Afleitch's Daily-ish Reflections

[afleitch]

Because there's more to life than one book.

On The Shortness of Life – Lucius Seneca

It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is scattered in a moment when it comes into the hands of a bad owner, while wealth however limited, if it is entrusted to a good guardian, increases by use, so our life is amply long for him who orders it properly...

It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and—what will perhaps make you wonder more—it takes the whole of life to learn how to die. Many very great men, having laid aside all their encumbrances, having renounced riches, business, and pleasures, have made it their one aim up to the very end of life to know how to live; yet the greater number of them have departed from life confessing that they did not yet know—still less do those others know. Believe me, it takes a great man and one who has risen far above human weaknesses not to allow any of his time to be filched from him, and it follows that the life of such a man is very long because he has devoted wholly to himself whatever time he has had. None of it lay neglected and idle; none of it was under the control of another, for, guarding it most grudgingly, he found nothing that was worthy to be taken in exchange for his time. And so that man had time enough, but those who have been robbed of much of their life by the public, have necessarily had too little of it.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Because there's more to life than one book.

Sixty-six books, if you're a Protestant.

Snark aside, I hope you find as much use in my reflection as I have in yours.

[afleitch]

I have decided to do these weekly, as I have too much of a busy life.

'Accustom yourself to the belief that death is of no concern to us, since all good and evil lie in sensation and sensation ends with death. Therefore the true belief that death is nothing to us makes a mortal life happy, not by adding to it infinite time, but by taking away the desire for immortality. For there is no reason why the man who is thoroughly assured that there is nothing to fear in death should find anything to fear in life. So, too, he is foolish who says that he fears death, not because it will be painful when it comes, but because the anticipation of it is painful; for that which is no burden when it is present gives pain to no purpose when it is anticipated. Death, the most dreaded of evil, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present and when death is present we no longer exist. It is therefore nothing either to the living or to the dead since it is not present to the living and the dead no longer are' – Epicurus

Epicurus suggests that in accepting that death is of no concern to us, as the state of death is something that we will never be consciously aware of, one will lead a ‘happy’ life as it will be unburdened by the expectation of immorality. That perhaps is one of humanity's greatest weaknesses; our expectation of continued existance or presence after our death.

Life is not complicated or complex. We are here because we are here. As I argued elswhere, life is a process and not necessarily a condition of which you must constantly seek a diagnosis as to why you have it. You don't 'have life' as such. You do life. You are life. For me the spiritual aspect of this is very measured in that the 'you' part of you; what you see, how you think, how you ponder and taste, is your brain. When your brain can no longer sustain the electrochemical patterns that make up your consciousness, the 'you' part dies. And just as the 'flame' part of a candle when it is extinguished doesn't shuffle off to 'candle heaven' but dissipates it's energy as thermal noise, so too do we. Our energy and our matter is recycled into the body of the universe.

There is no mystical part of yourself that gets lifted out from our body or your consciousness and then survives paying no regard to the laws of the universe. Asking what happens after you die is exactly the same as pondering where the ‘spin’ goes when the energy you’ve provided to a spinning coin dissipates and the coin stops spinning. It doesn’t go anywhere; it stops.

We die and our consciousness ceases because like every other system in the universe, we are subject to casuality. We are not free from it but the ability to influence it’s future direction. We are each one of countless processes that exist in this universe but we have the advantage of being a process; life, that is self aware. You are here because it has been determined, by the sum of all that came before you, that you will be.  This is called ‘casual determinism.’ It rests on the understanding that the past is fixed and the present is the sum of history. This renders the concept of free will irrelevant but that is for a different discussion. Your brain makes decisions based on it’s physical condition at the time you make the decision. It’s current physical condition is determined by it’s previous states. Therefore what we truly exercise is volition limited only by causality and physics to the extent that is both necessary and beneficial to us.

The laws of conservation within the universe ensure that all particles involved in a process will wind up in the lowest available energy state. That state for us, is death. Anything other than that is contrary to laws of the universe. A man who suspends his own arrogance and ceases to fight against the universe and simply enjoys life because he is living it, is free of a significant burden.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Belief in an afterlife necessarily spring from a fear of death.  For that matter, a belief in God does not require the existence of an afterlife.

But be that as it may, even if one accepts Epicurus' POV I fail to see why that would lead one to not "fight against the universe".  It seems to me that such a belief would encourage one engage in that fight as much as possible while it is still possible to fight.  It would encourage one to fight to pack as much meaning into one's brief existence since what comes after one has died has no value.

A society that places no value on the future is not a workable society.  Now, the reason for that value need not be an expectation of an afterlife. This is just as true for the religious as he secular.  Take for example the Old Testament.  The patriarchs therein were not promised a beneficial afterlife.  Instead, they were promised a continuing life in this world thru their descendants.  Conversely the warnings that sin would be punished unto to the third or fourth generation reflect a POV that one's descendants are a part of the one and thus punishing them was a way of punishing the sinner.

