Tom Caylor wrote:
> On Feb 6, 11:20 pm, "Tom Caylor" <Daddycay....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>> On Feb 6, 10:25 pm, Brent Meeker <meeke....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>>
>>> Tom Caylor wrote:
>>>> I'm saying that there is no meaning at all if there is no ultimate
>>>> meaning.
>>> So you say. I see no reason to believe it.
>>>> Again, I haven't just pulled this out of thin air. If you
>>>> really read the modern thinkers and writers, that is what they were
>>>> saying. Hegel, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, Russell, Camus, Sartre,
>>>> Dostoyevsky, Orwell, Godel, Monod, Lewis, Schaeffer...
>>> I don't think you've read these writers. Russell, Camus, and Sartre were definitely advocates of each person providing their own purpose. Incidentally they hardly qualify as "modern" anymore.
>> They each came to the edge of the cliff, but they responded in
>> different ways. Some took the "leap of faith" (!) to say that somehow
>> providing our own purpose is legitimate. Bertrand Russell said this
>> was "incredible", but he believed it anyway. We are in the post-
>> modern age now.
I don't see how anyone can provide you purpose *except* you. If I say you should do thus and so, it's still your decision to do it or not. If an Imam says you should kill infidels for Allah, it's still up to you decide wether he's right or not. If Bruno says the universe is an illusion of arithmetic, you have make up your own mind. To talk of ultimate purpose is just a diversion to avoid you own responsibility for your own life. Even if Yaweh appeared out of a cloud and told you to spread his gospel - you'd still have to decide whether or not to do it (unless of course he coerced you with threats of hellfire).
>>>> I hope that
>>>> people who are trying to be on the cutting edge of "theories of
>>>> everything" will go back and pick up from where these thinkers left
>>>> off. Not just stand on the shoulders of the physics giants, but also
>>>> the philosophy (and spiritual!) giants. I know that the modern
>>>> philosophy road is depressing and unlivable. They bring us to the
>>>> edge of the cliff. It was depressing for people like the young genius
>>>> Nick Drake who was found dead on his bed in his 20's after a drug
>>>> overdose, with Camus' Myth of Sysiphus beside him. But we have to
>>>> face the reality of where the modern age has brought us in order to
>>>> find the answer before we all exterminate ourselves. ...taking the
>>>> "leap of faith" that it is bad to exterminate ourselves.
>>> It's not modern existential angst that threatens our existence. It's the religious zealotry of worshippers of the sky god - in Iran, Pakistan, and the bible belt.
>> Solshenitzyn said that the line between good and evil does not run
>> between cultures, beliefs, etc. but right down the center of every
>> human being. (Don't know if I remembered the quote exactly.)
A good saying.
>>
>>
>>
>>>> In light of
>>>> modern thought, your argument about the sky god society begs the
>>>> question of meaning by assuming that they *shouldn't* "be miserable
>>>> and kill each other". This is not a dilemma to pass over lightly. I
>>>> believe it is at the heart of the matter for where mankind is at
>>>> today, on the brink of something great or terrible. Or is it REALLY
>>>> all just meaningless? (What would "REALLY" mean in that case? ;)
>>> Not to me it isn't. I'm all for not exterminating ourselves and I've got grandchildren to prove it.
>> Congratulations (honestly).
>>
>> However, your having grandchildren shows that you BELIEVE IN not
>> exterminating ourselves, but it doesn't PROVE that we SHOULD NOT
>> exterminate ourselves.
I can live without proof of that. I do in everything else.
>>>> Isn't that what this Everything stuff is (ultimately ;) all about? We
>>>> want to solve the modern schizo dilemma of nature vs. grace and bring
>>>> about wholeness.
>>> Sounds like a problem invented in the Vatican.
>> Modern science has attempted to explain away the reality of what man
>> is, both the good and the bad. However, explaining it away doesn't
>> eliminate it. Thus the dichotomy.
On the contrary science has explicated the evolutionary basis of good and bad. Why we think some things are good and some bad. Why there are societal rules and why not everyone obeys them. Try reading some writers that *are* modern: "The Origins of Virtue" by Matt Ridley, "The Lucifer Principle" by Howard Bloom , "Game Theory Evolving" by Ginitis, "Elbow Room" by Daniel Dennett.
>>
>>>> I'm tired of hearing questions about scientifically
>>>> *proving* which god is the right one, as if the question is supposed
>>>> to show that it isn't worth it to pursue the answers to the *ultimate*
>>>> questions. While we're busy trying to scientifically *prove* which
>>>> way to go, or show that you can't scientifically prove which way to go
>>>> (which has been done already cf above thinkers), we're gonna walk off
>>>> the edge of the cliff. And, pardon my presumptuous risking the danger
>>>> of a false belief, but "that wouldn't be very nice."
>>> Scientists never "prove" anything; they observe, invent theories, collect evidence, test,... Only mathematicians prove things - and then only relative to axioms they assume.
>> I agree.
>>
>>
>>
>>> Brent Meeker
>>> "It does not matter now that in a million years nothing we do now will matter."
>>> --- Thomas Nagel
>> We might like to believe Nagel, but it isn't true.
>>
>> Tom
>
> That is, it isn't true that in a million years nothing we do now will
> matter.
How do you know?
Brent Meeker
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
--- David Hume
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Received on Wed Feb 07 2007 - 01:46:56 PST