Hi ppeterson:

Welcome to wondercafe!

"What is truth?" Pilate asked Jesus.

We all know Jesus' answer: "I am the truth."

I think the pursuit of analytical truth is indeed killing us, simply because the truth of any analysis is necessarily relative to the viewpoint of the observer, and this viewpoint is arbitrarily chosen by the observer.

More often than not, we choose the ego-, ethno-, or antropocentric viewpoint when determining truth, thereby exploiting the whole for the perceived benefit of the part. This is a suicidal course for our species!

The most important Truth for us to discover is that reality is in an ultimate state of synthesis. The synthetical, unitive or wholistic viewpoint will render us world-centric rather than egocentric, and save us from our own destructiveness.  

Thanks for the welcome, Arminius.  Great Quote.  Look forward to more discussions here.  I think this is a wonder full place to exchange ideas and commune with others.

Is this indeed the 'truth'?

Again, is this indeed the objective 'truth'?

'Meaning' is a meaningless concept for anyone who believes that there is no objective truth, ie. "God" to which to conform. If all I am is a random collocation of atoms, then meaning must be purely subjective. I independently make my own meaning. It is a very bleak situation.

On the other hand, if my identity is in a God who created me to live according to his purpose, and made me according to his image, and that this is 'objectively' true for all people, now I have an anchor point, and I can begin to understand what true meaning is.

Read the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence," it's a good read on this subject.

Anyways, the scientific pursuit of knowlege isnt something invalid.  All this "measuring" brings about great things.  But you're right, it's only half the coin.  In my own opinion, this scientific way of thinking is the objective, and the way you talk about "meaning" is completely subjective.  There is no subjective without the objective when we're talking about the world around us.  And there are quite a few points where they do intertwine.

Regardless, "meaning" being a subjective thing, is developed within the mind of the individual, imho.

Hi Geo:

I think analytical or conceptual truth is subjective: subject to the viewpoint of the observer, which is arbitrarily chosen by the observer.

Many people say that reality is relativistic. I, however, think that only the method of analysis is necessarily relativistic, simply because it is relative to the viewpoint of the observer, is determined by the viewpoint of the observer, and this viewpoint is arbitrarily chosen by the observer. Thus, the subjective, analytical or conceptual reality is an arbitrary creation, also know as Maia (illusion) in the Far East.

But I agree with you that there is an absolutely true, objective reality. IT is the unconceptualized, non-analyzed, undifferentiated or nondualistic reality, in ITs actual is-ness, just as IT is: The self-generative Cosmos in a unitive state of synthesis. As soon as we analyze IT, we fragment IT, and IT no longer is in a unitive state. The unitive Cosmos, as IT really is, can only be experienced in the pure, unconceptualized or non-analyzed experience.

Our knowledge is fragmentary, and our prophecies are fragmentations. But when that which is perfect has come, then the fragmentation will end.

1 Cor 13:9-10, Martin Luther Version 

And, when we experience the unfragmented, objective reality, as IT really is, in ITs ultimate and absolutely True, unitive state, then this experience results in an upwelling of unitive love, unitive awareness, unitive consciousness and conscience: THAT WHICH IS PERFECT WILL HAVE COME!

Nice outline of the issue and I think you are pointing out the need for a postmodern riff.

By the way you would love Taylor the making of the modern self ( a secular age) and Griffin Whitehead a Post modern philosopher?

This is one of the most succinct ways that you've floated this at least.

I've no issue with those who have a need for the comfort that this view brings. For me, however, it's like a fisherman who only gets into his boat if it remains firmly tied to the dock. While he will never have to weather the high seas, neither will he discover the vast expanse of the ocean, nor the exhilaration of riding out a gale or discovering new lands.

The challenge, I think, is in creating a "scale" that recognizes the subjectivity of "meaning".

As can be seen in Geo's post, for him unless something is "objectively true" it has no meaning. Therefore, he would ascribe no "meaning unit" to any statement that doesn't meet that criteria.

Arminius, who considers all experiences to contribute to meaning (a perspective I share) would no doubt be hard pressed to find anything that wasn't worth at least a copper meaning farthing.

We are, it seems to me, moving toward a re-emergence of an understanding of meaning, and an acceptance of its subjectivity. It's a tough road for some, and we're doing by fits and starts, but we're doing it.

