Irrationalism

[Guest Valk0010]

I so want to critique this. But this is the wrong forum for being critical.

Start a thread in a different spot ovum

[Legion]

Start a thread in a different spot ovum

Get this straight Ovum. You are the underdeveloped one here.

[lunaticheathen]

I think I can add perhaps an additional layer to this that might help put some perspectives on it. What I would say more today is that this is about the non-rational aspects of being human. Irrational tends to be a misnomer as it suggests against-rationality. I prefer the use of the word nonrational, and to expand on this, add the terms prerational and transrational to it. The mythic/magical modes of thought is more prerational, "rational" in the sense of the Age of Reason as a mode of thought. Transrational would be to go beyond rationality in that sense, not against it or in objection to it, but to not be limited by it. Prerational is operating in nonrationaity, but before a developed sense of reason and rationality as in a mode of thought. Both prerational and transrational are nonrational, but with a distinction of context.

 

Indeed we do pull from the nonrational to inform us, to give us knowledge, but there is a distinction between not incorporating higher mode of view in the desire and incorporating but going beyond it, not being limited to just that and that alone as the highest state of mind or means of knowledge.

 

I like this even better, and it has crossed my mind that "nonrational" is better than "irrational". It's not opposed, it's just separate. Especially the thoughts of prerational and transrational - I grok it in a spiritual/ritual way. Transrational definitely is a word I'd pick to describe my thought processes during ritual.

 

Pure reason is just so cold. Reason has a place in our world, of course, but there is so much MORE!

[Antlerman]

I so want to critique this. But this is the wrong forum for being critical.

What the hell is this? Somehow those few, the most religious of the neo-atheist zealots who can't rationally control their outbursts towards others who have views that aren't the same as their new religious Faith in Materialism (or in NoGod if you will), set the tone for this forum, who create the rhetoric that it is anti-rational? Is critical thought not allowed in here? That is certainly not what I would say. What you say is only true if one defines their dogmatic attacks of those who think differently as being "critical". As a rational, and critical thinker, I can tell you with certitude, that isn't critical thought at all. It's lopsided, and dogmatic.

 

Certainly, go ahead and engage in a rational discussion. I'm always up to it. But be assured, I'm done with people mocking alternative views in here and putting others down the way I have seen, or saying this forum forbids any differences of view. That is not critical thinking. It's just immaturity under the guise of critical thought. I'm thoroughly unimpressed by that, and find it not much better or any different at all than being a Bible Thumper. Critical thinking, my ass.

[Guest Valk0010]

I have not really read the thread well but here is the jist of what I get out of this.

 

Religion and all other forms of formalized handling of emotional and subjective experience fails to satisfy the logician part of our brains, (the part that makes critical thinking descriptions like leaving Christianity for example).

 

On the other hand, the logical, rational stuff is aloud only parts of our brain(otherwise known as a the logician part) doesn't alone satisfy our minds it will only satisfy the logician part. The logician part will not consider the emotional part rational.

 

My opinion is its most healthy to have a counterbalance between the two. Don't let one side kill of the other.

 

You can exist using one way more then the other, but to me the fullness of life is best meet with a balance between the two.

 

The basic problem is the logician can't forsake rationality(the formal version of it anyway), and the emotional/nonrational can't forsake how they feel. Isn't there a old figure of speech about how there is your side of the story and my side of the story and there is the truth in the middle.

[Antlerman]

I have not really read the thread well but here is the jist of what I get out of this.

I have to inject a disclaimer here. This is an old thread and there may be some points of view I expressed that I might revise today. I haven't re-read the whole thing so I can't say if that would be true or not. But go ahead and challenge what you read, and I might revise my thoughts some if necessary.

 

Religion and all other forms of formalized handling of emotional and subjective experience fails to satisfy the logician part of our brains, (the part that makes critical thinking descriptions like leaving Christianity for example).

Though I agree with some of this, it's not just logic and reason that leads the way to making choices such as leaving ones former religion. Many aspects of our lives were not being met, and it's my view that that critical part is used to help address rationally why it wasn't working. We never simply leave or make any choices strictly on rationality alone. And that is the point of the philosophy schools of thought, such as Irrationalism, Existentialism, etc.

