The Symposium

Nathan Wheeler

21:00

And therefore my truth may very well negatively impact your truth.

Joseph Weissman

I think of Heidegger and our 'thrownness'; our orientation towards existence itself can be thought of as a wound; a cut that separates (and links) us...

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman I wouldn't say religions are necessarily about sin or debt? Or do you mean in the sense that (conventional) religions are always partially about moral rules?

Joseph Weissman

--Well, at the very least they're about unconscious guilt :)

Nathan Wheeler

@Cerberus I would say that they are

Joseph Weissman

This is the role of the priest, right? --And I'm tempted to add: the king, the cop...

To play our guilty consciences. What a weird ambition! :)

Cerberus

21:01

@NathanWheeler I don't think I would agree with that. Atheism just isn't about a moral code at all. It works on a different plane.

Joseph Weissman

(To use sad passions to diminish our power of acting.)

Cerberus

An atheist's moral code is like a Christian's chemistry: basically contingent and unrelated.

Joseph Weissman

(But sure, there's a very basic point here about the 'juridical' persona that morality responds to.)

(Whereas ethics weighs styles of living, modes of existence against one another to evaluate their worth experimentally; morality is opposed to ethics as art of living)

Cerberus

@NathanWheeler How so? Greeks didn't feel that there was any debt or anything.

@JosephWeissman In the sense of prescribing certain moral rules, yes.

But outside that, not necessarily.

@JosephWeissman You would distinguish between ethics and morality? To me, they are synonyms.

Joseph Weissman

@Cerberus In the sense of harboring this sick ambition to be your guilty conscience... It's about conceptual personae. In fact, you'll find the king-priest 'assemblage' operating as a pair, over and over again, doing apparently different/opposed things :)

Cerberus

21:05

@JosephWeissman Okay, in that sense, all right.

But what do you mean by these opposed things?

Nathan Wheeler

@Cerberus are you saying that chemistry is unrelated to Christianity? because I know many Christian philosophers and apologists who would firmly disagree

Joseph Weissman

Well, I think this is one of the reasons why it's a great insight of Spinoza to recognize how priests (and cops, psychoanalysts, etc.) all use sad passions -- guilt, melancholy, etc. -- to diminish our power of acting, this common 'ethos' they share

Cerberus

@NathanWheeler It is mostly unrelated, yes. That is, Christianity is not really about chemistry.

No more than about any random thing.

Joseph Weissman

Perhaps because for so long priests and kings seemed to be doing different, even inverse operations -- one to bind the subjects, the other to unbind them again...

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman And pain!

Nathan Wheeler

21:07

@Cerberus In Greek mythology, people went to Tartarus when they behaved/lived badly. There was an underlying fear of "sin" and "debt" to the gods of the time.

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman Did they? I would say the archetypical king is also the high priest.

Joseph Weissman

They definitely get conflated in certain systems :)

Cerberus

I think that was the commonest constellation in early Antiquity.

Joseph Weissman

But I feel like we see this pair over and over again in history -- king and priest, or general and oracle, etc.

Cerberus

@NathanWheeler Sin in the general sense of morality, yes. But debt? Not really? You don't owe Hera anything: you just have to obey her laws.

@JosephWeissman There can be and have been interesting dynamics between them, yes.

Nathan Wheeler

21:09

@Cerberus Every religion is about everything though. Do you have to be a chemist to be a Christian? No. No more than you need to be a chemist to be an atheist. However, your view of everything is shaped by your religious viewpoint.

@Cerberus why bothering to obey her laws, you don't owe her loyalty either.

Joseph Weissman

We still haven't even really begun to unpack how we could move from the wound to pure light... :)

--A quick sketch might ask some questions about hatred or rage; the meaning of the cry -- light (or the light in which we see the light) as a scream to the infinite, to the stars; calling out for a tarrying God.

The other side of this might be about sacred violence; and the tension or anxiety of faith which must maintain a certain proximity to the dangerous presence of a living God (close but not too close...)

Cerberus

@NathanWheeler I don't think I agree with that a priori, but anyway, I didn't say there could be no effect of one's religion on chemistry: just that a religion is not mainly about chemistry. Christianity is mainly about certain metaphysical claims (God exists) and ethical claims (you must obey certain moral rules). "You must practice chemistry according to the chemical rules laid out in books 8 and 9 of the New Testament" is just not really part of Christianity.

Even though individuals may base certain chemical practices on Christianity.

@NathanWheeler Because she will strike you down if you don't. By the way, if you're a normal person who obeys the divine laws, you will end up in Hades, which is really a dreary place. Why do you think I have to guard it? Because otherwise, the souls might escape.