I'm still of the opinion that this can be spoken of in a more universal way.  Again, if you go to the general level of objective and subjective, objectivity can be measured, subjectivity can't.  You can't compare the pursuit of objective truth to the pursuit of subjective meaning because they aren't the same thing.  Society depends on objectivity BECAUSE it is something that can be measured, and by extension, applied to things.  Subjectivity, however, whenever it is introduced in society (such as when it influences laws or politics) comes across as values, which changes from person to person, resulting in controversy.  When it's introduced at the level that objective truths are, it turns into a kind of hot potato, simply because it's an individual thing.  You can't stress the meaning of life for a group of people, because to each of them it's going to be something different.

Yes, Warped_Purity, but that which we regard as "objective" truth is analytical and scientfic truth, which is not totally objective, either, but relative the viewpoint of the observer, which is arbitrarily chosen by the observer. Even scientific truth is somewhat arbitrarily created by the observer.

Even the most basic scientfic observation has two possible viewpoints and truths: particle or wave. More complex observations have more, and something as infinitely complex as the human experience has a virtually limitless number of viewpoints and truths, every one of them arbitrarily created by the observer or experiencer.

In the ralm of analytical truth, only mathematical truth is absolutely true. The natural sciences come a close second, the soft sciences third, and then the arts.

Only the unconceptualized and non-analyzed reality is totally objective and absolutely true. Any analysis or conceptualization thereof is relative to the viewpoint of the observer, and more or less relativistic or subjective. The relativism we percieve in reality, however, is not in reality itself but an essential aspect of the analytical method. When analyzing, we simply can't do without the observer bias!

The observer, that shit disturber, muddies the clear waters of objective truth. Objective truth, as it really is, can only be expereinced in the pure, unconceptualized and non-analyzed experience of reality.

The purity of objective reality is warped by analysis, eh, Warped_Purity?  

I suppose it stands to reason that anything perceived by a human mind is completely subjective.  Anything external has been processed by our minds into a subjective conciousness, and speaking about objective truth is an attempt to understand these objects outside of conciousness, and therefore, exist only in theory.  Right?

If it's true what they say - "speed kills" - then the velocity at which anyone here is approaching truth, or even a single point, should leave you all with nothing to worry about.

That's an interesting perspective, except isn't society assumed to be moving as a whole?

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I am appreciative of the exhaustive discussion.  I think having Geo’s opinion accentuates the point that subjectivity is difficult to measure :-) .  Would we agree however, that the division of the objective truth and the subjective meaning is one of the core problems in modernity - harming our wholeness  and the holiness of our existence?

Having just read Mike Paterson's “Can Spirituality Save Us?” admiring his courage to put the Church up to the task.  I think the issue, the problem domain, is the same.

Heck, I am about the most outwardly spiritual person I know, and, having studied and prayed over these “things of meaning”, myths primarily, that gave me deep meaning of my youth, they just don’t cut it anymore.  Why, because I don’t think they are true.  Not true in the objective sense.  However, giving these things a good deal of thought, I am actually much poorer for letting go these myths.  They gave me deep meaning – the essence of my own self understanding.  Mature faith great – but it is a scary process.

I think my experience is a reflection of a generality.  The church has certainly lost its significance because of this condition, and other institutions as well.  If we continue to shed those things that gave us deep meaning, we are going to be empty shells.  I guess it’s the engineer in me asking, how do we solve this problem?   I want to have a deep respect for all the meanings, exclusive views included, but I don’t want to have to say one is less meaningful because it’s just not aligned with objective truth or to my own meaning.   

As Canadian’s, I think we touch this a lot more than many places in the world, I think this is our kinda sorta feeling of tolerance.  I think most of us actually think “well I have my meaning and she has hers.  Thats great!”  We all have our meanings – subjective meanings.  It’s when we have to say well mine is “True”, now the problem begins.  Or when we say, o, mine ain’t true either – if not us, then our children will.

Perhaps measurement of a subjective case is impossible in the traditional sense of measurement.  Perhaps its a new ethic we need, a global myth might emerge aka  Joseph Campbell.  Global for sure.  It must speak somehow to all of us.  And it must be able to overcome the test of objective truth.  I am not sure what this would be, the second coming I suppose :-).  
 
Thanks for your comments and contributions, they were helpful to me.

A last - perhaps romantic - thought.

