You Cannot Be Yourself all at Once

If we say that a person is courageous, what are we saying about them? Are we saying that they are courageous every moment of their lives? That if you were to snatch them up at any random moment, you would find them being courageous? What about introverts? If we call someone introverted, does that mean that they are always going to prefer to be alone or that they will always find social interaction draining? This is not to wonder if we might sometimes catch courageous men being cowardly or to wonder if we might find an introvert acting as the life of a party. This is to wonder if there are not times when we might catch someone that we call "courageous" living completely apart from the whole gradient of courage or if we might catch an introvert in a situation where his reactions to crowds do not matter.

In fact, I think it is quite obvious that we can. Whatever we might say about a person, there are certainly times when they escape the entire concept that our description of them is based upon. In fact, I might say that whatever you say about a person is essentially an abstract fiction based on a handful of events. Courageous men are men who have displayed courage a handful of times and have not been caught similarly acting to the contrary. Witty men are men who frequently have moments of wit; they also spend eight hours every night being completely outside the whole game of wit. Sharpshooters spend the better part of their lives not even holding a gun.

This is to say, we exist right now. We exist in this moment. And there is only so much that we can do in a single moment. So whatever attributes make up your character, chances are that at any given moment you are not exercising a lot of them. In what way do you still have those qualities?

You could say that they continue to reside in your nature at all times. A sharpshooter is always capable of acting as a sharpshooter, even if he is not presently holding a gun. His conditioning is different, and that persists through every moment. Witty people are those who can always come up with a quick, snarky response when the situation calls for it, and that readiness is present even when the situation is not. This I would agree with, roughly.

What I think we should take note of is deterioration. The longer you spend away from an activity, the more your conditioning deteriorates. A Greek-speaker who never speaks Greek will become a rusty-Greek-speaker and eventually a former-Greek-speaker. In this way, your self is a balancing act. An undulation. You must repeat in order to preserve your conditioning in order to preserve your nature.

But then, you are never perfectly yourself. You are always yourself in different situations. This is you cooking. This is you sleeping. This is you blogging. This is you arguing. If you never repeated the same situations, you might not have anything to keep you grounded to yourself.

Tainted Faith contra Pure Faith

If there is a Pure Faith, what is its character?

First, what is a Tainted Faith? I want to say that Tainted Faith is effable. Tainted Faith is pagan, that is, comprehensible and worldly. We can make sense of a Tainted Faith, we can paint a picture of the world according to the Tainted Faith. The Tainted Faith is the ineffable collapsed into a sick science.

So then, what is the Pure Faith? The Pure Faith is that thing that is corrupted when made comprehensible. It must be incomprehensible. It must be where reason does one no good. We can not form a picture of the Pure Faith, we cannot imagine what it looks like. It is not clear, logically formed propositions. It may even appear to be nonsense, if we do not distinguish between what is beneath reason and what is above it.

But then, if it is incomprehensible, what does it have to do with us? And how could we possibly interact with it? I propose placing the Pure Faith into a Religious Body. But then, is that not tainting it?

No, because if we understand the nature of what we have done, we know that the religion is not true. That the religion acts as a mechanism by which we practice the Faith.

But if it is incomprehensible, why do we bother? I can not answer that. In fact, I would say that if you have to ask, then it is not for you. You would be happier without it, I bet. Not, mind you, that we are doing this to be happy.

The Enlightened Thinker

Here is someone who sees
himself in such a way.
He is not such a helper.

In Christianity - perhaps all faiths, but certainly Christianity - there repeatedly turns up the figure of the man who knows what the faith is really all about and how the rest of civilization has fallen away from the true religion. This is not too surprising, the entire religion is built upon one such figure. But there is always something discomforting about reading such a thinker.

If you are the only one - or one of the elite few - then it must be that everyone else is wrong. You must lead them, and they ignore you at their peril. But you are a particular man. You love some things more than others. You are terrified by some things and not by others. You have a body type, a skin color, a hair style, a wardrobe. How can an entire church become like you when there is no one else in the world precisely like you?

Perhaps we say that they only need to resemble him in one capacity - the capacity of faith - but men do not divide that cleanly. If he had a different upbringing, a different culture, a different nationality, a different tone of voice, a different socioeconomic status, a different hobby, a different length of penis, a different preferred style of writing or film, a different sized family, a different first crush; then the faith would be different.

I want to say that we should approach all such Enlightened Thinkers as helpers. People who have excelled at some faith game and become a certain kind of man, and who can therefore help us become certain kinds of men. Distinct from them, but great in our own way. That is what I want to say, but is it true from the Christian point of view? It certainly seems to be a rare sentiment among the Enlightened Thinkers themselves, they rarely sell their ways and methods as just another set of ways and methods.

