We are always hoping.. Everything on the horizon seems good- we swing from hope to hope, thinking that after this or that endeavor or long-term project, this will bring some salvation or answer. — schopenhauer1

'There is no joy in the tavern as on the road thereto' says a character in one of Cormac's novels. To truly feel on the way (the pleasure of anticipation) does seem like a genuine temporary salvation. That's another shade of meaning of instrumentalism. We are future-oriented problem solvers. Our hands and words serve as instruments (forceps) that give birth to a desired future. It's a platitude that we are often less satisfied than we expected. What comes to mind is a person who loves to be in love more than they love the individual object of love.

Granted they are quibbles, but I think everything is really categorized in these ways very broadly. Survival-through-cultural-means, maintenance-through-cultural-means, fleeing-boredom-through-cultural means is really useful in understanding where we are coming from. — schopenhauer1

Don't get me wrong. It's a strong categorization. But here's an example of an objection. Boredom is not-being-in-love or being trapped in un-stimulating circumstances. It gives rise to a consciousness of futility. The feeling tone helps open up a thinking that justifies death. A person who's always 'in love' can't take nihilism/pessimism seriously. They can cognize the abstractions, but it's natural for them to advise the ultimately emotional retort: be fascinated as I am in a project and that futility vanishes. Of course we can't will ourselves into fascination, even if we can seek out the conditions for its possibility. In short, I associate boredom with frustration and frustration with a desire to die. That desire to die looks for reasons/justifications/methods like any other desire. Even if nihilism/pessimism is true in some sense, it also seems like the rationalization of a mood.

I forgot about keyboards. In my little scene that was an underplayed instrument. I was the vocalist and managed to steer the concept via the lyrics (and by doing the recording and artwork.) I always wanted to play the keys or the piano. Great instrument. I love McCoy Tyner. Also always wanted to play Satie's pieces. In another life perhaps.

Frankly, hearing people say that theism/religion is a mental illness reminds me of cultural conservatives saying that homosexuality is a mental illness. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Indeed, calling thought or behavior we don't like 'mental illness' at least can be bogus, especially if there's no physical variation in the tissue. 'All the parts are normal, but we don't like what they're doing in unison. Hmmm. Let's have someone in a lab coat call it a disease. People'll eat that up. And let's come up with a detailed classification system. People love labels for themselves and others.'

This isn't to say that it's all bunk. But it seems clear to me (as your example of homosexuality demonstrates) that non-scientific factors play a strong role in what gets call a 'mental disease.' Or are we too believe that it was a scientific breakthrough and not just a change in mores that got homosexuality reclassified?

*There's a passage in one of Freud's books that indicates Freud being utterly grossed out by oral sex. If memory serves, he was dominated by the assumption that sex was for procreation alone (biologically not religiously speaking.) It seems more likely to me that the size of the human genitals has an evolutionary relationship with the size of the hands and mouth. A more knowledgable person might be able to confirm that masturbation and oral sex are ancient and present in our genetic relatives.

This is the part I like the best:

The classical retort is to minimize one's purview such that you get "caught up" in something. Thus the bigger picture of existential issues will be ignored/suppressed. Thus, analyzing a spreadsheet for 8 hours, or figuring out an engineering differential equation, or writing a paper on the philosophy of biology, will keep one's mind on intra-worldly affairs and not on the global situation of our existential place. Thus, just go play a video game, just go read that book on evolution, networks, form and function, language, and logic, write that paper on biophysics, or just go knit a pair of socks. — schopenhauer1

What you call the classical retort is successful as far as it goes. While we're engrossed, we forget our absurdity.

Here's something I've been thinking about. In general being future oriented is associated with virtue. Work hard now for greater reward later. Work out and have a great body for the beach. Study hard and end up with a creative and/or high paying career. Save money and don't throw money away on interest by going into debt. There's also research and development. Arguably our foresight is our greatest gift.

But projecting too far into the future reveals decay and death. We generally like to accumulate value, build castles, empires, legacies. There are comforts for personal mortality that depend on the survival of a community. Yet projecting far enough ahead removes even this comfort. A critic could retort that each moment is real and has its own fragile value even as it passes. They aren't wrong. But I think there's an instinct (or something like that) which demands permanence. In my opinion, the easily mockable 'nihilistic' crisis is an often inarticulate frustration with the theoretically perceived impossibility of leaving a deathless mark.

