Meditations

[Redafro]

I'm still curious about this discussion on nature. It seems there is still a lot to be considered depending on your overarching world view or your commitment to how to live your life. On the level of a kind of emotionally cold commitment to naturalistic science (defining as something like science alone can give us truth and we should ignore all metaphysical [unobservable] considerations) we can simply say that whatever people do is in the end determined (in a strong sense, in a perfectly consistent cause and effect universe with no uncaused events, all things are determined by the starting conditions of the universe and nothing could be otherwise) and it is completely amoral (neither good nor evil) so don't get too excited and just do what you would do anyway and try not to let it bother you. Although if it does, hey, it's determined. So, it is natural and amoral for mankind to destroy itself and for whats left of the planet to become ruled by apes.

On the other hand, I think you can include many metaphysical considerations without violating scientific naturalism. I myself am a compatibilist in that I can't ignore the argument for consistent cause an effect relationships, however I believe that there is great weight to the fact that we are decision making mechanisms who can weigh effects and make informed judgments. (I mean "mechanisms" in a very broad sense. A computer has little or no decision making abilities. We could discuss whether it is decision making at all to simply recognize a 0 or 1 and react to it according to a script. However, I can imagine a computer that is somehow self aware and thus nearly human. So the range from the simplest of amoebas which make "choices" based on a kind of genetic script of reactions, to thoughtful people navigating the complex range of data in order to achieve their abstracted values and goals, are all choice making mechanisms, but some with exponentially greater influence and power than others.) The mental image I get is that on the strictly level of scientific observations, the world can be seen as a flat line without variation, but when you add the consideration of complex choice making mechanisms, there becomes great valleys of complex information processing under the surface of that flat line of externally observed cause and effect. The external observer cannot directly perceive all these choices, even within one self, and thus can place too much emphasis on mere external observations and not enough on the massive weight of abstract decision making that goes in to even the simplest of human beings. I'm amazed that I heard a determinist say something like, "people have the same freedom to act as a rock does to fall." Perhaps if you think people merely have a rock in their head. I think it is a vast complex of decision making based on the influences of the external world we observe. To negate that with such a platitude seems inane.

Now, all of that relates greatly to how we view "nature" and how we think we should let our massive power of self determinism effect each other and our environment.

@WorldisQuiet: life is complex and painful, but it may be our only chance to experience pain, face it down, and overcome it. It is an integral part of our Completion. Ending that prematurely will surely negatively effect anyone's completion.

@zombyrus: Hey! I just showed back up after a long hiatus too! I actually started getting notifications that my favorite thread of all time was becoming active again! So here I am again.

[WorldisQuiet5256]

@WorldisQuiet: life is complex and painful, but it may be our only chance to experience pain, face it down, and overcome it. It is an integral part of our Completion. Ending that prematurely will surely negatively effect anyone's completion.

This is not normal social feelings about life and things in that category, this is me actually trying to fight off my mind falling into actual insanity.

The structure of my mind allows me to visit worlds that I created, this is not normal imagination, but it could almost be mistaken for schizophrenia. Even still, if the world I visit needs me to go to a location that is in the actual world, I have to be there in order for things to get a move on. I still have the ability to keep in check while giving me the option for escape if I need it at the time.

Lately, my human emotion have reach a stage in my life where it has the needing feeling of looking for a relationship. Even I know that will take time, but my emotion want it now. So it starting to take the idea of falling completely into one of the worlds I created so it can have a relationship with a fictional person.

This "Fighting against insanity" so far has happen 2 times of me trying to keep myself sane in terms of my mind still knowing the "Reality" I need in order for my real life to continue.

[Redafro]

That is the clearest description of what is different (I mean that as non-judgmentally as possible) about you that i have yet heard you make, so thank you for that. It seems to me that you are lacking some kind of guiding force, purpose, of value system. It seems to me, based on the tiny bit I know about you from these forums, that you are a very intelligent person, but without a belief system which gives you much of a reason to face the difficulties of life, and instead your mind has learned to escape into a preferred reality. Some would argue I have done the same, being a Christian who has a relationship with God that is as real to me as the world around me. But of course, I have been tempted by escapist fantasy and the very relationship with God that I have is what rescued me from entering them and has helped me recognize their flimsiness. I don't mean any of this in some kind of proselytizing way, an attempt to push my beliefs on another, but just a concerned sharing of my own experiences. I'm genuinely interested in knowing your perspective on these issues and would like to help if I can with my own albeit limited experiences.

[Anteroinen]

Specifcally the reason I feel that life is worth living?

EDIT: Sorry, I took that as a plural you, but it seems to me that is a wrong deduction.

[WorldisQuiet5256]

Nevermind.

The worlds I have created is not understood yet.

[Isobel The Sorceress]

@World
Don't worry. When people actually go crazy, they don't really realize that. You are probably going through a rough time, but you will be fine.

[Redafro]

True that.

[Redafro]

Ok, if not one wants to do the nature and determinism discussion, how about symbolism? Daymare town has me thinking about this a lot.

Our minds, from some reading/listening/thinking I've recently done, some of it on the Partially Examined Life podcast, seems to be a fuzzy logic system of symbols. We don't necessarily have clearly defined boarders for the symbols (terms and their definitions is another way of saying this) we use in everyday life, rather they are somewhat foggy, more or less so depending perhaps on personality. Now, it seems to me that there is a part of the mind which processes these symbols apart from their specific characteristics (who, where, when, etc) and only processes them in relationship to the symbols significance, be that its abstract (again without specific characteristics) purpose, or personal significance to us. From this part of the brain we get dreams, but also a variety of conscious or semi conscious symbolic experiences and creative acts. It seems to me that there is tons of symbolism in a lot of Mat's work, for instance, and it would be interesting to have a go at interpreting some of it.

A great resource for this line of thinking, though I don't think I agree with all of it, is the Jung Podcast by John Betts. The parts on dream and fairy tail interpretation are particularly good. Let me know what you think please.

[Anteroinen]

Symbolism in Mat's work? Probably true. Subnet at least is filled with symbols of many cultures. Daymare Town has a lot of symbolism about this Tao sort of a balance of things philosophy. Like the eternal day and the mist which is eating away their darkness? I must say that the symbols in DMT4 were sort of lost on me because of the apparently hideous history that the areas had. I was just sort of struck by that.

Hmm... there was the birth of the seaweed which had a lot of symbols. The vaginal reference plus the "seed" we put into the hole, yeah, that. Rebirth too? The conversation was really confusing.

[The Kakama]

@WorldisQuiet: life is complex and painful, but it may be our only chance to experience pain, face it down, and overcome it. It is an integral part of our Completion. Ending that prematurely will surely negatively effect anyone's completion.

This is not normal social feelings about life and things in that category, this is me actually trying to fight off my mind falling into actual insanity.

The structure of my mind allows me to visit worlds that I created, this is not normal imagination, but it could almost be mistaken for schizophrenia. Even still, if the world I visit needs me to go to a location that is in the actual world, I have to be there in order for things to get a move on. I still have the ability to keep in check while giving me the option for escape if I need it at the time.

Lately, my human emotion have reach a stage in my life where it has the needing feeling of looking for a relationship. Even I know that will take time, but my emotion want it now. So it starting to take the idea of falling completely into one of the worlds I created so it can have a relationship with a fictional person.

This "Fighting against insanity" so far has happen 2 times of me trying to keep myself sane in terms of my mind still knowing the "Reality" I need in order for my real life to continue.

I had this problem a while ago, but eventually I got around it realizing that the fictional people were really parts of me I never really knew, and that I was fooling myself thinking they weren't, and that they were as good as real.