Joseph Weissman

Pluto also guards the wealth hidden in the earth... :)

You're more than a soul warden, Cerbie.

Nathan Wheeler

@Cerberus so you don't want to be in her debt by disobeying her laws, because the repayment for the debt is severe

Joseph Weissman

(Also a mythical bank vault overseer.)

Cerberus

21:15

@JosephWeissman That's not in my contract. If people wish to mine gold, that's legal.

@NathanWheeler I don't see that as a debt at all. She just has power. I never did anything to owe her anything, and neither did she. I think it is typical for the Abrahamic religions, but not for most other religions, this sense of debt or the original sin.

The concept or moral rules about right and wrong, and hence sin committed during one's life, yes, you could say that is common to most other religions as well.

Joseph Weissman

I mean, one thing I'm thinking here -- the vengeance underlying the mystical feeling is palpable.

But it's a strangely generalized revenge, right? --Taken out against life, existence; seeking to 'judge' existence morally and so on.

Nathan Wheeler

Certainly some religions give a more happy picture than others about the effect of the debt, or sin.

Joseph Weissman

Nietzsche talks about how priests serve this function of 'weaponizing' resentment, of channeling and concentrating it, causing it to be internalized as guilt...

Nathan Wheeler

And some gloss it over with more shiny stuffs than others. And for others the effect of doing good is varied wildly as well. But there's an underpinning of a moral code, and a debt to someone to uphold that moral code. Whether it's a debt to myself to uphold my own moral code, a debt to humanity to uphold the general moral code, or a debt to a god to uphold a specific moral code, there's always a debt involved.

There have been a few religions based only on fear of a deity over the years, and they've usually ended quickly and badly.

Joseph Weissman

It's curious :)

--There's a strange paradox here, right?

We have to be attuned to what/who is speaking beneath words. What spirit is animating a discursive framework and so on.

Christianity sings song of love and life; but what hatred there is in these songs! What revenge against life...

Nathan Wheeler

21:24

@JosephWeissman on that point I would argue that it's extremely unfair to lump any person into any group with any others because they claim the same name

Joseph Weissman

Absolutely.

Zizek makes this point really well, about how we need to rethink alliances (especially on the left) today.

Nathan Wheeler

I've know some really skeevy athiests in my lifetime

Joseph Weissman

That religion is poised in this really interesting place to make a thorough and critical analysis of contemporary life; to act in a transformative way and so on.

@NathanWheeler For sure! :)

Nathan Wheeler

I've also known some really good people that were atheists

Joseph Weissman

I've met people who will quote radical philosophy then perform a hierarchy on you. This stuff goes deep :)

Cerberus

21:25

@JosephWeissman I don't know...I tend to think of natural selection as a useful perspective from which to explain why religions came to be and persevered. My friend wrote his thesis about how aspects of culture are subject to natural selection and compete against each other. And how certain features may make them more successful. For example, if a religion has a rule "thou shalt spread the faith", that helps.

"Thou shalt not kill thy neighbour" may also make a tribe more successful against other tribes.

Joseph Weissman

This is already a very Nietzschean point it seems to me :)

Bateson says something like -- there's an ecology of bad ideas, just like of weeds...

Nathan Wheeler

I've known some pretty horrid people that claimed to be Christian... specifically, some of the most hateful, spiteful, and bitter people I've ever met have claimed Christianity... but some of the Christians I have known have also been the most awesome, kindest, and selfless people I've ever met as well.

Joseph Weissman

There you go. Don't judge a book :)

Cerberus

@NathanWheeler Call it debt, fear, or duty: I agree that most religions are about that. But atheism really isn't.

Nathan Wheeler

@Cerberus Are you an atheist (if that's considered a fair question)?

Joseph Weissman

21:28

Can a mythical creature be an atheist? :)

Nathan Wheeler

@JosephWeissman LoL

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman Exactly.

@NathanWheeler Sure, there's good people and bad people in any group.

@NathanWheeler More or less. Technically, an agnost.

But my idea that there probably isn't anything supernatural does not give me any moral rules to live by.

Where would I get them? From a book?

Nathan Wheeler

ok, so agnostic... that's a little different... but, what is your motivation for doing anything good?

Cerberus

I have none. I just posit a goal "I must do good" for myself that I cannot motivate.

Nathan Wheeler

but why then posit the goal?

Cerberus

21:32

I have no reason.

Nathan Wheeler

every effect has a cause.

Cerberus

Why breathe? I just do it.

A reason is not the same as a cause.

A reason is subjective, from the inside, while a cause can be objective, as described from the outside.

