Dignity

[Reciprocality]

Dignity is a natural aesthetic, it is a universal ideal, ego happens first when the proclivity for realising a dignified state is not emphasised, or even worse, recognised in others and not conceived to be universal.

Dignity is not based upon competition, and there is no ego except for in opposition to others.

To begin to live life without dialectically separating oneself from others is to create a self-identity with only intrinsic meaning and in want of instrumental meaning.

A dignified self-identity is to intrinsic ends in themselves what an egoic self-identity is to instrumental means for what seems to amount to power.

A self identity then built not from narratives made in separation from others is possible, but what corresponds to it materially? What would be examples of ends in themselves except for attempts at bringing life to ideals, to visions of beauty? 

[Moksha]

On the relative level, dignity is a commonly accepted standard of morality.

Absolutely, dignity still subtly reinforces the idea of separation. Who is there to be dignified, or to feel indignant?

Love dissolves all boundaries, obviating the demands of relative morality.

[Reciprocality]

@Moksha That dignity needs the possibility to feel indignant is actually your projection and your limiting belief, you have confused something that is not a concept for a duality.

Ideals are an entirely different nature than concepts, there can not be concept all the way down. It would be absurd to say that the beauty of a sunset is duality, instead the sunset is approaching a non-dual ideal, this ideal is itself unthinkable yet we have an affinity for experiencing when concrete things approaches it.

This holds true for the ideal of dignity, in our intellectual minds dignity becomes dual to whatever takes it away, and our intellectual minds create then an indignant state, but it is you and not me who wished to perpetuate the intellect.

 

This is literally the debate between the two big ones, you have heard both their names, Aristotle and Plato. 

[Moksha]

@Reciprocality Do you believe ideals absolutely exist, beyond all cosmoses?

Whether referencing the idealism of Plato, which nests the world of objects within the world of forms (cosmos within cosmos) or the realism of Aristotle, which claims that objects can't exist independent of forms, have you considered the absolute reality which is beyond the appearance of forms and formlessness?

[hyruga]

Just focus on love.

Dignity is only necessary when someone treated you with so much disrespect or contempt. For example, even when you love or protect them, they still continue to abuse you in some ways. That's when you make the call to stay/leave/call out the behaviour and maintain your dignity.

[Reciprocality]

7 minutes ago, Moksha said:

@Reciprocality Do you believe ideals absolutely exist, beyond all cosmoses?

Whether referencing the idealism of Plato, which nests the world of objects within the world of forms (cosmos within cosmos) or the realism of Aristotle, which claims that objects can't exist independent of forms, have you considered the absolute reality which is beyond the appearance of forms and formlessness?

@Moksha It is a good question whether they absolutely exist, or rather, an important question. 

However, it is also a very absurd question when you realise that answers are conditioned on questions, and that the meaning of the "absolute" of the question is itself a duality that you have created, so far as it could be an answer to the question.

If there is an absolute of ideals then this absolute must, due to the problem we discovered above, share a nature similar to those ideals (as not being a duality), and only be approached never to be reached. 

[Reciprocality]

8 minutes ago, hyruga said:

Just focus on love.

Dignity is only necessary when someone treated you with so much disrespect or contempt. For example, even when you love or protect them, they still continue to abuse you in some ways. That's when you make the call to stay/leave/call out the behaviour and maintain your dignity.

@hyruga Yes dignity is also a thought, and it becomes often a narrative we give ourself in opposition to others.

Every genuine experience becomes encapsulated by our dual thinking process, and this is what we want to try to avoid.

If someone threw shit at us on the street we would take a shower, you implied that it is only possible to want to take a shower if one feels an opposition towards those who threw the shit on us, I claim that dignity is (when it is not ruined by the ego and the intellect) this desire to take a shower and every analogous desire.

[Razard86]

2 hours ago, Moksha said:

On the relative level, dignity is a commonly accepted standard of morality.

Absolutely, dignity still subtly reinforces the idea of separation. Who is there to be dignified, or to feel indignant?

Love dissolves all boundaries, obviating the demands of relative morality.

Great post. Dignity can only exist in the world of duality. Dignity is a concept rooted in comparison. Once you create dignity, it's opposite is immediately created. If you turn dignity into an absolute you could say everything is dignified, which is no different than saying everything is love, everything is accepted. 

As such from this paradigm, lack of dignity never existed, which is equivalent to when you say WHO is there to be dignified. Because if a lack of dignity never existed, then dignity also cannot be experienced. 

[Reciprocality]

I notice that sometimes I forget that others have too their own private sphere of thoughts also when they do not speak, and that I will never have access to this.

This relates to the ideal of dignity, it developes it further, it is in want of dignity that we forget that other people are in this sense just like us. Yet it is egoic, curious? Perhaps if dignity is ever absent where the ego is present the inverse would be possible too? 

[Moksha]

12 hours ago, Reciprocality said:

realise that answers are conditioned on questions, and that the meaning of the "absolute" of the question is itself a duality that you have created, so far as it could be an answer to the question.

If there is an absolute of ideals then this absolute must, due to the problem we discovered above, share a nature similar to those ideals (as not being a duality), and only be approached never to be reached. 

Notice that the root of ideal is idea, or a thought representing a moral standard. As such, it can't be absolute. A philosopher like Plato could claim that standards independently exist, beyond the thinker, but this is just another idea that can't be confirmed.