We wake up in the morning and the newspapers declare that a team of scientists at Sunnybrook Hospital has just found our souls, our spirit, our atman - eurica - and this spiritual thing communicates with others of its type, connecting us all with common purpose and heritage.  Arminius was right, it is a form of energy.

A new age of spiritual freedom and sincerity emerges.  We are all joyous.  We shed our material yearnings.  Oil executives open their eyes and see that the precious species on the planet are being lost to climate change.  We all see that zero growth may not work on the stock exchange but it’s just fine for the rest of us.  Social justice prevails and new forms of governments emerge worldwide supporting the weak.  We have faith that everything is going to be all right.  We hug our children and believe again.

But this is not a true story..  We HAVE TO get to this place with something that is real AND meaningful.  Something I have not thought of or seen yet.

.
 

Yes, right.

If, as I believe, objective reality is in a unitive state of synthesis, then this state will forever elude our attempts to analyse it truthfully, merely because any analysis constitutes a fragmenation of the unitive state, and it is not longer unitive.

Our knowledge is fragmentary, and our propehcies are fragmentations. But when that which is perfect has come, then the fragmentation will end.

1 Cor 13:9-10 Martin Luther Version

ppeterson,

what a wonderful riff you are going on with here :3

To be A or not to be A, blame Aristotle for that ;3 (breaking things up into IS and not-IS).

Adding to your riff, perhaps that is what G_d 'is', the THOU, the part that, just like the wave function in Quantum Mechanics, whose existence has to be taken on faith because, as we know, rationality can go too far and eat away at concepts until it ends up eating itself.

Your romantic thought I can imagine happening.  And I believe it IS (there's that darned IS again) happening.

"We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origins. At last, we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own."

--Arthur Stanley Eddington

Just a Self-writing poem,

InannaWhimsey

The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.   Winston Churchill

"The man that will never search for truth will never find it and although truth is absolute and knowable and must be searched for diligently. In the modern society many are actually happier without truth and will try to hide it, hide from it, deny it or muddy it and the mentally evasive even get angry when told it exists." - Bai Leung.

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened." Sir Winston Churchill

The man that doesn't want to find the truth has embraced ignorance and ignorance is what will kill us is my view on it!

"I suppose it stands to reason that anything perceived by a human mind is completely subjective.  Anything external has been processed by our minds into a subjective conciousness, and speaking about objective truth is an attempt to understand these objects outside of conciousness, and therefore, exist only in theory.  Right?"

The objective reality is taken into the feeling actual entity - through subjectivity but it continues to exist - it solipsism to make it all subjective.

Going on with the riff...

Hang ON!

The objective reality ("G_d", "Ground of Being", "The Wave Function before it collapses", that which is Protected from caustic Rationality) is taken on Faith.  We can't ever experience it, but we accept it as being there...Synthetically we know it is there, but as soon as we try to bear down on it Analytically, it disappears...

We've had to try to go beyond dualities, which our neurologies and what comes from there (our languages, our symbolic representations, etc) encourages, into using some sort of language (so, a way to communicate with others) that is closer-related to experiencing than, say, English.

A way of communication that is relational and expresses the multivalued, constantly-changing, agnostic nature of existence.

Just a Self-writing poem,

InannaWhimsey

Yeah!!! Whimsey - this is another great point - its not necessarily the need to measure that will unify meaning and truth - it is a common language - I think this is actually what I was driving at.  Language is in itself the first form of measurement - dividing this from that - ie identity.

Add a common respect to this common language of meaning  - a high level (sacred/sanctity holy/whole ) of respect - ie Martin Buber's THOU - and we have your way of communication I think.  With this as a universal approach I would gain hope.

Yest, I second that!

As we head into a post-rational age, we need a language that is not analytical but synthetical, not logical but intuitive, not dualistic but nondualistic, not exclusive but inclusive, not divisive but unitive and wholistic, expressing the actual is-ness of reality: SYNTHESIS!

Call me Syntheticist,

Arminius

Here are various tools that people have come up with to try to get us from being so darned 'unsane' and back into sanity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operationalism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenalism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_empiricism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_probability

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-prime

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependent_origination

http://www.boogieonline.com/seeking/first/triumph.html

http://www.discordian.com/

(or maybe they are just ways to entrap you further?)