I don't think this decides the value of life either way, but it does open a source of suffering. On the other hand, I think there's a part of us that wants everything erased. We also dream of starting from zero, of being reborn. So we laugh at dark comedy. We laugh at the part of us that dreams of substantiality.

I liked the rest of your post too. I do think the breakdown or classification is a little arbitrary. Not bad, just arbitrary. I suppose I see more of a chaos of particular needs/desires. True, some are especially linked to survival. But I don't see how to cleanly separate morale from survival. Boredom arguably kills indirectly in the sense that stimulation is a sort of need. But these are quibbles.

I call this the self-referential problem. There's something wrong with it but I can't seem to pin it down. A lot of "useful" knowledge is abandoned on account of this. Take statements like "everything is relative" or "all Cretans are liars". These are all actually useful observations but are attacked on the point that they're self-contradictory. — TheMadFool

I've thought about this too. In my opinion, the statements are just taken too literally. If someone says 'everything is relative,' they are sharing an attitude. There's the classic philosophical vice of assuming that everyone is playing the philosophical game. I'd call it a lack of social-emotional intelligence. Of course sometimes those who assert 'all is relative' really are playing the philosophical game, and then the usual objections are valid.

Perhaps the fog is the truth and there isn't any further clarity to be had. — TheMadFool

I can relate to that. We use or live in the fog for the most part. Here and there we get more clarity. With science we get something like falsifiable statements, at least ideally. That still depends on non-controversial inexplicit know-how (the common sense metalanguage in which uncertain statements have meaning enough to be falsified), but it clearly works. The technology gives us what we want. With poetry and philosophy, there's a limit to explaining why something is good. Or rather we can keep coming up with reasons for a basic positive feeling or action-generating trust. Of course this is just my perspective, as I've dug it up on the fly.

The self that gives reasons does seem like a rider on a horse with a mind of its own. If we find ourselves in a reflective mode, we can reach into the fog of our minds for words. 'I like this. I like that. Here's a short term project. Here's a long term project.'

When immersed in a project, we don't see it from the outside as a project. Such is my view. But philosophy or what-you-may-call-it is the project of (among other things) making life's projects explicit as projects. I'm tempted to argue for a 'nihilistic'/negative 'violence' at the heart of critical thinking.

It's from the zoomed-out perspective that the long-range emptiness of all projects appears. We look like clever animals who woke up to our eerie situation. Is life good or bad? Every mood has its own philosophy. In good moods the awake-to-nullity thinking type can speak of the fascinating show of its mysterious origin. In bad moods, he speaks of the nightmare from nowhere that at least will subside into the blackness from which it came.

That link didn't work for me, but it was a profile image for a site connected to the links you provided. It was a light brown color.

You're right. Ouroboros. Do you see a way out of the vicious cycle? — TheMadFool

No. We can't get behind our getting behind, as far as I can see. Someone might say something revolutionary and clever and change my mind, I guess. But it's not something I'd expect, and it couldn't be the same old dictionary math.

You're right but don't you think, even in the fog, that we may be able to discern a form and make sense of the matter? — TheMadFool

I think we can focus here and there and see this or that more clearly/effectively. Indeed, I think we do it all the time. And I'm arguably trying to do the same thing with the points I offered. I'm trying to economize my effort, pick my battles, get behind my getting behind as much as possible. But I still hold that we don't question the questioning as we question. A moment afterward it becomes material for further reflection, but there seems to be a cutting edge of faithful creative know-how. (For instance, I didn't know how I would finish that sentence. I just had a vague intention. The fog condensed. Then it occurred to me to use it as an example.)

Awesome. What did you do in the band? Since you're a thinker, I'd guess vocals. I've done some music myself, but unfortunately have no comparable anecdotes.

Whatever defense we offer for our drab wretched lives is invariably total bullshit, but the cover story is important. It is better if it sounds good. "I live to bring beauty and joy into the lives of others" is nauseating, but it sounds better than "If you can't take a big healthy crap every morning, you might as well be dead."

Or... maybe not. — Bitter Crank

Is it always total bullshit? What about defenses like sunk cost, concern for how a few particular human beings will fare without one, the hope that one has not yet peaked yet, one's 'programing', etc. What comes to my mind is a spectrum. We have dark comedians on one end and politicians on the other. Have you watched Another Period? That show is savage and as funny as Arrested Development. What does our enjoyment of such shows indicate? It seems at least part of us knows that we are full of shit, and comedy is enjoyable as us being less full of shit by temporarily admitting how full of shit we are. (I wonder if 'full of shit' has the same resonance outside the states.)