 

On the other hand, the logical, rational stuff is aloud only parts of our brain(otherwise known as a the logician part) doesn't alone satisfy our minds it will only satisfy the logician part. The logician part will not consider the emotional part rational.

I would chose to not use the word emotional. It's not just about feelings. It's all the many layers of abrstractions and interactions and perceptions that confront our psyches. That is beyond emotions, though emotions may in fact respond to those. Emotions are not the core what that is, IMO.

 

My opinion is its most healthy to have a counterbalance between the two. Don't let one side kill of the other.

I agree with this, and have worked off this for some time. But more importantly is not just a counterbalance, one, then the other, but rather an integration of all aspects into a whole. It is a learning an overall balance of the whole. Perhaps that is what you meant...

 

You can exist using one way more then the other, but to me the fullness of life is best meet with a balance between the two.

I think maybe what I mean is an active, integrated, interoperation. The parts work seemless together. I keep using the metaphor of dance.

 

The basic problem is the logician can't forsake rationality(the formal version of it anyway), and the emotional/nonrational can't forsake how they feel. Isn't there a old figure of speech about how there is your side of the story and my side of the story and there is the truth in the middle.

Yes, and it shouldn't forsake it. This is where I say the "leap of faith" fails now. We should not set aside or leap outside of reason. It should be embraced, as well as a our "spiritual" side. What needs to happen, in my opinion, is to shed the prerational ideas of spirituality as meaning some sort of gods and demons and angels, sort of myth context. I think there is a way to embrace that without needing to make a leap, so to speak.

[Legion]

Noble Antlerman, I can't help but balk at systems of thought that call themselves "irrationalism" or "non-rationalism". I hold that we and the world make sense and that ultimately everything is capable of being understood to one degree or another. Now, I do suspect that certain apparent "paradoxes" may inher to every living being so as to make them seemingly intractable to reason, but this is only apparently so. I think that although the world is complex even these apparent paradoxes can be understood given the appropriate observation and reasoning.

[Antlerman]

Noble Antlerman, I can't help but balk at systems of thought that call themselves "irrationalism" or "non-rationalism".

Yes, Sartre and Camus were a couple of ill-educated chowder-heads lacking in the critical thought department. I can see why you'd balk at this so easily.

 

I hold that we and the world make sense and that ultimately everything is capable of being understood to one degree or another.

That's fascinating. What are we doing until then? How are we surviving? How have we survived/evolved without having that available to us?

 

The real question is though, by what faculties are we to understand? Is knowledge something that enters the mind solely through rational thought, or does it also enter through non-rational experience? Rational thought is about the objective world, but we are subjective beings in an objective world, and there is always and ever and interrelationship between these. Our views of reality shape us, and those views are both subjective and objective in nature.

 

You seem to think we should look to only rational thought to inform us about the reality of living. That's silly, considering that's not how humans have operated from the beginning of our civilized existence. To be informed rationally by what is "real", we should tear down all our created worlds and live as part of the food chain tied into the ecosystem as we once were long ago, acting purely in response to the "objective" world, rather than acting with mind in subjective and relational response in a differentiated state.

 

I'm surprised to hear you arguing for Positivism, considering you are so fond of Rosen.

 

Now, I do suspect that certain apparent "paradoxes" may inher to every living being so as to make them seemingly intractable to reason, but this is only apparently so. I think that although the world is complex even these apparent paradoxes can be understood given the appropriate observation and reasoning.

All I am saying is that you cannot reason your way into being human. We are informed in many ways about life, and it is most certainly not the domain of rationality to inform us of something beyond it. It is experienced, and there are depths to it that rationality does not provide access directly to. And that is something that rationality only examines, but does not impart, teach, or give direct knowledge of. It's only a discussion about it, and not it itself.

 

You seem to assume the world is only material. Again, surprising response.

[Legion]

The real question is though, by what faculties are we to understand? Is knowledge something that enters the mind solely through rational thought, or does it also enter through non-rational experience? Rational thought is about the objective world, but we are subjective beings in an objective world, and there is always and ever and interrelationship between these. Our views of reality shape us, and those views are both subjective and objective in nature.

