Are those who don't honor logic deceitful egomaniacs?

[Asolsutsesvyl]

I recognize the idea of objective idealism, having now looked it up. I was not familiar with the label, though, and in general I don't think I have all of your (@Patrick and @Azarnac) broader overview of modern philosophy. I'm familiar with the more general state of arguments being made from each broad camp (materialistic and non-materialistic) and refuted by the other, though. It seems to repeat with e.g. Bernardo Kastrup trying to go a step further and refute materialism and then others launching counterarguments in turn, in a basically familiar pattern. In saying so, I am not advocating for materialism. I think, rather, like Boris Mouravieff put it in Gnosis, that reason in itself is agnostic.

When the broad ideas in favor of a position of this kind are translated into more specific arguments, usually opponents will be able to validly point out that there are other possibilities or even that an error was made. It is probably the case that if it hasn't happened yet with a new -ism, it's just a short matter of time. These broad recognitions don't translate well into solid arguments that demolish the metaphysical opposition.

I'm not really rooted in any clear explicit -ism at the moment, and write from a greater personal distance in relation to such. However, I'm basically a non-materialist.

Most simply cannot be verified, that's the basic problem with metaphysics and why it hasn't progressed much along with science. Picking things and simply caring about logical consistency in what you piece together is, in my understanding, about the best a person can do.

This notion usually comes from a lack of study. Metaphysics is part of Western philosophy, and its modern form has little to do with its supposedly Greek roots. Philosophy as such pretty much died in late antiquity, and turned into the handmaiden of theology in the middle ages(where you get the horrendous monster that is scholasticism) and in the last 200 years, it turned into the handmaiden of science/technology. Most academic philosophers now do little more than speculate on the data that science provides them. I've been to several Philosophy departments in Europe and China, and I can tell you that philosophy professors and students are some of the least conscious beings there are. Modern philosophers embarass the discipline by basically accepting the idea that the brain generates consciousness, and not the other way around. They will never say anything profound or personal or real. It's just sophism at this point.

You have to keep in mind that the practical part of original philo-sophia and especially metaphysics was inherited by mystical fraternities. Platonism seems abstract and speculative to many people, but what about Iamblichus and his practical Theurgy that is informed by Late Antiquity Neo-platonism? What about the neoplatonic metaphysics that was inherited by the Sufi orders? Metaphysics certainly has progressed, just not within abstract philosophy(which is dead as dry bones).

I'll spell out a bit more of my surrounding thoughts. While there may be progress separate from the culture of the majority, I still think that progress is smaller than that of science and technology (and the turn in many countries towards values of secular humanism to some extent).

By verified, I mean verified by shared and more universal criteria. I don't discount that individuals may be able to arrive at something others can't accept as verification, while it's good enough for that one person; I see that as a separate idea.

I also think that, regarding what people pick and choose, there exists real differences in quality, some inside of and some outside of what's verifiable (in the shared and more universal sense). Personal variation and development seems to explain most in what ends up picked and not picked, which ties into the ancient problem that seemingly, for the most part, personal advancement in that area can't be reliably passed on through culture.

Mysticism proper is concerned with the practical means towards bringing you towards pre-conceptual awareness. Being as such, and well beyond the confines of science and logic, which never claim to investigate what something really is, but only measure.

I'm not sure if "pre-conceptual" really makes that much sense as a way to put it. For example, Peter Naur basically described being rooted in non-conceptual awareness larger than words all the time, seemingly without being a mystic, and finding words and academic philosophy too mentally cramped. Some others who prefer a less verbal and more systems thinking oriented general way of thought describe similar.

Awareness without concepts seems to have varieties both smaller and larger than that of/with concepts, and both smaller and larger can occur both mystically and non-mystically, I personally find. Non-mystically, some is there in the background all the time, whatever is in the foreground, unless that kind of content somehow quiets down. Some abstract thought also seems to combine attributes of the structured and what doesn't fit formal logic, in a contemplation that feels pristinely clear and angularly shaped, yet cannot be written down in a non-vague form (but that's on the more mystical end).

Since the ego, the unself, is so hard to pierce through, and since truly dwelling in pre-conceptual awareness is no easy task, I don't see how modern attempts to marry science to mysticism(such as what the Cassiopaeans claim) is possible.
In my opinion, you're best off trying to get really good at one of them.

I have a large and loose range of thought concerning how science and mysticism are and can be related, but mainly, I think a synthesis must be moore loose, tentative, and personal than any standardized spiritual "system". If any rigid shell is created to contain it all, it will miss the essence, and become a container for things that only approximate the essence in appearance. And for example, Don Elkins seemed to work in a more open-ended way avoiding that problem. I think most persons both mystical and scientific who don't mess up solve the problem by never trying too hard to do so. The resulting solution may be only partial, but then completion is not really realistic given the scope, no more realistic than finding the Holy Grail in the latest academic paper.

I'll refer to one little idea that I found very straightforward, Plato's divided line. (Note that I'm not generally well-read on Platonism and related philosophies at a detail level.)



My interpretation is this. Logic, mathematics, or in other words knowledge of structure in the abstract, is the bounded area C-D in that picture, and it is agnostic regarding the larger area D-E which is a domain understood only to the extent that there is a personal gnosis (successful personal development of deeper understanding). Empirical science makes use of C-D for dealing with A-B and B-C, and derives explanations for how A-B works in terms of B-C and C-D, and models B-C in terms of C-D in various ways without really exploring the big questions.

The C-D area, though it contains gaps and limitations the knowledge of which are interestingly included within C-D (Godel, Turing, etc.), is authoritative regarding everything below that level (A-C). Thus, how logic matters even though it can't answer everything.

I think crass superstition represented as great truth may be A-B confused for D-E. Some popular memes (including of the doomsday and sudden world transformation varieties) which spread with great emotional charge also seem like empty noise in a way that I think fits this.

Also beware of the tendency of cult survivors to go on a James Randi like crusade against cults/spiritual organisations/metaphysicians, where disappointment with themselves and anger fuels a sudden obsession with logic and intellectual over-analysis.

I had my greatest logic obsession between a decade and a few years ago. While initially, I was giving the cultic consensus the benefit of the doubt far too often when I couldn't settle a question with genuine certainty (and the cultic consensus provided plausible rationalizations time and time again), eventually I used the force of logic in a very detail-focused way to break out by showing to myself there were too many broken things, inconsistencies and hypocrisy.

Anyway, I'm mainly interested in what skeptics have to say about material things and ideas concerning these, not what they have to say about metaphysics dealing with consciousness. What's your take on what skeptics say about things like shoddy alternative history, drinking bleach as a miracle cure, worldwide satanic conspiracies in which secret machinations will automatically conquer every soul with a vaccinated body, and various much smaller health scares and promises with shoddy argumentation about very physical things?

I've been realizing I had various smaller useless fears, and there were also other things I didn't need to care about, after some good skeptical reading. Then I can focus on what matters. Also, I think it sucks that others are often distracted by all the junk (unless that's what they really want). But it's very emotional for many non-skeptics to touch on the general area.