Storm

    But physics is also appearance too, just a much more refined attempt to make sense of the data of sense. Remember physics is mathematical because it tells us about the structure of the things that make the world, but the inner nature of these things is not revealed, we probably can't reach the "bottom level".

    As for enlightened people, no, at least I don't think so. It doesn't have anything to do with lack of training or practice or perceptiveness, it's related to the nature of our faculties. We can't step outside what we see to verify whatever it is we see.

    Likewise, we cannot leave our experience to see what may be behind it.

    Not necessarily what it is but how it appears - and it's an important distinction.

    Neils Bohr: “Physics is not about how the world is, it is about what we can say about the world”.

    Werner Heisenberg: “What we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.”
    Wayfarer

    I agree.

    But we do reach better approximations. And that's what we continue to do.

    I'd be careful there, it's a big statement!Wayfarer

    Even Schopenhauer, someone who one might think would disagree that we cannot know the thing in itself says:

    "Meanwhile it is carefully to be noted, and I have always kept it in mind, that even the inward observation we have of our own will still does not by any means furnish an exhaustive and adequate knowledge of the thing in itself. For even in self-consciousness, the I is not absolutely simple, but consists of a knower (intellect) and a known (will); the former is not known and the latter is not knowing, although the two flow together into the consciousness of an I. But on this very account, this I is not intimate with itself through and through, does not shine through so to speak, but is opaque, and therefore remains a riddle to itself."

    (WWR V.II p.196)

    The above is a mix of the classic translation with a newer one. The meaning is the same in both, however.
  • Mww
    5k


    Interesting interpretation, I must say. I’ll have to think about it, try to find some correspondence with the relevant text.
  • Wayfarer
    23.6k
    "But on this very account, this I is not intimate with itself through and through, does not shine through so to speak, but is opaque, and therefore remains a riddle to itself." ~ SchopenhauerManuel

    Agree, but the awareness of will is not an appearance. We may not know what it is, but that it is, we can have no doubt.

    But we do reach better approximations. And that's what we continue to do.Manuel

    But the uncertainty principle shows that there’s a limit to how exact we can be.
  • Manuel
    4.2k
    Agree, but the awareness of will is not an appearance. We may not know what it is, but that it is, we can have no doubt.Wayfarer

    Well, if we don't know what it is, how can we say that it is? We could be wrong. But let's be somewhat more permissive:

    This is tricky. It depends on how you define "will". It it's the ordinary use of will, such as willed action, this doubtful. If it's Schopenhauer's, then one has to see what merits it has. It's not trivial. I constantly go back between Hume and Schopenhauer here.

    I think we can have (almost) no doubt that we have experience. Beyond that, I think we should be careful in ascertaining certainty in almost anything, outside maybe mathematics.

    But the uncertainty principle shows that there’s a limit to how exact we can be.Wayfarer

    Yes. At least, this is what our theories at the moment show, which may indeed hold up to future discoveries.
  • Wayfarer
    23.6k
    Well, if we don't know what it is, how can we say that it is?Manuel

    On the same grounds as Descartes’ ‘cogito ergo sum’: even if you suffered complete amnesia and forgot your identity, you would be aware of your own being. That’s the point about *any* being: on some level it is aware of its distinction from what is other to it. It knows that it is.

    We can't step outside what we see to verify whatever it is we see.Manuel

    Buddhists would say that our grasp of reality is inversely proportional to our degree of attachment. But that belongs to another thread (or forum).
  • goremand
    114
    On the same grounds as Descartes’ ‘cogito ergo sum’: even if you suffered complete amnesia and forgot your identity, you would be aware of your own being.Wayfarer

    That seems like an over-interpretation, all the cogito says is that in order to doubt you have to think and in order to think you have to be real, thus doubting your own reality results in contradiction. This doesn't automatically imply self-awareness or awareness of being.
  • goremand
    114
    You're welcome to correct me, but self-awareness doesn't seem like a strict requirement for doubt.
  • Mww
    5k
    …..self-awareness doesn't seem like a strict requirement for doubt.goremand

    I’d go with self-consciousness myself, rather than self-awareness.