What I take to be your self-portrait is my favorite. Good stuff. Thanks for sharing.

On the other hand, nihilism seems to have gotten an early start in Russia which in the 19th century was not on the cutting edge of progress. — Bitter Crank

If memory serves, those guys were politically religious. As I understand it, there was basically a secularization of Christianity. Heaven would be built here down here. The poet Shelley got in trouble as a wee lad by spreading atheism via hot air balloons. If everyone could just get rid of God, we'd have utopia. In short, it was just a revolution within religion, not the death of a sense of mission.

Much of modern philosophy is a grand evasion of the abyssal horror of a godless, mechanistic universe. For ordinary people, the business of everyday living and the juicy qualities of interpersonal relationships (family, friends, work) prevent them from thinking these things through, of course; but intellectuals tend to turn to shiny toys like idealism, relativism, social justice, social constructionism, analytic philosophy, postmodernism, etc., etc. - little fantasy worlds that have the dual purpose of distracting them from nihilism and serving as affordances for purity spiraling in social-status-seeking games. — gurugeorge

Dark, man. I like it. I think that way too. There's a dark ecstasy in it, but it's a rough ride at times. The spiritual dream comes in at least 50 flavors, some of them more academic than others. This or that finally gives the world substance and the individual a purpose beyond hunger, lust, and status-seeking. Call this dog a cynic, but I see status-seeking blended in with these grand evasions. On the other hand, even the metaphor 'evasion' is plugged in (arguably) to the nuclear option of the status seeking olympics. A grim version of the real is still being offered. I 'believe' in the abyss, but I suspect that I am only capable of doing so because even here the game functions at a self-questioning or self-recognizing extreme.

If I say that we are all sinners and fools in some sense (dogs on the prowl), then I am arrogant and humble in the same breath. This dark view reminds me of the ace of spades. Our romantic hero faces the void.

https://youtu.be/1iwC2QljLn4

I watched, pretty disturbing. — praxis

Remember the first episode of season 2? The woman who is devoured by social media ratings systems? That episode nailed something true and terrible. I suppose we were always products in capitalism on some level, but the electronic village quantifying popularity like that takes it all to hellish extremes. It forecasts a possible perfection and omnipresence of They, the death of privacy, of complex thought that doesn't fit into neat little ideological fashions.

This suggests that the concept of self/ego/I is just a convenience of language. It makes for easier discourse rather than there being meat in it. — TheMadFool

Interesting point. But what occurs to me is that substantive/non-substantive is the same kind of convenience of language.

What do we mean when we say there is really or not really a self? As we move away from the objects and actions of non-theoretical life, it appears that we converse in a kind of endless fog. I know what it means for it to be 15 degree outside. But do I know what it is to know? I reach for a certain coat in the closet when it's time to walk the dog. In my view, the philosophers have fussed over this stuff for centuries and made very little progress. The ones that have impressed me have tended to dispel the fog in one sense by acknowledging it in another. We cut the knot rather than untangle it every time we go out in the world and use words like 'self' and 'truth' and 'certain' without anxiety --and successfully.

I'm not saying 'don't think.' But I am saying that the problem is artificial and part-time in an important sense. Whatever the self is (if anything or if the issue is confused or undecidable), the abstract issue seems to have little bearing on how 'it' functions and is experienced.

But I feel kind of bad for writing this. I feel like a party pooper. The sense of doing armchair science is enjoyable. I sometimes miss it. But I also miss the sense of this kind of negative critique being itself a kind of important armchair science. 'If only philosophers would be worldly, etc.' Nah. If it's a vice, it's a fairly innocent vice that keeps the brain lit up.

14 pages of discussion and no one has defined belief or knowledge. How can anyone even continue this discussion in any meaningful way when neither has been clearly defined? The reason why it has continued without any clear argument being made is because neither term has been clearly defined. As usual, philosophical discussions fail to get at anything useful because the terms haven't been defined in any useful way. — Harry Hindu

Is that really the problem here? I think all kinds of conversations are productive without terms being defined. In my view it's the social dynamic that's fouled up here. PGJ is being silly.