Nathan Wheeler

what causes you to posit a goal to do good? (it's really the same question, especially supposing free will)

Cerberus

Probably a combination of being hard wired to do so (communities of moral humans were more successful in the past) and cultural upbringing.

Joseph Weissman

...if you need external motivation to do good things, are they good? :)

Nathan Wheeler

21:35

@Cerberus but why not completely disrupt that? success is not important to anything except maybe continuation of the species, and for that -- why do you care?

@JosephWeissman you can do a good thing for entirely the wrong reason.

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman Hehe, I was trying not to go down the path "why do you decide to obey God?"...

Joseph Weissman

If you think intention has nothing to do with ethicality, I guess :)

I submit that for the most part it matters at least a little bit what someone intended by an action

Nathan Wheeler

@Cerberus we've established that... debt/sin

Cerberus

@NathanWheeler Now you're asking for a reason again. I don't know. I have no answer. It just seems desirable to do so.

@NathanWheeler But why do you care about this debt? Why choose to honour it?

Nathan Wheeler

That's kind of my point... just going with the status quo of what's desirable is kind of the same thing. Don't rock the boat. Why? Because you owe it to yourself to and your community to do good. Jail time is often referred to as "debt to society".

It's a penalty for doing wrong that seems less desirable than the outcome of positive action

positive actions come from a sense of "owing it to myself" or "owing it to humanity"

Cerberus

21:43

In a way.

But anyway, atheism just doesn't have much to do with ethics directly.

Even less than Christianity with chemistry, I would say.

Nathan Wheeler

I would disagree. I think that belief or disbelief in a deity, and the concept of eternal consequences deeply effects the moral and ethical actions of individuals

Cerberus

There may be some effect. But what most religions do is just pass on rules that were already the norm before the religion came to exist.

They mostly just codify existing norms.

There are of course exceptions.

But I think my Christian neighbour and I would act the same way with respect to moral dillemmata in the large majority of cases.

Nathan Wheeler

so you would say that moral codes predate religion. I would say that religion resulted in moral codes.

Cerberus

Neither of us kills people. Neither of us steals things. Both of us respect our elders.

Nathan Wheeler

But do both of us love our neighbor as much as we love ourself?

Cerberus

21:49

I'm sure neither of us does.

Although I don't even know what that is supposed to mean.

I prefer a practical situation.

Nathan Wheeler

We can list bits and pieces of a moral code and say "I do this", and "I don't do that"... and every religion has theirs.

Cerberus

Sure.

Although the bulk of the rules will be similar.

Nathan Wheeler

mostly, sure.

Cerberus

So anyway, if you ask an atheist, "why did you help that person?", he won't answer "because I don't believe in God". He will think his disbelief in God is entirely unrelated to his moral decisions.

About 70 % of the people in my country are now irreligious.

But cultural norms have changed very little, except about certain specific things like homosexuality.

Nathan Wheeler

but the atheist may as well not help someone... just because they don't feel like it that day

A Christian who truly practices what they preach would always help

Cerberus

22:00

@NathanWheeler Nope. Then you misunderstand what people are like.

You're connecting morality to religion in a way that I think is not based on reality.

Nathan Wheeler

it's not based on what most people practice, no

Cerberus

@NathanWheeler A Christian who truly practices what he preaches, just as would a good atheist. Nearly all atheists also "preach" that you should help people, you know.

By the way, your country is heading towards irreligion just like Europe...

Nathan Wheeler

my country has been irreligious for years. More people are admitting it now

Cerberus

Note also that the growth of irreligion does not correlate with crime at all.

Haha, okay.

Nathan Wheeler

California just voted in some weird mixed-gender facilities requirement for school children (so boys claiming to be gay can go use the girls showers and toilets, and girls can do the same in the boys rooms)... That goes against most religious moral codes...

Cerberus

22:06

Haha, oh, my.

How very American.

I mean, in a funny way.

Nathan Wheeler

yeah... that's going to increase crime, teen pregnancy, etc... so in some ways the growth of irreligion is having its ill effects

Cerberus

What?

Nathan Wheeler

if girls go in the boys shower, there's going to be trouble... no getting around it

Cerberus

Mixed lavatories are going to increase crime and teen pregnancy?

Joseph Weissman

The unisex ones are probably single-use only for the most part, I would guess...

Cerberus

22:09

I don't believe it. Maybe some local friction in the school.

@JosephWeissman Yeah, exactly.

Nathan Wheeler

that's not what the legislation says... the legislation says that children will be allowed to use their gender-identity facilities, rather than their gender-specific facilities

so "unisex" isn't really the term. There's a boys room and a girls room, and either gender can use either

Cerberus

You think that is going to be a big deal?