I think this is a very astute question on your part. I suspect that possessing an understanding and acquiring an understanding are two entirely different things. (Let's call the latter learning.) I do believe that learning requires something akin to an act of art. I have long wished that I knew more about the process of learning. It is a very compelling mystery to me. However in any case, I agree with you that every understanding is a relation between our subjective selves and our objective world. In fact, I think reasoning itself is a subjective thing.

 

All I am saying is that you cannot reason your way into being human.

I think that our practical day-to-day understanding involves more than reason alone. I think our navigation of the world is not only cerebral but also emotional and somatic.

 

You seem to assume the world is only material.

Not at all. I think the world is primarily relational rather than material, but it can still be understood.

[Antlerman]

I agree with you that every understanding is a relation between our subjective selves and our objective world. In fact, I think reasoning itself is a subjective thing.

In this sense then, the subjective self likewise has to learn and explore itself, in order to better understand what we learn and explore about the objective world in order to best relate. Don't you think?

 

I think my point is that the Rationalist mentality takes the approach that truth is learned through objective investigation to inform the subjective self the *real* truth of things. What I am saying is that without an equal development of our subjective understanding on any level that begins to incorporate and itself inform our objective understanding, it is a lopsided affair.

 

This comes to that thread in the Lion's Den about "faith", throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. In in essence, "faith", as I tried to illustrate (ineffectively it appears), seems to be an expression of some intuition of a greater nature of subjective truth, not just simply some blind belief that one adopts for the benefit of social membership (which defines a huge percentage of what we see in organized religions). And to this point, 'Irrationalism' or the other alternative answers to the lopsided Positivism which sees reason and rationality as the ultimate Savior to Humanity, looks at that, here's the word... internal world. Those were/are attempts to shine the spotlight on the nature of reality that the investigators of the material world tend to negate, or reduce to merely aberrations of some deterministic machine they call Reality, which all must accept as the arbiter of Truth with a capital T, or be branded as an ignorant, non-critical thinker.

 

I do believe there is an interaction that must happen between the objective and subjective worlds of human beings in order to develop as a whole, mature, individual and society. And where is that investigation of the subjective world? In a laboratory? What is informing it? Science?? I don't think so. What about religion? The problem with that is that the bathwater of myth is incompatible with reason to accept them as factual in an objective sense (they are symbolically true in many ways, but the backlash of reason say No! to all of it, since even it itself seems incapable of recognizing that 'inner' truth aspect of it - 'facts, just the facts ma'am, no baby here'.

 

So again, how and what is that reasonable means towards exploring the interior world? Myth is dead, despite attempts at reviving it for its 'baby' in the bathwater claims. That is true in some respects, but it is not a complete system that can in fact work any longer to integrate in that "relational" world, as you and I both recognize. Something that can not only incorporate rationality, but even transcend it to the next level of understanding beyond our rationalistic world today. Myth needs itself to evolve, just as our rational understanding of the world moved up from myth, not get rid of what science does not, nor cannot inform us of.

 

All I am saying is that you cannot reason your way into being human.

I think that our practical day-to-day understanding involves more than reason alone. I think our navigation of the world is not only cerebral but also emotional and somatic.

I'll add to this spiritual. All of our perceptions are frameworks built around this core, whether they are magical animistic, mythical, theistic, non-theistic, etc. Those understandings change, just as our understanding of the nature of the physical world has, from myth to reason to beyond.

 

Is any of this starting to make sense yet?

 

You seem to assume the world is only material.

Not at all. I think the world is primarily relational rather than material, but it can still be understood.

And that nature transcends the physical, doesn't it? And so when I say that we transcend the tool of rationality in our nature, why does this sound so strange to you?

[Legion]

Is any of this starting to make sense yet?

Quite frankly, no. If you wish to assert that learning requires an intuitive leap then I would be prepared to accept that. But that is a point which is briefly made. From my side of things you appear to be doing the equivalent of a magician's hand waving. And a lot of it.