    Self-something, at any rate.
  • goremand
    114
    I’d go with self-consciousness myself, rather than self-awareness.Mww

    Why is that? I know the term "doubt" is sometimes used to refer to an emotional state, but here I think it just means demanding justification for a proposition.
  • Mww
    5k
    I know the term "doubt" is sometimes used to refer to an emotional state, but here I think it just means demanding justification for a proposition.goremand

    Yep, pretty much where I’m coming from. Self-awareness implies sensibility; self-consciousness implies logical thought. Doubt, insofar as it is a relative judgement, presupposes logical thought, of which the subject himself must be conscious. If such be the case, then we can just say self-consciousness represents the entirety of that which the subject himself must be conscious, from which follows the notion of a strict requirement, or what can be termed a principle.
  • Manuel
    4.2k
    On the same grounds as Descartes’ ‘cogito ergo sum’: even if you suffered complete amnesia and forgot your identity, you would be aware of your own being. That’s the point about *any* being: on some level it is aware of its distinction from what is other to it. It knows that it is.Wayfarer

    Of having experience yes. On being able to distinguish between willed action and mere reflex, also. On some metaphysical postulate about some blind drive the universe follows (as well as us), that's further steps more advanced than experiencing or "willing" (in the common usage of the term).

    our grasp of reality is inversely proportional to our degree of attachment.Wayfarer

    And they may be right. This doesn't get us closer to the thing in itself. At least, I don't see how at the moment.
  • goremand
    114
    Doubt, insofar as it is a relative judgement, presupposes logical thought, of which the subject himself must be conscious.Mww

    This isn't obvious to me at all. I see doubt only as a kind of abstract epistemological "move", similar to a move in chess. It isn't something inherently mental.
  • Wayfarer
    23.6k
    On some metaphysical postulate about some blind drive the universe follows (as well as us), that's further steps more advanced than experiencing or "willing" (in the common usage of the term).Manuel

    That’s not something I postulate, and something that I question in Schopenhauer; I’m much more drawn to the ‘idea’ aspect of his philosophy, than the ‘world as will’ aspect, which I'm frankly sceptical of. (Actually, coming to think of it, I much prefer the Hegelian geist, but never mind.)

    Incidentally I went to an open-air social gathering yesterday, a out-door ‘Philosophical Symposium’, the subject of which was 'The Suffering of the World: Schopenhauer's Christian Buddhism.' I hadn't attended before - it was held in a park near Sydney Harbour, convened by an informal group organised by the main speaker (picture below under the Peroni sign.)

    Symposium.jpg

    I felt the actual lecture concentrated too much on the familiar 'Schopenhauer as pessimist' meme, and not at all on the idealist side of his philosophy, but never mind, it was enjoyable to sit around a table and talk about philosophy with actual people. :wink:
  • Manuel
    4.2k
    That’s not something I postulate, and something that I question in Schopenhauer; I’m much more drawn to the ‘idea’ aspect of his philosophy, than the ‘world as will’ aspect, which I'm frankly sceptical of.Wayfarer

    As far as metaphysical ideas go, his is not bad. But it has problems which you also feel. Obviously a very hard topic to talk about in general.

    Incidentally I went to an open-air social gathering yesterday, a out-door ‘Philosophical Symposium’, the subject of which was 'The Suffering of the World: Schopenhauer's Christian Buddhism.' I hadn't attended before - it was held in a park near Sydney Harbour, convened by an informal group organised by the main speaker (picture below under the Peroni sign.)Wayfarer

    Very cool! You have no idea how jealous I am that I've never been to Sydney. My dream city to visit. Very interesting topic to discuss and seeing such a crowd attending is just fantastic.

    I felt the actual lecture concentrated too much on the familiar 'Schopenhauer as pessimist' meme, and not at all on the idealist side of his philosophy, but never mind, it was enjoyable to sit around a table and talk about philosophy with actual people. :wink:Wayfarer

    Yes, personal dynamics alter the conversation quite a lot. Being able to emphasize or make facial or give certain looks can be persuasive and enriching. Nice to be able to find such groups.