Defining terms has its limits too, does it not? Because we define terms with still other terms and so on and so on. On some level people just have to (1) speak the same language and (2) actually like or respect one another enough to work through ambiguity.

Or so I see it.

Mick Jagger lives a noble life? — Bitter Crank

'Heroic' might be a better word. I think he was (at his peak) one of the great artists in one of the greatest art forms. He also brought a feminine energy into the mainstream image of masculine cool. He was surely part of the sexual revolution. I'm sure there have been plenty of homophobes out there who managed somehow to ignore the pansexual charge of Mick's persona. (Pansexual is just a more likable word than bisexual. All these categories/boxes are little lame, but I guess they get the job done.)

The Eternal life of the Dog with his Bitch? — Janus

Indeed. And there's also the way of a man with a maid. The good stuff is the same old stuff. In my experience, the high feelings come with a sense of being universal or ancient.

I wonder what it is, within us, that gives rise to concepts like soul, heaven, hell? Do you see any evidence for them or are they the result of a mash-up of fear, hope and immature thinking? — TheMadFool

Dreams have got to figure in, I think. We can see dead people in our dreams. We can even have illuminating conversations with them. Then we might dream of Heaven for ourselves and Hell for others in a fit of rage. Have you seen the new season of Black Mirror? It's interesting to see technological versions of Heaven and Hell. They aren't called that in the show, but it's the same idea.

For what it's worth, I would indeed look to hope and fear --and also to love and hate. For the most part it hurts to be critically minded all the time. It's hard work. The natural tendency is to daydream. About half way through the day I like to just lay down and let my mind drift. I call it 'alpha wave time,' though I don't know if alpha is the right wave. It's a break from directed realistic-critical thinking (which is mature thinking, I suppose.) What fascinates me is that mature thinking helps us survive, but immature thinking involves the kind of stuff that makes it fun to survive. At the moment, the tension between these kinds of thinking seems central to philosophy to me.

Coming to acceptable terms with one's own experience? — creativesoul

Right. We can think of a reactive folk-philosophy mode for coming to acceptable terms. Then there's also the active or inspired mode. For instance, I think religion is spontaneously generated by human beings. Lots of this is joyful, and it comes with the urge to share it.

I want to note here that by "fact" I mean events, happenings, the case at hand, the way things are and/or were, states of affairs... — creativesoul

Right. I understood that. But is the absence of an afterlife a case at hand? How does one interpret seeing someone buried or an urn of their ashes? Is there such a thing as theory independent observation? And then there's also the way language functions. People use 'fact' in lots of ways. I respect your definition, but I do think there's a limit to trapping the meaning of particular words. I personally try to get across a cloud of meaning that is independent from the individual words. For me everything is pretty smoky. We somehow muddle through, without ever perhaps being able to make what and how we do explicit to ourselves.

Why not? — TheMadFool

I don't have the sense of a break between my mind and my body. It's more like a spectrum. What I might call my soul is the 'higher' end of a simultaneously social and bodily self. I can't make sense of it coming loose and functioning independently. Also I see with these eyes, work with these fingers. What I love most about this world is certain other people. I love them too as social-bodily complexes. The 'I' that I know is a visceral creature with an intellectual aspect.

I do know what it's like to live ecstatically in the mind for stretches at a time (to not care about food and only want the inspired thinking to continue uninterrupted.) I associate that with the idea of Heaven. Everyone is playing harps on clouds. It would be nice if that kind of high could be maintained indefinitely. We could be locked into a feeling of love, and it would be our endless pleasure to praise reality with music. Our nature would have to change. There'd be no marriage in Heaven. No life cycle. We'd have an endless sublimated musical orgasm on fluffy clouds that would never give our soulskin bedsores.

I'm curious about how participants here factor a starting point into their own philosophical position(s).

For me, when I took up philosophy, I figured that one's position ought at least be agreeable to known facts. Thus, in short I basically attempted to set out all the things that are known and looked for a means to tie them all together, so to speak...

And you? — creativesoul

If I go way back to when I started doing philosophy without calling it that, I'd say it was a response to the trauma of growing up. A cynical person might call it rationalization. How can a painful or confusing situation be made less painful and confusing? I think of a mind exploring perspectives on a situation. It can't outright deny all of the unpleasant facts, but it can connect failings to virtues and disasters to opportunities. What I have in mind might be call folk philosophy. A person thinks about what he can and should know and do before he's heard the name Plato in many if not most cases.

