It appears that there's a strong causal connection between self-awareness and suffering. The latter induces/effects the former.

Self-awareness $\propto$ Suffering. The more we suffer, the more self-aware we become.

If so, humans being (most) self-aware, are suffering (the most).

Draw your own conclusions...

:chin:

I don't think this is a necessary response. In suffering I often feel most connected to others and reminded of a process that ends in death - a unifying feature all living creatures share. — Tom Storm

Misery loves company - the loneliness of suffering is obvious/evident, oui?

We suffer, therefore I am. — 180 Proof

:fire:


There's a connection between suffering and self-awareness. When suffering we feel most alone and being so isolated, one naturally drifts towards metacognition.

Happiness, on the other hand, tends to be a group affair and one's sense of self is lost in the joyous crowd so to speak.

Our evolutionary history is one consecrated to Algos (the lord of pain) and that explains why we're self-aware, unlike other animals.

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

A bit disappointing that a mystical interpretation of QM is considered woo-woo; just when it was getting interesting.

:ok:

So we might say: Thank god there's so many idiots about — ZzzoneiroCosm

Yeah, in a way, on target! Fun fact: Predators are more intelligent than prey (dolphins, chimps, octopi, dogs, cats (small & big), etc.

@Rocco Rosano

Good post. If there's a message to metaphysics, it's exactly that which you state viz. it's not as simple as one thinks it is or it's more complicated than that.

However, we may be conflating difficulty with complexity here, oui? Our brains are habituated to decomposing stuff into simpler parts - that's how we seem to understand things, much like how children break their toys apart. This simple, even ingenious MO fails big time with metaphysics for the simple reason that we're seeking to delve into the simplest, the most fundamental, aspects of the world, our understanding of it to be precise.

Just curious,

1. How do you connect information to BothAnd?

2. What's the significance of Quantum mysticism in re EnFormaction?

This is exactly the point of my question: if there is no self, who is suffering?
I think that, even about animals, when we think that they suffer, we are assigning to them at least some degree of “self”. — Angelo Cannata

We need to tread carefully....these are treacherous waters.

You might want to take a closer look at what we mean by self.

Confiteur I don't know how to extricate myself from the loop formed by definition & question in re questions.

What is a question? is an impossible question - to ask it, one must know what a question is but it also indicates the questioner doesn't know what a question is. This is the paradox.

My proposal isn't just "neti neti" ... Take the red pill, mi amigo, and see how deep the rabbit holes – my links – go. :cool: — 180 Proof

Capital! Some time or the other we have to face the truth, si señor?

I had similar thoughts - there doesn't seem to be an I unique to an individual i.e. if someone else were in my shoes, they'd think/speak/act in exactly the same way as I think/speak/act. Put in a different way, the brain is a generic device and depending on the complex interaction of memes it has installed and the experiences it undergoes, it will behave in a way that, to the unaware, could be taken as identifying a unique individual; nonetheless, as outlined above, this is an illusion.

However, this realization, speaking only for myself, doesn't diminish the suffering I have to bear. I don't feel better about someone belittling me in public just because I happen to know that I am in illusion, an accident of circumstances, having no real essence and so on. In short, there is no self, doesn't necessarily imply there is no suffering.

Did I miss the point of the OP? :chin:

growth — M777

:snicker:

I've tried to – I think we must – with this approach (last paragraph) :point: ↪180 Proof. — 180 Proof

So, you recommend an apophatic approach. That feels right; after all we're dealing with intuition and that, I suspect, usually means knowing what something, here metaphysics, is not rather than knowing what that something is. I suppose it's a bit like having forgotten something; you look around, "is it this?", no!, "is it this then?" no, not that too! You know what I mean, oui monsieur?

:fire:

That's epistemology and logic to me. IME, Smith, 'knowledge-ignorance' occurs before 'reflections on knowledge-ignorance' (i.e. the latter only clarifies the former à la Witty) :point: — 180 Proof

Aye! Is there an alternative? Can we take the imperfectly-formed ideas of metaphysics and refine them for philosophical purposes?

We were thinking long before we were thinking properly. This gap period between thinking and thinking properly I call the prephilosophical period - it was characterized by intuitions, instincts, gut feelings, and loose language.

Many of the concepts metaphysics studies come from this prephilosophical period and hence I suspect the difficulty in doing metaphysics. :chin:

"Philosophy — metaphysics =" sophistry. — 180 Proof

:fire: We've built a system of knowledge by first constructing a sacffolding of ideas; metaphysics is a call to examine this scaffolding with the objective of understanding, improving, detecting & correcting structural flaws in, them. Am I right/wrong?

Everyone's playing Devil's advocate! :snicker:

$Philosophy - Metaphysics = Science$

:snicker:

Animal aggression: An offering to Thanatos (execution)
Human aggression: An offering to Thanatos (execution) + An offering to Algos (cruelty/torture)

The X factor: Intelligence!

If you can be cruel, necessarily that you've got brains! :chin:

Contrapositively, if you're an idiot, you can't be cruel!

Thus, innocence is associated with naïvety (inexperienced, lacking in worldly knowledge). Hence, God's preference for childlike innocence (re A&E's banishment from paradise).

:grin:

Barnum statements/effect: You're looking to a career in the fortune-telling business? Be vague and you'll be just fine!

Well, if what you say is true then the law of gravitation as discovered and elucidated by Newton should've been associated with alchemy because Newton was quite deeply interested in that subject.

It seems the association between QM and mysticism was merely an accident - QM heavyweights like Heisenberg, etc. were drawn to Hindu mysticism and people jumped to conclusions ( :roll: ). This QM-Mysticism link was reinforced by "coincidental similarities of language rather than genuine connections".