 

The thing that makes me consider myself spiritual is the same thing which gives footing to my rationality. It is a recognition that everything is connected in a great complex web of causality.

[Antlerman]

Is any of this starting to make sense yet?

Quite frankly, no. If you wish to assert that learning requires an intuitive leap then I would be prepared to accept that. But that is a point which is briefly made. From my side of things you appear to be doing the equivalent of a magician's hand waving. And a lot of it.

Care to explain that in specifics? Perhaps start by addressing the many specific points I raised, as opposed to this sort of 'magician's hand waving' of your own?

 

BTW, to say I am suggesting any sort of "intuitive leap" as you put it demonstrates you don't understand what I'm saying.

 

The thing that makes me consider myself spiritual is the same thing which gives footing to my rationality. It is a recognition that everything is connected in a great complex web of causality.

I have no issue with the holistic nature of things. Yet it seems to me your great web is a great web of surface relationships only. Systems dynamics looks at the emergent qualities of the exterior aspects, yet ignores the internal, or the psychological specifically in the case of humans. That is part of what I was talking about using specifics. Specifically speaking, you ignore the entire interior world of everything. You do, and have demonstrated by dismissing without rebuttal everything I said about how it is not the external world alone that informs of us truth.

[Legion]

Noble Antlerman, I get the distinct impression that we may be speaking past one another.

 

Specifically speaking, you ignore the entire interior world of everything. You do, and have demonstrated by dismissing without rebuttal everything I said about how it is not the external world alone that informs of us truth.

I'm not familiar with this terminology... internal world and external world. Is this your private way of saying subjective and objective?

 

In an effort to follow you a bit better, I went back and read the OP. I see that you mentioned metaphor. I might be better prepared to speak of the relationships between metaphor, analogy, and understanding if you think it would be productive and wish to go there.

[Rev R]

where does this "internal world" end and the "external world" begin?

[Antlerman]

where does this "internal world" end and the "external world" begin?

The minute we talk about it.

[Rev R]

where does this "internal world" end and the "external world" begin?

The minute we talk about it.

 

Take it one step further- as soon as the mental formation of separation is grasped.

 

Put simply, examining the world in dualistic terms (even inside your own head) will only get one so far. Silence is not just not speaking, but the mind at rest.

[Antlerman]

where does this "internal world" end and the "external world" begin?

The minute we talk about it.

 

Take it one step further- as soon as the mental formation of separation is grasped.

Yes. Talking about it includes talking to ourselves.

 

Put simply, examining the world in dualistic terms (even inside your own head) will only get one so far.

Languages that are more holistic break down dualism to a point, but not entirely. LR's attraction to Rosen and the complexity sciences shows to degrees movement away from the deeper senses of separateness and begin to open us rationally towards, at the least, an understanding that the world is not so separated. But it doesn't deal with the interior world, that aspect of the sense of 'self', and that is very much part and integral to this holistic system itself. It presents the world as far more integrated, but doesn't look at or include the 'self' in relation to it.

 

Since LR asked what this interior was, I recall sometime ago posting something from Wilber in addressing Shyone's reductionist worldview. I'll just paste it in here again to answer that question:

 

And yet, and yet. Something is terribly wrong. Or rather, terribly partial. All of these diagrams represent things that can be seen with the physical sense or their extensions (microscopes, telescopes). They are all, all of them, how the universe looks from the

outside

. They are all the

outward forms

of evolution, and not one of them represents how evolution looks from the

inside

, how the individual holons feel and perceive and cognize the world at various stages.

 

For example, take the progression: irritability, sensation, perception, impulse, image, symbol, concept.... We might believe that cells show protoplasmic irritability, that plants show rudimentary sensation, that reptiles show perception, paleomammals show images, primates show symbols, and humans show concepts. That may be true (and is true, I think), but the point is that

none

of those appear on any of our diagrams. Our diagrams (thus far) show only the outward forms of evolution, and none of the corresponding “interior phehensions” of the forms themselves (sensation, feelings, ideas, etc.).

 

So the diagrams themselves are not wrong (once we have revised a few errors), but they are terribly partial. The leave out the insides of the universe.

