If I’m acting on the assumption that there is no God’s-eye-view of things, no Objective perspective which we can touch or be influenced by then I am left with my view and you with yours. I don’t have to claim that the no-Objective-View belief is the absolute truth, I can just ask those who contend otherwise – that there is an Objectively correct view - why they believe it and examine it. So assuming no way in which things are which acts as the final arbiter for whose right, we are left with the best understanding that we make, alone and together. And when we find there are conflicts in our views we can agree to disagree, compromise, discuss it, or fight.
So why do I like the no-Objective-View view? Because I wanted to use reason rigorously and find the right view, but found that the arguments against that being possible were powerful. Rorty, Derrida, Wittgenstein, Buddhism and others all agreed that that kind of certainty couldn’t be found using reason. Yet my psyche still contained the desire to find it: the great quest for Truth. I could continue the quest, perhaps trying to find some experiential certainty through spiritual practices or try to alter the desire and treat it as misguided. But what are the psychological reasons for adopting this relativistic view. I said earlier that people choose their beliefs for psychological reasons, yet here I explain why I chose an important belief by saying that reason led me to it. To be consistent I should explain why that no-Objective-View view is attractive to me. A psychological account of why I attach to this view is needed to be consistent with my argument that we fundamentally believe for personal psychological reasons
6 comments:
You seem more focused and sincere here. Yes, be less wordy. Don't ramble tangentially. Try interacting instead of (monologic) acting.
I give a short account of the origin of some of my beliefs in my article entitled "Arguments Beyond Reason". You can google it.
Sorry to be such a rigid prig, but I don't like to deal with people narcissistically depositing their logorhea on me unless I'm getting paid to listen or if I have to be polite in a social situation.
My prediction is that any response I give will trigger a rambling monologue. Please disappoint me.
In debate, the question of who's right, when two disagree, matters to me, and it is a guiding interest of most intellectual debate.
It can be thought important in two ways: discerning the truth - if we assume there is one truth, and if we are to carry out a project and have to decide how to proceed.
Certainly people debate for other reasons, but I'm not focusing on those debates.
I think I mention in the piece that I'm not referring to all the debates in which people are using the debate for other motives: gain power, etc.
But you're right what I'm writing about isn't practical.
Jeff
Yes, that Reality or the Absolute is ineffable is a common view.
Another view is that language allows us humans to have a meaningful, humanly conscious world, that other animals appear to lack. That language can be seen, not as an obstacle to viewing, but as what allows any, distinctively human, viewing at all.
Can you describe your experience of the Absolute. (I know that's contradictory - describing the ineffable - but maybe the circumstances. People do use words for It, like Oneness, bliss, all is love, no me anymore, etc.)
That's quite an experience. Did it permanently alter your way of experiencing everyday life?
It's very Eastern in the experience of past and future lives.
Regarding all of us being connected at the deepest level, do you connect that to the origin of everything in the big bang at all. I guess we were all physically connected at that time.
Oh, I didn't know you'd refer to it as a "near death experience", I thought it was a spiritual experience (not involving any nearness to death). No, I've never had one. I have had profound spiritual experiences on long meditation retreats, but nothing that qualifies as some touching of the Ultimate.
The Jungian stuff is good. There's a lot to discover using the idea of the shadow.
As far I know, NDEs' aren't mystical experiences, but they can trigger a new spirituality. Some hard-nosed atheists hostile to religion and spirituality have been converted to religion (or some type of belief in God) after a personal NDE:
http://www.near-death.com/storm.html
Carl Jung had a NDE too:
http://www.near-death.com/jung.html
Other atheists haven't change their view about God after a NDE, but most of them have been more prone to spiritual knowledge.
I don't discard that NDE be a special type of spiritual experience, only a more extreme one.
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