Within our folk philosophy operating system we can decide the philosophy proper is a virtuous pursuit (or just find it interesting).

All of that said, I really like your description of tying known facts together. I'd only add that there's the individual's known facts. I can't believe in afterlife or God. Others can and do. So my known facts (strong beliefs that function as facts in this regard) lead to a different sense of the whole than theirs do, it seems.

The truth is I'm struggling with the notion of a soul, specifically its survival of death. As with a car, as opposed to Buddhist not-self, I'm of the opinion that a soul is like a car, its components necessary, but it's more than just a physical sum of its parts. A soul is a different level of existence.

As you may notice, I still can't show you why a soul should escape death. — TheMadFool

I suppose I think of people as wholes greater than the sum of their parts. I'd like to believe in a good afterlife, but I just can't. I can make peace with this to some degree by reflecting that the young replace the old. They have similar passions, similar ideas. We pass on our discoveries through various media. I can blast guitar solos from the 60s and feel as if they came from my own soul, as if the musician tapped in to something that doesn't die with the individual.

I've also been writing about my youth lately. I don't think the incidents themselves are important. My hope is that my reader will be reminded of similar incidents in their own youth --or really of the feelings involved in those incidents. Spiderwebs in nature come to mind. They are always a bit irregular, but a kind of perfect or ideal spiderweb is implied. That ideal spiderweb is what I can imagine in terms of escaping death and having an immortal soul. If humans become extinct, this web goes too. Because this is far enough in the future, it 'irrationally' doesn't bother me much. I suppose plugging into the ideal spider web or guitar solo and so on offers a pleasure that makes us forget death and the futility it threatens. I also just a got a cute dog, and petting that little bitch is a delight. It plugs me in to some ancient and individual-trascending mammalian nurturing energy.

What do you exactly mean by saying: "They wanted to ennoble their own lives without escapism."? — Πετροκότσυφας

They didn't have to be Batman or Mick Jagger to live noble lives. They could do ordinary things with style and awareness. Bukowski wrote somewhere that bars were ruined by TVs. The people at the bar used to entertain one another. Kerouac often describes hanging out with a group of interesting friends. They'd get high or go listen to jazz or go out the woods or drive across the country. It didn't cost a million dollars or involve shooting a machine gun at cardboard villains (the bad guys in Death Wish).
This is the escapism: sensational plots. Heroes have super powers or great wealth or fame.

Whereas the writing I'm praising was about awareness, being turned on, being courageous enough to live differently --mostly within the laws we all assent to. Any of these ideals can and have been parodied. Grunge can become a $200 sweater for rich kids, etc. Things tend to become commodified. And I never liked the Buddhism of the Beats. But including it was realistic. Young people eat that kind of thing up. That's probably why Bukowski has aged so well for me. No additives. Just sex-love, death-aging, and art/style. Or rather that kind of primary coloration of themes. The stuff that doesn't stop mattering.

Shouldn't, for example, their writing make you realise things about your life (i.e. about yourself), that you hadn't realise before? — Πετροκότσυφας

Most certainly. When I read Ham On Rye, it reminded me of my school days in a small town. His school was different. His difficult father was difficult in a different way. But he brought my kind of experience into the written medium skillfully. Mumblecore is something like the film version of this. The feel and acting is naturalistic. The plots involve love affairs, jobs, the pain and glory of just living modern life. No billionaires with high-tech gadgets wage midnight wars on the mob.

This is by no means the only kind of writing worth reading. But as I young man I wanted to be a writer and a truth teller. These autobiographical writers seemed to have the same goal. They wanted to ennoble their own lives without escapism. Punk rock comes to mind. They and their friends were the stars. They wanted to live and do rocknroll, not just be passive consumers of fame's mystique. But, again, this is just one approach. I will admit that I no longer have the patience to bother with Finnegans Wake. (Ulysses is great. )

Non-beliefism underlines, that "one may rank his/her presentations as incomplete expressions (susceptible to future analysis/correction), where one shall aim to hold those expressions to be likely true, especially given evidence, rather than believe, i.e. typically accept them as merely true especially absent evidence".
In this way, in discussion and learning, instead of constantly arguing on pre-conceived notions despite evidence, one may discover it easier to admit oneself as wrong, (for example on public discussion boards, parliament, etc) especially when new evidence arises.
In simpler words, non-beliefism better prepares/equips a mind to update prior expressions, in light of new evidence/continued evidence analysis. — ProgrammingGodJordan

Fallibilism is the epistemological thesis that no belief (theory, view, thesis, and so on) can ever be rationally supported or justified in a conclusive way. Always, there remains a possible doubt as to the truth of the belief. Fallibilism applies that assessment even to science’s best-entrenched claims and to people’s best-loved commonsense views. — link

http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallibil/

Also Popper said something about letting our theories do our dying for us.