 

And there is a reason for this. The general systems sciences seek to be empirical, or based on sensory evidence (or its extensions). And thus they are interested in how cells are taken up into complex organisms, and how organisms are part of ecological environments, and so on – all of which you can

see

, and thus all of which you can investigae empirically. And all of which is true enough.

 

But they are not interested in – because the empirical methods do not cover – how sensations are taken up into perceptions, and perceptions give way to impulses and emotions, and emotions break forth into images and images expand to symbols…. The empirical systems sciences cover all of the outward forms of all that, and cover it very well; they simply miss, and leave out entirely, the

inside

of all of that.

 

Take, for example, the mind and the brain. Whatever else we may decide about the brain and the mind, this much seems certain: the brain looks something like figure 3-6 (or some anatomically correct figure), but my mind does not look like figure 3-6. I know my mind from the inside, where it seems to be seething with sensations and feelings and images and ideas. It looks nothing like figure 3-6, which is simply how my brain looks.

 

In other words, my mind is known interiorly “by acquaintance,” but my brain is known exteriorly “by description” (William James, Bertrand Russell). This is why I can always to some degree see my own mind, but I can never see my own brain (without cutting open my skull and getting a mirror). I can know a dead person’s brain by simply cutting open the skull and looking at it – but then I am

not

knowing or sharing that person’s mind, am I? or how he felt and percieved and thought about thw world.

 

The brain is the outside, the mind is the inside – and, as we will see,

a similar type of exterior/interior holds for every holon

in evolution. And the empirical systems sciences or ecological sciences, even though they claim to be holistic, in fact cover exactly and only one half of the Kosmos. And that is especially what is so partial about the web-of-life theories: they indeed see fields within fields, but they are really only surfaces within surfaces within yet still other surfaces – they see only the exterior half of reality.

 

[s.E.S. p.p. 112-114]

 

Silence is not just not speaking, but the mind at rest.

The mind at rest allows seeing beyond the understanding, or better put, "Being Itself".

[Rev R]

Languages that are more holistic break down dualism to a point, but not entirely.

 

The language itself is not entirely the barrier. How we use the language is as important.

 

To be perfectly honest, I have difficulty seeing exactly what you are presenting an argument for across these various threads. I’ll give you what I see and you can fill in the holes when you get a chance.

 

What I see is a passionate attempt at forging a middle ground between the blind faith many folks walk away from in de-conversion and the “materialism-only” school of thought that seems to replace it in some. In essence taking the positive values of both and disposing of the negative mindset that can accompany these two means of thought.

 

LR's attraction to Rosen and the complexity sciences shows to degrees movement away from the deeper senses of separateness and begin to open us rationally towards, at the least, an understanding that the world is not so separated. But it doesn't deal with the interior world, that aspect of the sense of 'self', and that is very much part and integral to this holistic system itself. It presents the world as far more integrated, but doesn't look at or include the 'self' in relation to it.

Why should these views deal with the sense of self?

 

What is this self which is so integral to your approach?

 

How does one integrate this self into, for example, Materialism?

 

The mind at rest allows seeing beyond the understanding, or better put, "Being Itself".

 

The mind at rest is “being itself”.

[Legion]

Why should these views deal with the sense of self?

At the root of scientific knowledge there are several dualities. The first of these is a discernment between self and everything non-self. Further, our selves are the locus of many things, and among them are languages. A model (an explicit understanding) of a natural system (another duality - a discernment between a system and its environment) is obtained when the implications between the propositions of a formal language (yet another duality - based on a discernment between syntax and semantics) are brought into (at least partial) congruence with the implications (or entailments) between phenomena.

[Legion]

Take, for example, the mind and the brain.

I suspect that if I can better understand the relations between life and organism then I will be better prepared to understand the relations between mind and brain.

[Antlerman]

Languages that are more holistic break down dualism to a point, but not entirely.

 

The language itself is not entirely the barrier. How we use the language is as important.

Agreed. Good point.

 

To be perfectly honest, I have difficulty seeing exactly what you are presenting an argument for across these various threads. I’ll give you what I see and you can fill in the holes when you get a chance.