    As for the speaker emphasizing pessimism, yeah, it's a problem with Schopenhauer, it's easier to talk about than his version of transcendental idealism, which can be either hard to get across, or if people are told, they don't (I think, at least in my experience) realize the implications such views have, which are just radical.

    I suppose one needs a bit of the philosopher gene to be utterly dumbstruck by what others take to be too obvious to even mention. On the other hand, the more variety, the better I suppose.

    Thanks for sharing! :cool:
  • Wayfarer
    23.6k
    You're welcome. I'm Sydney born and bred although now live about 90 minutes west in the picturesque Blue Mountains. Anyway, it was a salutary reminder of my probably rose-coloured attitude to Schop, he was an old curmudgeon in some ways. Still, a genius in my book, and worth the effort of reading.
  • Wayfarer
    23.6k
    Actually one thought that came to me during that talk. Schopenhauer says life is a pendulum swinging between boredom and disappointment. When you do something pleasurable, it disappoints because it’s never as good as it promised, it doesn’t last and you start looking for new pleasures. But if you don’t get pleasure, then life is boring. Boo hoo!

    I put it to those I was talking to, that this is simply a description of ‘egoic consciousness’ (something I’m well acquainted with), that is always seeking pleasure or satisfaction in the sensory domain. I remember a talk from a Tibetan Lama decades ago, where he made the same point, referring to Mick Jagger singing ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’. It’s the nature of pleasure, the ‘hedonic treadmill’.

    Schopenhauer seems to think it can only be ameliorated by the sublimity of high art or a severe asceticism (which so far as we know he never practiced.) But life has its simple pleasures too, and - something Schopenhauer does acknowledge - there is also an enduring satisfaction in being empathetic to the suffering of others. As always, I’ll do more reading, but I do think Schopenhauer’s pessimism was lacking in that regard.
  • Patterner
    1.2k
    Schopenhauer has the wrong approach to happiness.

    There is no way to happiness - happiness is the way.

    -Thich Nhat Hanh


    Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.

    -Margaret Lee Runbeck


    A fool is “happy” when his cravings are satisfied. A warrior is happy without reason.

    -Dan Millman's Way of the Peaceful Warrior


    Pleasures conceived in the world of the senses have a beginning and an end and give birth to misery, Arjuna. The wise do not look for happiness in them. But those who overcome the impulses of lust and anger which arise in the body are made whole and live in joy. They find their joy, their rest, and their light completely within themselves.

    -Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita


    In the true order of things one does not do something in order to be happy - one is happy and, hence, does something. One does not do some things in order to be compassionate, one is compassionate and, hence, acts in a certain way. The soul’s decision precedes the body’s action in a highly conscious person. Only an unconscious person attempts to produce a state of the soul through something the body is doing.

    -Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God


    Oh, ho, listen, Man, and we'll tell you everything! Do you hear the waves whispering the secret? We know you know, Man. The secret of life is just sheer joy, and joy is everywhere. Joy is what we were made for. It is in the rush of the nighttime surf and in the beach rocks and in the salt and the air and in the water we breathe and deep, deep within the blood. And the sifting ocean sands and the wriggling silverfish and the hooded greens of the shallows and the purple deeps and in the oyster's crusty shell and the pink reefs and even in the muck of the ocean's floor, joy, joy, joy!

    -David Zindell's Neverness
  • Wayfarer
    23.6k
    A fool is “happy” when his cravings are satisfied. A warrior is happy without reason.

    -Dan Millman's Way of the Peaceful Warrior
    Patterner

    :up: I think this requires qualities of character. Notably, poise. And the appropriate orientation or attitude. The society we live in is such that it doesn't recognise those qualities, rather it relies on continual stimulation to incite cravings and consumption, hence we all become 'consumers'. Being 'happy without reason' entails throwing that off, which is not necessarily an easy thing to do.

    My feeling is, Schopenhauer did not, himself, cultivate that kind of personal discipline - not wanting to be overly judgemental, as I'm no paragon. But I suspect that the kind of life he lead, didn't really lend itself to attaining any kind of real poise or equanimity, which is why he wrote so much about being disturbed by boredom and craving.