In short, unbeliefism seems like old news. As I understand it, it has its charms. But what's offensive is the lack of awareness of its lack of novelty. I feel like I'm being told the sky is blue. It is more or less the common sense of secular/negative philosophers, which is why they tear one another's fancy theories to shreds. They self-consciously subject their beliefs to more criticism than non-philosophers. Their criticism-enduring views are more reliable, more trustworthy, weightier. That's their ideal virtue. They are less full of shit than the average bear. Or that's at least one guiding ideal as I understand it. But there is also the Dr. Pangloss archetype. I suppose actual philosophers tend to be both negative and system-building. They slash and burn to clear space for the system that finally gets it right and conquers time and chance.

That's not to say selling the book is his soul intention, but you have to wonder why else he would have joined this site just to post this discussion when he clearly has no desire to actually learn, he simply wants to spread his "wisdom" — JustSomeGuy

In my opinion, it's about sharing the glory of one's genius in these cases. If this was about money, he'd be charming us. I actually think PGJ is a smart guy. He's probably a good programmer.

A few pages back there was another poster (who got no replies) who laid out a 6 page mystical/rational system that could save us all. It reminds me of Jung. Religion is a spontaneous generation of us humans. Ideas hit us with a kind of magic force. One has the secret that can make everyone happy and free, because one is oneself happy and free while this 'magic' force lasts.

It is not uncommon for folk doing an undergrad philosophy dissertation to think that they have actually discovered something. Realising that they haven't can be quite painful. — Banno

Yes, indeed. And it's a nice high. It's like the foolishness of young love. 'Holy cow, mom, turns out I'm a genius.' The comedown is rough. The fog of sexy words finally condenses to a platitude or an absurdity that no one would ever act on (take seriously).

Wow, great quotes. I've read lots of Buk, but neither of those. He was prolific. Ginsberg has powerful moments and is a fascinating character. Kerouac is great at times. It's been awhile, but I remember Desolation Angels being especially good, maybe because it's so dark and angsty. For me Henry Miller is great at times. Tropic of Cancer is uneven but hilarious and liberating. The later stuff is a bit complacement and longwinded. I gave away The Rosy Crucifixion. It has its moments, but it didn't have the inspired feel of Cancer or Black Spring. Burroughs was a great brutally simple stylist. I think mostly of Junkie and Naked Lunch. But I loved all these guys for getting away from 'literature.' Theirs was the stuff of life as I lived it myself, or close enough.

A reviewer said, "Bukowski is a disgraceful role model for any aspiring writer but he writes with extraordinary candor and conviction." Maybe not all that disgraceful, but he'd be a difficult act to top. — Bitter Crank

It's easy to imagine drunks with typewriters who think they're the next Bukowski. I imagine them missing the style and focusing instead on bad boy persona. He found the right place in the music of his time. What an aspiring writer might do is to try to be to Bukowski what Bukowski was to Fante. Their styles are more or less the same, but the first person narrator changes in his character from Fante to Bukowski (an update or variation of the writerly masculinity, which is to say the hero.)

He believes that even if something happens literally over and over again, every day, it's not "more probable" that this thing will happen again tomorrow. My mind is absolutely and utterly blown. I can't comprehend it. It completely goes against everything I know and always took pride in. — Shane

If memory serves, Hume couldn't think of an argument and didn't expect anyone else to either. The temptation is to say that the future will resemble the past because it always has (which is of course circular). This is not to deny that we do think probabilistically or inductively, but only that such thinking is a kind of primitive without deductive foundation. This damages the position of the rationalist-type of philosopher who takes mathematics as a model. Induction is absolutely essential to us. If it is 'outside' of deduction, then deduction can only be or tell part of the story.