 

What I see is a passionate attempt at forging a middle ground between the blind faith many folks walk away from in de-conversion and the “materialism-only” school of thought that seems to replace it in some. In essence taking the positive values of both and disposing of the negative mindset that can accompany these two means of thought.

Partly so, but I'd say more understanding the impetus of both and providing it a new level of incorporation. It's trying to embrace the baby in the bathwater into a new perspective, rather than simply bridging the gap between the two. For me personally, I had always sought to bridge reason and faith only to find that could only happen beyond both. It's not a middle ground, its new ground.

 

LR's attraction to Rosen and the complexity sciences shows to degrees movement away from the deeper senses of separateness and begin to open us rationally towards, at the least, an understanding that the world is not so separated. But it doesn't deal with the interior world, that aspect of the sense of 'self', and that is very much part and integral to this holistic system itself. It presents the world as far more integrated, but doesn't look at or include the 'self' in relation to it.

Why should these views deal with the sense of self?

If they are saying that *reality* is defined by these systems, and they do not take all the psychological, sociological, and cultural influences into account in this 'relational' exchanges, then they are incomplete. They don't factor in that how internal world of reality, the mind, the consciousness of being that is hardly any mere slave to the machine. Why should they deal with it? Because it is not a slave, but a co-creator.

 

What is this self which is so integral to your approach?

Because we are gods.

 

(this is an example of a use of language).

 

How does one integrate this self into, for example, Materialism?

From the One to the many. From the many to the One.

 

(again with language)

The mind at rest allows seeing beyond the understanding, or better put, "Being Itself".

 

The mind at rest is “being itself”.

Indeed.

[Antlerman]

Why should these views deal with the sense of self?

At the root of scientific knowledge there are several dualities. The first of these is a discernment between self and everything non-self. Further, our selves are the locus of many things, and among them are languages. A model (an explicit understanding) of a natural system (another duality - a discernment between a system and its environment) is obtained when the implications between the propositions of a formal language (yet another duality - based on a discernment between syntax and semantics) are brought into (at least partial) congruence with the implications (or entailments) between phenomena.

In English?

[Legion]

Why should these views deal with the sense of self?

At the root of scientific knowledge there are several dualities. The first of these is a discernment between self and everything non-self. Further, our selves are the locus of many things, and among them are languages. A model (an explicit understanding) of a natural system (another duality - a discernment between a system and its environment) is obtained when the implications between the propositions of a formal language (yet another duality - based on a discernment between syntax and semantics) are brought into (at least partial) congruence with the implications (or entailments) between phenomena.

In English?

Before making another attempt let me say this. I was under the impression that this thread is hovering around the subject of understanding and what having an understanding entails. In an effort to contribute, I am putting forth what is known about the nature of scientific understandings.

 

A scientific understanding is more commonly referred to as a model. A model is a relation between a fragment of language called a formal system and a piece of nature called a natural system. As such a scientific understanding is an interplay between the subjective mind and the objective world. In order to make this interplay explicit we must make several discernments and thus create several dualities because every discernment creates a duality. The first thing we discern here is a distinction between self and non-self.

 

Man I hope that was better.

[Antlerman]

Take, for example, the mind and the brain.

I suspect that if I can better understand the relations between life and organism then I will be better prepared to understand the relations between mind and brain.

From the outside. Not from the inside.

[DesertBob]

I have read this thread gamely and it is one of the few times that I am almost totally not following the discussion.

 

I am just going to break down and say (with complete love and respect for all of you, BTW) that this whole thread really has a high MEGO factor for me (Mine Eyes Glazeth Over). Maybe I'm just lazy, but instinctively most of these kinds of philosophical excursions flow right around me and don't get past my bullshit filters.

 

How does any of this relate to putting your pants on in the morning and facing another day? What would make me want to devote hundreds of hours to philosophy that you guys clearly have, only to emerge into some rarified atmosphere that most people can't breathe in -- possibly, myself included?

 

Either the truth at the heart of reality exceeds language or this is all a lot of over-thinking. Either way it seems like a waste of time.

 

Help me out here. Explain to me what I am missing out on.