Nathan Wheeler

yes, I believe it will increase sexual abuse in schools (consensual and non-consensual)

anyway, it's after 5, and I need to run

it's been fun

Joseph Weissman

I mean, again, if the facilities are 'single-user' I'm not sure I see any real issues.

--I also can't imagine it would be implemented otherwise...

@NathanWheeler See ya! :)

Cerberus

Bye!

@NathanWheeler (By the way, kids have plenty of opportunities already to have sex, and they do; I don't think a school bathroom would add a very large opportunity to do that. People can see and hear you. You're in a controlled environment.)

Joseph Weissman

22:26

Synchronicity

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningful manner. The concept of synchronicity was first described in this terminology by Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychologist, in the 1920s. The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead, it maintains that just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by meaning. A grouping of events by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of cause and effect. ...

...Probably unrelated :)

Cerberus

Ah, not that...

I never understood how otherwise rational people could be involved with synchronicity...

I think I edited that article once.

Joseph Weissman

The diagram is great anyhow:

Cerberus

Haha. A gem.

Joseph Weissman

@Cerberus Really? Neat :)

Cerberus

Or maybe it was the Dutch article.

I can only explain it as a misunderstanding of what causality is; what do you think?

Joseph Weissman

22:33

I mean, the idea is definitely vapid insofar as we understand it as a kind of pseudo-Buddhism for hippies

Cerberus

As usual, much depends on one's definitions, c.q. one's definition of causality.

Joseph Weissman

"Everything's connected, man"

Sure

Cerberus

Heh.

Right!

Joseph Weissman

But there are interconnections between apparently disparate things...

--It convokes this question of the relation between the symbolic and the real that's interesting.

Cerberus

I you believe in the supernatural, then you assume that there are causal relations between apparently disparate things.

Joseph Weissman

22:34

(And so raises some interesting questions about the nature of the imagination...)

Or if you're an ecologist :)

I think it's palpable for an ecologist mindset that there aren't really distinct 'ecospheres' for the psyche, society and the physical world

Cerberus

Sure, many complex systems have difficult-to-prove causal connections.

Joseph Weissman

There are three ecologies -- psychic, social, physical -- but they're interwoven, enmeshed, etc.

Definitely. Chaos...

Any particular event or effect can be read multiply...

Cerberus

Hmm what's an ecologist to you? To me, it is much like an environmentalist...

Joseph Weissman

(I guess would be one simple way to get at some of this, right? I'm thinking of Borges and his library, though there's other directions we could do...)

Well, an ecologist thinks of ecosystems in terms of flows of energy; an ecology transmutes energies, 'analyzes' or cuts them, 'synthesizes' or fuses them, etc.

Almost the way an engineer things about a (software) system, right? Inputs 'transcoded' into output programmatically...

Cerberus

Uhh...

Joseph Weissman

22:37

(Though physicists I think ultimately use a similar 'black box' kind of model, physical processes as transformations of energies; or 'black noise' if we're talking about dynamic or chaotic systems.)

I'm thinking about the way science 'functionalizes' the world, reduces it to a series of mappings.

Cerberus

(All I'm saying is that "this week, you, as a Sagittarius, will have bad luck, because of the stars" is a causal claim. It's about causality. It's just supernatural.)

What are "mappings" here?

Joseph Weissman

Scientific or mathematical functions are the basic instance, right? :)

Cerberus

The basic instance?

Joseph Weissman

Functions are a fundamental example of mappings, a particularly scientific mode of 'cartography'

Cerberus

Is what you mean theories about how, say, light can be predicted, even though physicists don't understand "light" as a Ding an sich?

Joseph Weissman

22:40

Tracing the abstract cartogram that programs the evolution of the universe...

Cerberus

A black box replacing a Ding an sich?

Joseph Weissman

--I'm not really sure how to respond. I'm really just thinking about the models scientists use to understand certain physical ecosystems.

But I guess emphasizing that the scientific functionalization is just one 'reading' of an event.

There's an aesthetic 'reading' of the event in terms of the forces it composes, assembles.

And finally a pure reading of an event through concepts.

These are all distinct abstract filters.

--Just like any particular effect can be 'read' as part of a physical, social or psychic ecosystem...

Really just trying to get at this point about how multiple readings are always possible, I think.

(That none are harder or easier than the others might be another point here...)

Cerberus

I suppose.

If assuming that Zeus casts lightning on the earth helps you to predict it, then it is to some degree effective.

Joseph Weissman

Right? :)

Cerberus

Even if there is no Zeus.

Joseph Weissman

22:47

--I'm not sure I follow ding an sich here, by the way...