I see. I suppose I draw the distinction elsewhere. There are people who think in terms of materialism and idealism (who take grand abstractions and words for existence especially seriously) and those who experience all those abstractions lumped together as the same kind of thing. I find myself to have moved from the first to the second position. There are 'isms' I could paste to this move, but that pasting would muddy my point.

Damn. I was on those subways once (visited NYC last summer). I was lucky. I mostly remember heartrendingly beautiful NYC girls. I should say women. But 20-somethings look like girls to an old dog.

What's interesting is that it allows us inferior believing types (superior more sophisticatedly arrogant types who like online friendliness) to get to know one another. It's like strangers on a sidewalk witnessing some social irregularity and looking around to see if others are also surprised, amused, etc. Of course my interest is largely the social dynamic itself (the way we project ourselves publicly), so this is like research. And I can push 'buttons' with words and see what happens. Do (folk-) science, I guess, on scientism nonbeliefism.

one may come to trivially observe that belief is a concept that contrasts science. — ProgrammingGodJordan

Right. Trivially. As I believe I said earlier, I find it hard to distinguish your opening post from the demand that we think critically, non-dogmatically, etc. But this is an old goal in philosophy. Doubting everything is also a well explored idea. I also mentioned an exposure on my part to 'isms' along the lines of nonbeliefism as I understand it, including to post-Christian philosophers who extended their critique of belief to secular replacements of Christianity (humanism, for instance). I consider myself to have walked this road to the end --in a theoretical sense. But the gap between theory and lifestyle is often what our theoretical moods ignore. We forget ordinary language, ordinary thinking, and so on. We get caught up in seductive generalities that are miles from the way we live. Doubt in theory, belief in practice. Finally, the 'dictionary math' misses what is actually being said. This conversation isn't really a math proof, even if you want to treat it like one. (As I see it.)

I think you underestimate the people you're talking with. This isn't our first rodeo.

Ah, we poor inferiors accustomed to belief. But that's the point, right? You rule. We drool. Yet we aren't believers enough to fall for this approach. I've seen this kind of thing on other forums. It's often someone who just knows that he is somehow a prophet on another level. His arrogance is so staggering that others can't help but be sucked in by the thread. It's like bad reality TV. You just can't change the channel.

The condescension and self-assurance is such an outlier, such a relative novelty, that it's stimulating in some perverse way. Is this dude for real? This dude is for real. I know that some part of me is like that too. Which is scary. But such is life.

I have been struggling with this problem for a while. It is difficult for me to even explain it to you. Lets assume that universe has a beginning. There is however no before before beginning which means we cannot possibly define any reference point to measure the beginning from. This means that the age of universe can be anything which is paradoxical. — bahman

Good issue. I tend to read this situation in terms of the limitations of human thinking. Maybe our minds just weren't evolved for this kind of thing. Maybe these metaphysical classics are examples of the human mind discovering its own quirks. Hume's problem of induction is another one.

Aside from the time issue, there is the space version, too. A boundless space cannot be clearly imagined (I can't anyway) and yet bounded space is even more impossible. In the first case, it's just too big (though 'big' is maybe the wrong word, since size is made absurd). In the second case, we automatically imagine space beyond the boundary.

I feel you. And my comment was just a throwaway meant to keep the prose style conversation going. I liked its concreteness.

Check your old 'mentions' in the New Years Resolutions thread. You were playing with prose style and I chimed in.

Actually I'm familiar with variants or rather precursors of non-beliefism. I do understand the emotional charge or allure of presuppositionless thought, etc. But I think it's an impossible dream. It reminds me of the smoke that haunts the demolition of one's childhood notion of God. Instead of the deity, there's a nice system of words, some final ism, that gets everything right and ends the need to improvise in angst.

Of course living in angst is a silly goal. The angst will find us. We don't need to hunt for it. In my view we get in certain 'evangelical' or hyper-confident moods where we have the missing piece of the puzzle. I call it 'word drunk.' I've been there. It's not a matter of wrong or right but (in my view) of seeing the social situation in one way or another. Actual science is great because it transcends mood. My cell phone works independently of my fluctuating sense of being awesome or mediocre. But singing the praises of science on a philosophy forum is not science. This isn't a medium for science. It is, however, a great place to assert and defend and criticism fundamental (quasi-religious) worldviews.

Thanks. (And I was just joking with you about those commas, btw.)