    But those who overcome the impulses of lust and anger which arise in the body are made whole and live in joy. They find their joy, their rest, and their light completely within themselves. — Sri Krishna

    The yamas (Sanskrit: यम, romanized: yama), and their complement, the niyamas, represent a series of "right living" or ethical rules within Yoga philosophy. The word yama means "reining in" or "control". They are restraints for proper conduct given in the Vedas and the Yoga Sutras as moral imperatives, commandments, rules or goals. The yamas are a "don't"s list of self-restraints, typically representing commitments that affect one's relations with others and self. The complementary niyamas represent the "do"s. Together yamas and niyamas are personal obligations to live well.Wikipedia,Yamas
  • Manuel
    4.2k


    Apparently, he did do quite many things that brought him joy, walking his dogs, eating sausages in a tavern, going to the theatre and listening to music, and lots of other small details along this line.

    You're right about the asceticism part; he never took it that far. But I suppose he just had some form of depression. It's not that his pessimism per se is wrong, one can view the world that way, but it's a particularly gloomy way of looking at the world, which is not necessary.

    But given the state of the world, maybe his pessimism was in many respects, severely understated. We are running towards extinction, with enthusiasm.

    Still, life's small pleasures, empathy and of course the arts, are now more important than ever. Keep looking at those majestic mountains.
  • Ludwig V
    1.8k
    In any case, we do not - and cannot - go beyond appearance.Manuel

    That's true, And yet:-

    33. OF REAL THINGS AND IDEAS OR CHIMERAS.--The ideas imprinted on the Senses by the Author of nature are called REAL THINGS; and those excited in the imagination being less regular, vivid, and constant, are more properly termed IDEAS, or IMAGES OF THINGS, which they copy and represent. But then our sensations, be they never so vivid and distinct, are nevertheless IDEAS, that is, they exist in the mind, or are perceived by it, as truly as the ideas of its own framing. The ideas of Sense are allowed to have more reality in them, that is, to be more (1)STRONG, (2)ORDERLY, and (3)COHERENT than the creatures of the mind; but this is no argument that they exist without the mind. They are also (4)LESS DEPENDENT ON THE SPIRIT or thinking substance which perceives them, in that they are excited by the will of another and more powerful spirit; yet still they are IDEAS, and certainly no IDEA, whether faint or strong, can exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it.
    Not only does he distinguish between - let's call them - real appearances - and - "chimeras" - unreal appearances but he also allows the existence of something beyond or behind appearances. .

    He is so embarrased by this that he includes an awkward and unconvincing shuffle to disguise the fact:-

    27. NO IDEA OF SPIRIT.--..... there can be no idea formed of a soul or spirit; for all ideas whatever, being passive and inert, .. cannot represent unto us, by way of image or LIKENESS, that which acts. .... Such is the nature of SPIRIT, or that which acts, that it cannot be of itself perceived, BUT ONLY BY THE EFFECTS WHICH IT PRODUCETH....... it must be owned at the same time that we have some notion of soul, spirit, and the operations of the mind: such as willing, loving, hating--inasmuch as we know or understand the meaning of these words.
    He uses "notion" to designate abstract ideas, of which he denies the reality. So his use of the term here is puzzling.

    It seems to me that while appearances are, indeed, all that appears to us, that the distinction between reality and appearance is available to us, not only within appearances, but also behind or beyond them.
  • Ludwig V
    1.8k
    Schopenhauer has the wrong approach to happiness.Patterner

    I like all your quotations. But don't they also reveal that happiness (and therefore also unhappiness) is complicated? I understand the implication to be that there is no one right approach to happiness/unhappiness.

    I'm fond of Wittgenstein's comment in the Tractatus:-
    The world of the happy is quite different from the world of the unhappy. — TLP 6,43
    At face value, that's nonsense, of course. The same person living in the same world may be happy at some times and not happy at other times. Neither is necessarily a permanent state. But I think the meaning is that happiness and unhappiness affect how one interprets everything in the one world. "Glass half full" and "Glass half empty" are not about different glasses, but different perspectives on the same glass. Happiness and unhappiness affect how one interprets everything.