And then I step back out of the Christian Vantage Point, and leave that question to simmer.

I Wonder....

How about this guy?
He seems pretty rigorous!

If you gave a brilliant and rigorous thinker a list of sufficiently rigorous axioms, postulates, and values, could he flesh out an entire worldview that would be perfectly rational?

I am inclined to think that he could. If he were given assigned framework, and also reassured that he would not actually have to believe in his conclusions (since presumably his axioms and values are different from the ones that he was assigned) then I think that actually fleshing out the worldview would become something like a grind. He would make the logically necessary inferences, process the available data, and make relative measurements of probability. Any bias that creeped in would, I imagine, be due to his body trying to find mental shortcuts to avoid expending too much energy, he would not need to incorporate a bias to skew the worldview toward his own values because the entire project would be understood as a hypothetical fleshing out. The inferences only stand insofar as the axioms, postulates, and values are held - he would be safe from any horrifying conclusions because he does not have to share the basic assumptions.

Of course there would be the matter of insufficient empirical data. But that would be no great matter, because he could, in accordance with his assigned assumptions, develop his own "scientific method" that would make all empirical processing just a matter of going through the steps to obtain more measurements and rules for processing the probability of all theories and explanations of empirical measurements.

In fact, our thinker could do away with "belief" altogether. Instead of asking whether or not you believe a proposition, you could turn the entire enterprise into nothing but statements of fact. Instead of asking, "do you believe that there is a city called New York in North America," and the person responding with the binary "yes, I do," or "no, I don't," instead the conversation could be conducted this way, "is there a city called New York in North America" the response would be, "there is 99.9% certainty that there is such a city." Belief and acceptance of propositions would be a necessary evil that would arise as a result of individuals not being aware of the results of probability measurements; the proper and rigorous way to talk about the world would be by talking in measured probabilities. Shades instead of binaries.

Disputes about the probabilities of of a given proposition would not arise, as there would be a clear, publicly available method of calculating probabilities in accordance with the assumed rules. Any deficiencies with the method would be corrected once it was shown that another method furthered the assumed values more fully without violating an assumed truth.

Reasonable disagreement would be impossible. All disagreement would be failure to understand the probabilities calculated by the method.

The method would take the available evidence and the available theories and calculate the extent to which each theory explained the evidence, the extent to which the theory retains unexplained ambiguities, the extent to which the theory conflicted with other available evidence; any theory that contradicted an assumption or that contradicted itself (assuming the impossibility of contradiction is one of the assumptions) would instantly be disregarded as impossible. The available theories could then be assigned numerical values that reflected how their probability stands in relation both to each other as competing theories and the entire body of theories in all disciplines.

In this way, the entire universe, insofar as human beings can perceive it, could be organized into a monolithic body of knowledge and statement of fact. All of it public, clear, and factual. All by that rigorous thinker and his assigned assumptions.

The reason that this will never happen in real life is that we do not have such assigned assumptions. Disagreement takes place at the basic level, at the area that in this little scenario was covered up by assigned assumptions. It is only for this reason that we can have belief, assent, reasonable disagreement, or any kind of diversity of thought. Because when you follow a line of reasoning back far enough, you will come to something personal. Without this, we could reduce the whole enterprise of thought to a method.

The Rotten Body that Faith Resides in

Suppose that there is a God. And suppose that there is a faith that brings us into communion with Him. And suppose that this faith needs the trappings of a religion to be made intelligible.

If there existed a religion that originated in a hoax, was spread by means of deception and violence, and only among the adherents was honesty possible because all the teachers knew the falsehood of what they taught (at least initially until the first teachers died and the religion took on a life of its own), would this be a suitable religion by which we could approach God?

Or perhaps we should ask if it is possible to find a religion that was not similarly rotten?

To What Extent Am I Responsible for Motion

If you do not grow, then you are stagnant. Stagnation is basically conscious death. You go nowhere, but you continue to feel what it is like to go nowhere.

But there is a midpoint between growth and stagnation. Stillness. Basking in being what one is at this very moment instead of rushing on to become something else.

Maybe Stillness and Stagnation is the same thing - just approached with a different attitude.

All the same, I have to wonder, to what extent must I propel myself forward and to what extent will fate, my environment, and my nature carry me? Is it acceptable to just continue being what I am until some kind of motivating pain or motivating situation occurs? Or is that indicative of laziness? Reverse it all - is there something wrong in being too quick to change into something else? Is it our responsibility to spend a little time experiencing what it is like to be what we are?