[afleitch]

Belief in an afterlife necessarily spring from a fear of death.  For that matter, a belief in God does not require the existence of an afterlife.

But be that as it may, even if one accepts Epicurus' POV I fail to see why that would lead one to not "fight against the universe".  It seems to me that such a belief would encourage one engage in that fight as much as possible while it is still possible to fight.  It would encourage one to fight to pack as much meaning into one's brief existence since what comes after one has died has no value.

A society that places no value on the future is not a workable society.  Now, the reason for that value need not be an expectation of an afterlife. This is just as true for the religious as he secular.  Take for example the Old Testament.  The patriarchs therein were not promised a beneficial afterlife.  Instead, they were promised a continuing life in this world thru their descendants.  Conversely the warnings that sin would be punished unto to the third or fourth generation reflect a POV that one's descendants are a part of the one and thus punishing them was a way of punishing the sinner.

Accepting death as something inconsequential to the living as the living are not in a state of death and the dead are not in the state of being alive is not 'a fight against the universe'; it's an acceptance of your limitations as a process albeit a self aware process in the universe which like all processes will cease. You have to cease because that is the nature of the laws of the universe. I do not see that as not placing a value on the future. Unless you are a sociopath you empathise with those who cross your own lifetime, whether preceding you or following on from you.

[Free Speech Enjoyer]

All I'll say is that most people who believe in an afterlife wouldn't consider the human soul a tangible thing, and thus do not believe that souls are subject to the laws of nature the way our bodies are.  They also don't believe that the 'you' is in the brain, or even in the mind necessarily.  I know that won't convince you of anything, afleitch, and I don't know if you had intended to persuade anyone with your post, but applying physical laws to metaphysical concepts is usually futile.

[afleitch]

All I'll say is that most people who believe in an afterlife wouldn't consider the human soul a tangible thing, and thus do not believe that souls are subject to the laws of nature the way our bodies are.  They also don't believe that the 'you' is in the brain, or even in the mind necessarily.  I know that won't convince you of anything, afleitch, and I don't know if you had intended to persuade anyone with your post, but applying physical laws to metaphysical concepts is usually futile.

I am trying to discuss these matters without necessarily reflecting on the Christian way of thinking which suffocates this board already. However it's worth noting that my own view is that what philosophers and theologians have forgotten, thanks to the claims of non-overlapping magisteria which allows people to place souls and unicorns and everything in between in an untouchable realm, is that metaphysics must be rooted in actual physics.

I'm not suggesting of course that abstract philosophical constructs have any objective reality, but certainly the minds that construct and them do. Every argument, every construct and every single piece of philosophy/theology is a some subset of physical information, deduced from a physical experience that is then invested with meaning by a conscious mind which is itself an active physical process. So the idea that both the physical and metaphysical are non-overlapping is an inversion of what is actually the case, and that is that the magisteria not only overlap, one is completely subsumed within the other.

You cannot get context without the 'text' to start with. You can't have meaning without things to 'mean'. Abstract concepts like justice are bound to physical concepts of action and punishment, love is bound to something physical to love and even pondering the meaning of life is bound to life itself which is a physical process.

So you don't necessarily need physical evidence for non physical claims because fundamentally, all claims are physical. Processes that have an effect in reality can be investigated in reality. Things that do not have an effect in reality can not be said to exist in any meaningful way. All philosophical and religious claims are claims not just about reality, but about the human perception of that reality. They are subject to the same scrutiny as physical claims.

[Free Speech Enjoyer]

I think NOM is best applied to the question of science and moral claims.  Religion indeed makes claims regarding the existence of things, though they are not necessarily tangible things, but science and religion do not overlap if we agree that science merely addresses the 'what' and not the 'why.'  That is the job of reason and philosophy.  The 'is-ought' problem, as Hume called it, has existed for centuries.

That said, even if certain concepts such as souls and the 'afterlife' (though supposedly the afterlife is an experience that is so different from our human experience that it cannot be fathomed, let alone studied in our present condition) are deduced from physical experience that doesn't necessarily mean that the laws of physics we recognize can be applied to them.  The 'afterlife,' as the word implies, is not of this life.  And indeed, it would be irrational to suggest that it can be examined the same way we examine plant growth or evolution, which are earthly things.  And this is obvious, because if we could analyze the afterlife, we obviously wouldn't be living in this life.  It is like saying we can examine the future from the present.  I think all we can reasonably say about the afterlife is that, if it exists, it is not something you 'have,' but something you experience, just as you said about life itself.  We cannot even prove that life exists - merely how it works.

I do not want this post to be mistaken for an argument for the existence of an afterlife, as I do not feel that should be a concern of mine.  But I prefer not to err on the belief that what is true for physical things is also true for what are immortal things simply because this method doesn't work.