(maybe they are both)

(or maybe they are neither)

Just a Self-writing poem

InannaWhimsey

Also Process Philosophy which is connected to systems theory and radical empiricism

 "Thou" as a signifier of the ego? Wha...? I don't know what a "rational thinking teen"  (tautology that he is!) would say to Aquinas but I'm pretty sure about what he'd probably say to your thesis: "It sucks!"  That's not what I would say, however. I would say it's incoherent, vague, arbitrary and self-contradictory, all the things an Aquinas would make "mince" out of before you could say cogito ergo sum. [BTW that's quite the wall you've set up for comments - detailed bio, infuriating captcha and then tedious email link to boot - what's the big deal? Have we wandered into Socrates' storied symposium by accident? Is this the Fort Knox of ideas? Gimme a break! On my site no-one registers and discussion really is free. Looks like you're not averse to a bit of "disconnecting" on your own terms, pal. 

Hi netwit:

Before you put too much store in the writings of Aquinas, bear in mind that he had a mystical experience near the end of his life. After this experience he became strangely silent and withdrawn. When hard-pressed to say something, he said he'd been threshing empty straw all his life.

What a thought- provoking thread.

It was hard for me to realize that value and worth, meaning and purpose were not the provance of Science. I have always wondered why.

And why Jesus would say that truth and freedom were interlinked?

Oh boy. A scale for Love, Musical talent, Cat affection...

Meaning. The (sweet) mystery of life.

And we so try to see from behind somebody else;s eye balls...

Words come close, sometimes. But never mean exactly the same thing twice.

(Trying to think cosmicly) In the Big Picture how important is the survival of the Human race?

Unfortunately Netwit, you've dragged up an old post, and the person you are addressing hasn't posted in most of a year. It's likely you're argueing with the ether.

Wow. Nice interesting post.

Uh. Oh. Here come Armenious...who remains friendly even after the "But" ...

This soon be changed with Biology at the head of the list.

This is where I leave you. Those three words. Why, the first and second (i.e., how do you know?) and then I bump right into unconceptualized. I can't even conceive of having something unconcelptualized being described to me.

How do you think someone is going to come around to that view, and when that happens (with the aid of your clear as a bell description), when that happened how could that person tell you about it. (In a non analysis, unconceptualized way?

Well, I dont see it that way. I think. Wait a minute. Reality is not reality. Right. Got it. Reality, is.....wait. I don't think so, but I'm biased so I don't think so and uh...so that the way things are. Which isn't  real. What is Really real, is realizing that what is real, isn't. Got it!

(I know that tonight I will dream that I am a silk-worm.)

It took me a full year to get through Summa Theologica...I was and am awed by his work. 

Before you put too little in the writings, his full quote was " I can do no more; such things have been revealed to me that all I have written seems as straw, and I now await the end of my life."

Posted here are the very first semi-put downs of the Summa I have ever seen.

 I undoubtedly will not read it again...but just having it gives me a good feeling. A treasure of man.

Hi Happy Genius:

Thomas Aquinas was treasure of a man, no doubt. He was, among many other achievements, part of the effort of translating Aristotle into Latin at the Papal School in Rome, and tried to reconcile Christian teaching and thinking with Aristotelian thought. He, along with the two other great Dominicans of that time, Meister Eckhart and Albertus Magnus, spearheaded the medieval "Rationalist" movement. Alas, the "Traditionalists" won, and dominated the Church from then on, almost to this day.

Interestingly, Thomas had his mystical illumination and died just before going to the Second Council of Lyon (1274?) That Council had been called specifically to heal the growing rift between Traditionalists and Rationalists. Thomas was supposed to be the chief speaker for the Rationalists, but died a few month before the Council resumed, and it was left up to the aging Albertus Magnus to represent and defend the Rationalists. Alas, the Great Albert did not succeed.

Hi Happy Genius:

Well, as soon as one thinks or says "the unconceptualized reality," it is no longer the unconceptualized reality but a concept. One can't really talk about the unconceptualized reality; it is just pure experience. I thought this was understood by everyone.

The TAO that can be told is not the TAO.

-Lao Tsu

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

-?

That's why silk worms don't talk, eh?

Why would that be bleak?

I think the tide is changing.

Measuring stick is God, Truth is, we mean more to God than we can imagine.