    There's another point, though,
    Apparently, he did do quite many things that brought him joy, walking his dogs, eating sausages in a tavern, going to the theatre and listening to music, and lots of other small details along this line.Manuel
    Doesn't this show that happiness and unhappiness are not necessarily mutually exclusive?

    It's not that his pessimism per se is wrong, one can view the world that way, but it's a particularly gloomy way of looking at the world, which is not necessary.Manuel
    I agree with you that the world seems in a particularly bad way at the moment, There are many good reasons for being fearful, even alarmed, about the state of the world order these days. But one may reflect that it is not unusual for there to be good grounds for fear and one's worst fears may well turn out to be excessive. (Most of my childhood and youth was overshadowed by the threat of a nuclear holocaust.)
    But there is a counterbalancing excess of optimism, which loses touch with reality and sails gaily and blindly into disaster. We need balance and realism to function successfully in the world. Schopenhauer's (perhaps only official) totalizing gloom is a mistake, but the radical optimisim of Dr. Pangloss in Candide is no better.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.5k
    At face value, that's nonsense, of course. The same person living in the same world may be happy at some times and not happy at other times. Neither is necessarily a permanent state. But I think the meaning is that happiness and unhappiness affect how one interprets everything in the one world. "Glass half full" and "Glass half empty" are not about different glasses, but different perspectives on the same glass. Happiness and unhappiness affect how one interprets everything.Ludwig V

    I think you misunderstand, "the world" is as interpreted. Therefore the world of the happy person is a completely different world from from the world of the unhappy person, and a difference of interpretation is irrelevant because interpretation is already integral to "the world". That difference is therefore a difference in the world. This is due to the role of the subconscious in interpretation.

    If the happy person and the unhappy person are the very same person at a different time, then the world has changed for that person. If you review some of the psychological approaches to depression you'll probably understand this better. Happiness and unhappiness are the result of how one interprets things, so the movement of one to the other is a change of interpretation, the mode of interpretation being logically prior to "the world", as interpreted. Psychological disorders in general, must be understood in this way, because "the real world" is always as it appears to the person, not something separate and independent. Psychosis is not treated by getting the person to understand that what they experience is not the real world.
  • Manuel
    4.2k
    Doesn't this show that happiness and unhappiness are not necessarily mutually exclusive?Ludwig V

    Yes. The irony or strange aspect about this here is that Schopenhauer does not mention much these happy moments, choosing to speak about art, which is fine and important. But it may overplay his pessimism.

    I agree with you that the world seems in a particularly bad way at the moment, There are many good reasons for being fearful, even alarmed, about the state of the world order these days. But one may reflect that it is not unusual for there to be good grounds for fear and one's worst fears may well turn out to be excessive. (Most of my childhood and youth was overshadowed by the threat of a nuclear holocaust.)Ludwig V

    That's a good point. Today we add climate change and even less controls than before on the nuclear issue. As Bertrand Russell pointed out: "You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years."

    One day the boy who cried wolf will be right. Hopefully not soon, but, sobriety ought to make us see we are not doing good as a species at all. It could change, absolutely. But it's yet to happen.

    It seems to me that while appearances are, indeed, all that appears to us, that the distinction between reality and appearance is available to us, not only within appearances, but also behind or beyond them.Ludwig V

    This framing is fine. I do think something like us being "indirectly" aware of whatever IS mind independently is probably what we do. The exact mechanism involved in this will depend on your own philosophy.

    It's still an important step removed from direct access.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    3.2k


    I don't know enough about Berkley to know his influences (I read him pretty much blind), but this actually makes a lot of sense if one looks at his philosophy as essentially recapitulating the "classical metaphysical tradition"*, just through a sort of bizzarro world, fun house mirror setting of modernity.

    IMHO though, it ends up looking terribly deflated.

    *The term "classical tradition" often gets employed to name the wide, but surprisingly unified blend of metaphysics that dominated from late-antiquity to the late medieval period in Pagan, Jewish, Islamic, and Christian thought (broadly a synthesis of Plato, Aristotle, Neo-Platonism, and Stoicism, with different elements emphasized).
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