A black box as model of the real is opaque, sure.

Cerberus

Well, when a scientist is researching a certain physical phenomenon or idea, like gravity, he tests what it does, what effects it has on bodies, and the like; but he cannot know more about it than that: he cannot know the Ding an sich that truly is gravity, if such a thing exists. And yet he uses a concept of gravity as a Ding an sich as a means to predict its working.

Joseph Weissman

(We can't "describe" it straightforwardly; but rather, we can construct axioms "according" to it...)

Right. Interesting.

I'm tempted to bring us back to the atheism discussion for a moment :)

Cerberus

I thought that was complementary to what you meant when you said scientists treat something like gravity as a black box, i.e. they recognise that they cannot know the Ding an sich inside the box.

@JosephWeissman Haha, by all means.

Joseph Weissman

I wanted to bring out this point Nietzsche makes that it's difficult to absolutely deny the metaphysical possibility of the existence of God

In other words, we have to accept the existence of divinity, if only in this abstract/distantiated form (we can't absolutely deny the metaphysical possibility...)

I think it's kind of in this vein that Meillassoux talks about divine "in-existence" -- that God doesn't exist, but he might or could come to exist...

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman Sure.

@JosephWeissman Depends on what God is!

If it is part of his definition that he has always been, then no...

Joseph Weissman

22:55

Sure. And at any rate, I think that's all I'm really unpacking: that there's a certain subtlety or nuance to critical atheism about the ultimate nature of reality, creation, etc.

(Humility, caution.)

Cerberus

Technically, it would have to be agnosticism.

Joseph Weissman

Well, is Nietzsche agnostic? :)

Keeping in mind who is saying this is somewhat helpful, I think.

Cerberus

Apparently!

Joseph Weissman

I think agnosticism probably is a bit too aporetic (excessive and symptomatic resignation before ultimate "who really knows...?") to capture the 'tension' of this humility or gentleness

Cerberus

Oh, yeah?

Joseph Weissman

22:58

I would submit that only a thoroughgoing and critical atheism/materialism can reach this subtle point in some ways; or rather 'see it through'

I don't know. Now I'm just thinking about religion again.

Wounds and crypts...

Cerberus

I'm still not sure what you mean.

Joseph Weissman

About agnosticism?

I'm really not trying to minimize this moment of "who knows?" -- just I guess wanting to bring out where it goes, the opposite miraculating moment of -- "Oh, so it's..."

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman Yes.

"Bring out where it goes"?

Joseph Weissman

I think in some ways agnosticism might be understood as the basic 'truth' of separation or atheism

Thrown into existence. "Not from here." That we can't ever really know what another desires, or even signifies, etc.

Cerberus

The truth of separation?

Joseph Weissman

23:03

Sure -- the truth of the depths (silences, blindness, spaces) that separate and link us

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman General scepticism?

@JosephWeissman Ah OK.

Joseph Weissman

Agnosticism founders within the lacunae of the psyche, the social

Atheism forms a community of those without a community...

Cerberus

Why can't agnosts congregate?

Joseph Weissman

There's a lived or affective difference that's important to mobilizing or activating this gentleness or humility

They can and do :)

I'm hyperbolizing probably at this point, to dramatize it :) But I'm thinking agnost as the kernel of anxiety

The heart of faith, in an uncanny way!

This trepidation of the borderline

Close but not too close (to the presence of a living God)...

A safe distance from sacred violence.

(The believer who has come too close, gone too far, comes back with a mythology and ends up an unbeliever -- they've precisely lost their faith because they now know, and there is no room for faith...)

There's a certain hesitancy to the agnostic, would be the basic suggestion I think :)

Cerberus

Certainly.

But...

What about it?

Joseph Weissman

23:10

That this hesitancy has an intimate relation with fidelity?

Would be one place to go here. There's obviously a lot we could deconstruct here...

Cerberus

Or isn't it rather that noöne is ever without doubt, neither believer nor unbeliever?

Joseph Weissman

It's curious that this is arguably the basis of the dis-embodied 'ideal' Cartesian subject (of science) -- a generalized doubt about the possibility of knowledge/certainty...

Cerberus

Scepsis permeates science and the arts. Catharsis precedes construction.

If I may attempt to express myself in a slightly Weissmannian way.

Hehe.

Joseph Weissman

--How could you rise anew...? :)

Heh.

Cerberus

Yeah, that.

Joseph Weissman

23:15

Great talk. Apologies for lack of clarity. Tempted to blame some of it on the medium -- it's hard to even begin to get into 'thinking' in the context of a chat...

Cerberus

Haha.

I prefer complex over too simple!

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