Truth  is, meaning always existed, even if at times we cant see it, existance is not subject to created but Creator

Find the Truth, which i believe is an embodiment of Divinity and you find meaning

PS: wellcome

That's your opinion, and I agree that it can be for some people. See the Woody Allen thread I started and you can see some of this view in what he says. For others, the chance to make and live out your own meaning without having to conform to a particular view of existence is very liberating. The atheists that I know personally are anything but "bleak". They know that they are responsible for making their lives meaningful and do it with love and gusto. I don't find my meaning in a "God", at least not your kind of God, but in how my life is tied into the much bigger and more beautiful tapestry that is existence; what we UUs call the "web of all existence" in our principles. That tapestry/web could be seen to be my "God" but it is ultimately just a way of seeing where I stand in the universe, not a being that I believe "made it so". Maybe a short way to say it is that when I want to know the "what" and "how", I turn to science, but the "why"  (ie. the meaning) comes from my own understanding of my place in it all, and religion is only part of that experience.

Mendalla

its not  meaningful if it only exists for a time, but more so illusion

Not clear on what you're saying, bb. You're starting to sound a bit like Waterbuoy .

Mendalla

L0L, it is that time of the yr you know, wine making season , thus my avtar, so i might miss a thing or six , or was it 2?

anway I see true meaning as eternal , if not its just like the old song from Kansas, Dust in the wind

Wine-making season, eh. Could use a bit of that myself.

See, I actually think we are dust in the wind and that that isn't necessarily a bad thing. In my cosmology, what is eternal about us is the matter and energy that makes us up, which moves from form to form over time. That matter and energy can be traced back to the Big Bang and forward to however it will all end. If the multi-verse theory is correct, it may even go back to a previous universe and on into the next one. Meaning, for me, comes from how we live in the universe rather than being something that was put there for us to find. You seek a meaning that is something eternal and objective that was put there by God at Creation. I don't even think God created the universe. To each our own, I think. The fact that we have such divergent ideas of where meaning comes from in existence in and of itself suggests to me that meaning comes from within rather than without.

Enjoy the wine, bb.

Mendalla

I must disagree about meaning, or truth being eternal.

For instance, if we take the idea of truth, some things are true for a time, and then cease to be true, subject to other circumstances.

It is sunny.  That is true, in my location, today.

Tomorrow that statement may no longer be true.

The Bible once held meaning for me, it still does, but an entirely different meaning. The word "Witch", back when I was eagerly listening to Mike Warnke and reading books by Brown and Schnoebelen, once had a completely different meaning to me than it does now.

Truth can be eternal, for all intents and purposes, for one thing (1+2=3), and transient and temporal for other things (I am in good health).

Meaning is even more transient, as it depends entirely on the perception of the individual.

Have you got a favourite wine?  Mine's Mateus, not for the taste, but because it is a good childhood favourite.

Perhaps there should be more nuance added to yours and Mendalla's interchange, here.  Because as it stands, it sounds like you're saying that such things like your pleasure (or displeasure) at the food you eat, sex with your sweetie, feeling the sun on your face, and things like that are meaningless, because they don't last.

Do you think that things are either meaningful or meaningless and nothing in between?

Mendalla wrote:

The fact that we have such divergent ideas of where meaning comes from in existence in and of itself suggests to me that meaning comes from within rather than without.

-----------------------------------------------

I'll drink to that!

thing is , the within part is absence of matter, also cannot be energy , for it cannot think,  to ponder on meaning is to think , I think, therefore I am, evolution in consciences ? i think not

cheers

I think that being meaningful or meaningless is kind of like that. You can use relative terminology (ie. A is more or less meaningful to me than B) but you don't usually say something like "A is kind of meaningful" or "B is sort of meaningless". It's possible, but usually we speak of meaningfulness in fairly absolute terms unless we are comparing relative meaningfulness of two things.

Mendalla

blackbelt

You stated the classic "I think, therefore I am"  How can you prove you think.  What if you are but a simulation running in some cosmic computer.

You cannot even say you taste, see, smell.  Your little bunch of grey cells are trapped in your skull and get sensory impulses from the outside world.  Or do they?  What if you are being fed impulses?  Ahhh, the Matrix.

Some marvelously complicated discussions here.

IT

Russ

LOL

I think , or I know, there are other minds other than my own, the borgs as in star trek have a oneness, we don't, so out with the computer thing.

but i wonder, can we observe a mind in a sincence experiment, watch it evolve ? I think Not, yet we are all rational to believe and accept that there are other minds!

see, I have thought about this , there for I am

Yes you can if you scientific critical realism - it is only reductionism which is an intrepation that says no to all of this/