Nevertheless, no smoke without fire...there maybe some connection between the two that begs for greater scrutiny.

Another issue with the OP is that the God of monotheism is not *a* God, one God amongst many. Believing in the Gods, as polytheistic religions do, is quite a different thing to faith in God, at least according to monotheism. They would insist that the Biblical God is not simply an instance of a type.

It should also be mentioned that 'existence' is the wrong word for God. 'What exists', as far as we can know, are phenomena, 'that which appears'. In classical philosophy and theology, the first principle/umoved mover/first cause is not 'something that exists' - to say that 'it exists' is to relegate it to the domain of appearances, a being among other beings or thing among things. That gets into the domain of apophatic theology which is probably too specialised for this forum, but ought to be noted. — Wayfarer

We must....press on! :up:

Miracles, in my humble opinion, are temporally bound i.e. they seem to have a validity date. Man becomes god!

We learn by observing nature. Then we take those observations and extract their essences. — jgill

Like a spider! :chin:

Are the Jesus miracles doable with modern (bio)tech?

For starters...

Healing lepers: Dapsone + Clofazamine + Rifampicin

Curing blindness: LASIK/Cataract surgery/Corneal transplants

:snicker:

Zelensky looks :rage:

Putin looks :worry:

:snicker:

First try to understand what a probability is. — L'éléphant

think the most reasonable percentage is 50% — SpaceDweller

Most interesting! — Ms. Marple

So, out of 100 universes, 50 have a god and 50 don't! In other words, god isn't a necessary being (true for all worlds). Theists should be leaping with joy! :snicker:

Interesting to note that faith is belief decoupled from justification. We must ensure maximum degrees of freedom - no package deals, all items sold separately - for life to just to not die (basic survival, keep breathing only) but it comes at a heavy price, a price (suffering and paradoxically death too) life seems more than willing to pay. Some of us are gonna get mowed down in the crossfire. Anyone retreating from the frontline will be shot on the spot! :snicker:

There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept. — The Architect

“Supernatural” as an empty, useless term. — OP

The Wittgensteinian take on philosophy and language - words are empty, the are missing essences. Sunyata. They're like signs that point to nowhere!

Do you want to discuss the Bible being a Rorschach test or not? — Kevin Tan

I wouldn't know where to start.

The heart ignores flaws (+).

The mind focuses on flaws (-).

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. — Richard Dawkins

@unelightened

That's the standard reply. Not that it doesn't make sense but my concern is this: some species seem to be extremely vulnerable while others seem to be completely invulnerable. Now consider the fact that those species we like are the former (evolutionarily weak) and those we don't like are the latter (evolutionarily strong). Doesn't it feel like the whole thing is rigged (against us)?

Warning: Paranoid delusions of persecution + Conspiracy theory.

It looks like the supernatural refers to a class of things/phenomena that defies natural (read scientific) explanation.

The notion of supernatural is predicated on the completeness of our knowledge bank - we must know all that is natural. In other words, omniscience in re the natural is a sine qua non. If not we wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the supernatural and the natural we're ignorant of.

Since we're, to my reckoning, not omniscient, it would be gross error to label things/phenomena supernatural.; it could be that our knowledge of the natural is deficient.

This pattern of thinking squares perfectly with the god of the gaps idea, oui?

Good question!

Man proposes, God disposes?

How would you explain the situation we're in? We want to help x but we can't seem to; we want to harm y and here too we can't seem to. Isn't this a classic case of being royally fucked?

People Are Really Bad At Probability :
https://www.fastcompany.com/3061263/people-are-really-bad-at-probability-and-this-study-shows-how-easy-it-is-to-trick-us — Gnomon

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

That explains the mess we're in (global warming, pandemics, wars, threat of nuclear armageddon, so and so forth)!

I was led to believe that kings/emperorors/shahs/khans/pharoahs/sultans based their campaigns on auguries carried out by priests, hoping for good/bad omens to give them some idea on the probability of success in their ventures. What was the success rate of such ventures?

My heart tells me God exists, P(G) = 100%

My mind tells me God doesn't exist P(G) = 0%

P(G) = The probability that God exists.

In the Buddhist context, ignorance refers specifically to the ignorance of the Four Noble Truths.
— baker

I would beg to differ; why would you think the Buddha or his disciples after him were/are so narrow minded!
— Agent Smith

It has nothing to do with "narrow-mindedness", but with focus.


“Both formerly & now, it is only stress that I describe, and the cessation of stress.”
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN22_86.html — baker

Well, you would (hyper)focus if you were narrow-minded (missing the forest for the trees).

Anyway, I believe Nagarjuna's tetralemma is tailored towards dealing specifically with ignorance - especially since the unknown triggers our imagination which if not restrained can cause havoc and compound the confusion.

"Why not let's stop these people from fantasizing like no one's business!" thought the Buddha. The underlying premise appears to be ignorance is better than false knowledge.

excessive — SatmBopd

That's the key word or concept! Ne quid nimis. Easy to say, hard to do!

@Alkis Piskas

Come to think of it, nonhuman animal categories are real categories e.g. poison arrow frogs are near-identical in appearance (brightly colored - aposematism) i.e. if you've seen one, you've seen 'em all (a sample size of one poison arrow frog is sufficient to generalize over all poison arrow frogs).

Contrast that to human categories - Brits, Nigerians, Chinese, Malay, Indians, etc. - which, it seems, are artifical, which means any generalization from handful of samples will be a huge mistake.