All this talk of responsibility is, of course, disingenuous. Does the question make sense without that kind of talk? No, not as a question, so instead I can say it like this:

You can sit and wait for something to happen that causes you to change and evolve, or you can try to force the change yourself. Neither is correct; neither is wrong. But it is the way life is.

An Effective Method?

I read, but I don't understand. My eyes scan all of the words and I flip through the pages and eventually I come to the end, but I spent the whole time skating along the surface. All of the words were read and have their opportunity to be represented in my brain, but I do not understand them. I can not explain them to you. Its okay, I did not expect to understand.

So I keep reading. I keep consuming more words, but only skating along the surface. And the depths of the writing still eludes me. I can not follow the author in twisting and stretching and exercising my mind the way he has. But I still don't get it.

And as I keep reading, slowly, I begin to notice patterns. I cannot deny the value that secondary works have in this, not because they tell you what the work means, but because they are an additional perspective that is using similar material for different ends. This makes the patterns stand out more.

And I think back to the books I have read and I realize how little I understand. I realize how the bulk of the book was lost on me. But it is different now, because knowing what I did not know implies that I am now capable of knowing it.

Is this an effective method of learning? No, probably not. It would certainly be a pisspoor way of approaching programming, biology, or history. But it is an appropriate way to approach poetry, I think. Literature as well. These should not be "learned" they are to be experienced. Repetition with minute changes - perhaps along with the occasional sudden breakthrough - this seems to be the proper way to approach literature and poetry. Skating, enjoying, absorbing as a full man instead of cramming information in like something distilled to just reason.

I think this method is an essential step in learning. Skating familiarizes you. Then at some point, you have to start digging down into the material, or all you will ever have is a skater's understanding.

What Makes a Suitable Religion?

If there did exist a Pure Faith, but we could only approach it by first placing it into a religious body, is there some way to determine a best religious body to put it in?

More to the heart of my question: there are religious bodies that seem to make historical claims. Suppose we could disregard the truth of these historical claims, would choosing a religion that made such claims be inferior to one that did not?

Could one use the Christian body for their faith if they could not bring themselves to consider the crucifixion and resurrection an historical event? Is there anything left of the body once you discard that?

What About the Non-Philosopher

On occasion I get into the tendency of seeing philosophy as very important, similar to the way that I used to (well, still do) see religion as very important. If I could not go on philosophical and religious investigations, my life would deflate, it would just be work, sleep, and aimless Googling. And sometimes I forget that this is the way the world works for me, but not for everyone.

The human species is such that anything can be lovable and anything can be loathsome to us. The human species is also such that no matter what is loved there is going to be someone else who just does not care that much. No matter what philosophical perspectives or religious heights we might pioneer, frankly, most of the world is simply not going to care.

It is best to just accept the fact that diversity dictates that your life will not fit correctly on another person's shoulders.

How to Approach Ones Conscience

What is the conscience? It is a moral feeling - a moral voice - it is moral inclination from within. It is a kind of guidance. But what is the nature of its guidance?

Does the conscience proceed from the will? Then the conscience simply beckons you to keep being yourself. To be more like yourself. To keep you to the path that you have chosen.

Does the conscience proceed from instinct? Then the conscience beckons you to live according to your nature. Your biological nature, anyway. It beckons you to be human. To live in a way determined by your genes.

Does the conscience proceed from upbringing? Then the conscience beckons you to live according to society. It tells you to be more like those around you. It tells you to shape yourself according to the lessons you have been taught.

For that matter: is the conscience constant or is it dynamic? If it is constant, then we have found something seemingly mystical, because what else about a human being's feelings and thoughts is so constant? If it is dynamic, then what kind of guide is that who tells you to do one thing and then another?

There are hypothetical ethical imperatives that can be cast as a science. There are moral intuitions and inclinations that make up our conscience. The former lend themselves well to a nihilistic view of values in the world, as well as a utilitarian approach to created value, or an approach that aims to be a certain kind of person, or an approach that aims to value and will in a certain kind of way. The latter lend themselves to what?

I want to say that we should disregard the conscience as anything but a helpful feature that does... something, but does not offer genuine guidance. But it intrigues me. The possibility that it is something deeper than my current understanding of ethics allows makes me want to look a little further. Is it possible that it offers a kind of real, individual guidance in the world? If so, we can approach ethics without bogging down the individual in universal "moral facts" that make it impossible for a man to be himself and instead tells him to be everyone, but also without doing away with imperatives apart from the hypothetical imperatives that exist only after someone has already chosen a goal or thrown his will behind a value.

For the moment, though, I have to call it intriguing, not desirable.