[afleitch]

I think NOM is best applied to the question of science and moral claims.  Religion indeed makes claims regarding the existence of things, though they are not necessarily tangible things, but science and religion do not overlap if we agree that science merely addresses the 'what' and not the 'why.'[/iquote]

As I said earlier, who is inferring the 'why?'; who is deciding that the 'why' is of universal importance and is not just a reflection of self awareness? Us. The universe doesn't ponder the 'why'; it is only one (that we know of) sentient process that does so.

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Why not? All metaphysical claims are collapsible into the physical; again who is inferring and creating concepts such as the soul, or an afterlife? Who is endowing them, when challenged to prove them, with metaphysical traits? We are. And we are physical. What do we do when we are faced with competing metaphysical claims, well those who propose them tend to rely on the physical; a written word to dispute other competing metaphysical claims.

[Free Speech Enjoyer]

The universe doesn't have to ponder anything (though many philosophers and theologians believe there is a self-subsistent force with thought and judgment attributed to it).  Yes, it is a reflection of self-awareness, but I think there's more value to that than you think.  And the 'why' is just one of the several questions we use to obtain information: who, what, when, where, why, and how?  It is irresponsible to ponder all these things but leave out the 'why,' unless we're going to completely dismiss our abilities to reason and put things in perspective.  Understanding why we need philosophical disciplines like theology is paramount to having critical thinking skills.  Whether or not the universe itself is a sentient and conscious force shouldn't discourage us from determining value.  Hell, even if you claim physical/metaphysical concepts don't have any inherent moral value to them, you are speculating on the 'why' problem.

Metaphysics simply attempts to go beyond tangible qualities.  What metaphysics aims for is the final cause of things.  It tries to comprehend what makes for a thing to exist in a particular way.  You can't say that "all metaphysical claims are collapsible into the physical" when, in fact, the opposite is true.  There are competing claims, but each of those claims are built on their originator's method of reasoning.

[afleitch]

‘All men are not equal in wisdom. The half wise are everywhere.’

This week’s text is the Norse ‘Havamal’, found in full here;

http://www.ragweedforge.com/havamal.html

Norse prose concerned with day to day simple and domestic affairs is sadly much overlooked. In many of these sagas, sound advice is given to the listener often in the form of moral tales. In Havamal, the teller is a traveller, (possibly Odin himself) dispensing advice at each sojourn. It is wonderfully meandering but opens with the beautiful;

Young and alone on a long road, Once I lost my way, Rich I felt when I found another, Man rejoices in man.

The traveller meets a friend, washes his clothes and is invited into his guests home; ‘meat and clean linen a man needs…water too that he may wash before eating.’ The Norse were not, as their contemporary Christian detractors noted ‘barbarous’ and ‘unclean.’ They travelled with clean clothes, bathed regularly and looked after their hair (combs are ten a penny in many settlement excavations) Indeed the Arabs, also respecting their own health and cleanliness, when encountering the Norse (who traded along the Volga) were taken aback at their custom. The traveller then advises on social custom; ‘Of his knowledge a man should never boast’ while advising the listener to make use of wit. Don’t drink too much; keep your wits about you. Don’t be foolish, don’t be ill tempered. One of my favourites is; ‘The wise guest has his way of dealing with those who taunt him at the table. He smiles through their meal not seeming to hear the twaddle talked by his foes.’ He then advises on lodgings, on giving gifts to friends. How to treat possessions and view life; whether long or short

‘Cattle die, kindred die, Every man is mortal. But the good name never dies of one who has done well.’

Then it moves on to women! It does begin to lose it’s way before reminding the reader to never simply dismiss a traveller; a cautionary tale for those who don’t seek the advice of the humble.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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While it is true that one will be happiest when one has the skills to deal with the tasks and travails that befall em whilst not having knowledge of concerns one cannot do anything about, the problem is how does one know before one knows whether one would be better off knowing or not knowing something?  Indeed, is not worrying about whether one knows too much merely another form of unhappiness, another way of being "over cunning and clever"?  Hence it would seem that these set of three verses convey a unuseful truth.

[afleitch]

I think you’re missing the ‘beat’ of the Havamal a little and remember this is just one translation (which for me captures the poetic essence as its part written by W.H.Auden. Others pull a ‘Book of Mormon’ and play with ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ in an attempt at a faux King James)

Putting the repetition aside the three verses simply say ‘the fairest life is led by those who are deft at all they do’ which is about making use of your skills and living in the here and now, particularly if you are ‘half wise’ (which all honest men should consider themselves to be) ‘No man is able to know his future so let him sleep in peace’ re-iterates that asking you not to think too much about what will be and finally ‘The learned man whose lore is deep is seldom happy at heart’ is a reflection on those who dwell too much in old tales, people who dwell on things that once were.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I think you missed my point.  I was going at a metalevel aimed at the general truth conveyed by the three verses.  Is it possible to both speak of this truth and to follow its advice? I think not, since to intentionally implement this advice, one must think of one's future actions which means you aren't implementing it.

By the way, I like' thee' and 'thou'.  The lack of a second person singular is a definite flaw in Modern English, tho not as great a flaw as the lack of a third person neuter animate singular.