This is a fruitful discussion, because it illustrates the conceptual limitations of philosophy. Despite their brilliance, philosophers are entrapped within the labyrinth of the mind. At least Socrates realized that he knew nothing. Philosophers lack the capacity of mystics to escape the maze entirely, by surrendering thoughts and directly realizing the absolute which is their essence.

Awakening is not a conceptual answer to a conceptual question, but an undeniable realization beyond the senses. Even after awakening, the realization is inconceivable to the mind, but it is so profound that the mind becomes sublimated.

@Razard86 ⚡(not elemental damage, just acknowledging the truth of most of your recent posts) 

[Reciprocality]

5 hours ago, Moksha said:

Notice that the root of ideal is idea

@Moksha It is the other way around, the idea of a sunset is created out of experience somehow being fixated on it from no intention of our own, it is in approximation to the ideal of things that experience is abstracted into imagery and when socialised: language and then becomes what we call "ideas".

Though I don't wish to be absolutistic in my approach to philosophy it would be hypocritical of me to feign uncertainty on this matter, certainty is in fact a condition under which philosophical questions are made, precisely because there are uncertain things.

I wont engage the contradictions that occur if I were to reverse the order of ideals and ideas as you attempt, and show in addition how the result is a fake mysticism (which in no sense implies that you would be fake in your mysticism), unless asked directly, such that the questioner actually feel required from inner conscience to engage the logic.

 

"This is a fruitful discussion, because it illustrates the conceptual limitations of philosophy." 

Concepts are limited only so far as they fail to produce the material ground itself for their existence, this were never the task of philosophy, and for those sorry fellers or "brilliant philosophers" as you call them to whom it were made into a task, of which there are disturbingly many, a confusion of their own acquisition of concepts were always present.

Edited May 31, 2023 by Reciprocality

[Moksha]

2 hours ago, Reciprocality said:

Concepts are limited only so far as they fail to produce the material ground itself for their existence, this were never the task of philosophy

What do thoughts produce that is intransient? They constantly churn, in a maelstrom that means nothing.

The only way to realize the unchanging absolute is to look directly within.

It's true that absolute reality is beyond the ken of philosophy, because it limits itself to logic. At best, it realizes as Socrates did that logic is incapable of anything, beyond admitting its own demise. At least knowing that you know nothing is a step toward the inner gate, but it's nowhere near the surrender necessary to pass to the other side.

[Reciprocality]

51 minutes ago, Moksha said:

At best, it realizes as Socrates did that logic is incapable of anything, beyond admitting its own demise.

@Moksha You are equivocating "anything" with these:  "totality", "the already given substratum" or "the composition of the senses".

That logic fails to reproduce these three from its limited means in our limited intellect does not mean that it is incapable of anything.

 

You simply don't understand the problems that philosophy tries to answer. And can therefore not know where mysticism becomes necessary, and what it actually is in opposition to what it is not, such to speak fluently about it with others.

Edit: on the other hand, your mystical insights themselves may be golden. And I am sure I could learn something here.

Edited May 31, 2023 by Reciprocality

[Moksha]

13 minutes ago, Reciprocality said:

That logic fails to reproduce these three from its limited means in our limited intellect does not mean that it is incapable of anything.

You simply don't understand the problems that philosophy tries to answer. And can therefore not know where mysticism becomes necessary, and what it actually is in opposition to what it is not, such to speak fluently about it with others.

Socrates applied logic to conclude that he knows nothing. As much as I admire Plato and Aristotle, I resonate with Socrates. What can logic accomplish beyond admitting its own limitations?

I understand philosophy well enough to know it is entirely bound by conceptualization, and feckless as a means for direct realization.

Absolute reality is beyond logic.

 

[Reciprocality]

19 minutes ago, Moksha said:

Absolute reality is beyond logic.

 

@Moksha Nothing I said implies otherwise, and let me do you one better: Reality is beyond logic.

 

Reality is already the absolute.

[Moksha]

2 minutes ago, Reciprocality said:

Reality is already the absolute.

What is the absolute according to logic?

[Reciprocality]

@Moksha Logic is made out of the absolute, so according to logic there is no absolute, just like how according to an atheist there is no god.

[Moksha]

7 minutes ago, Reciprocality said:

Logic is made out of the absolute, so according to logic there is no absolute, just like how according to an atheist there is no god.

So logic is a limitation the absolute places on itself, in order to appear other than it is? If so, it seems the answer to seeing though its own charade is to look deeper than logic can go.

[Reciprocality]

1 minute ago, Moksha said:

So logic is a limitation the absolute places on itself, in order to appear other than it is? If so, it seems the answer to seeing though its own charade is to look deeper than logic can go.

@Moksha Yes, life could become terrible if all we did were logic, for instance, if I were to think the way I do the first three hours in the morning every hour of my life I would need a psychedelic trip/day long meditation every other day.

I think logic is not only a limitation the absolute places on itself but a limitation it needs to place on itself, and that its absoluteness does not hinge on whether or not it could choose not to place logic on itself. 

 

To look deeper than logic is to fail to think logically, and this failure is non-propostional truth, an absolutely amazing experience if you will call it that, just completely indescribable, or so it is in my case. When you fail to conclude that 20x20 is 400 you actually do not fail logic, because whatever you thought were simply guaranteed from your premises, the problem were instead in your clarity of the premises themselves.

^I think this last phrase would clear up a lot of misunderstandings earlier in the thread, and since it is a very esoteric philosophy of logic, though irrefutable, can be important to pay close attention to, and if you have questions to it I will try to help.

[Moksha]

5 minutes ago, Reciprocality said:

To look deeper than logic is to fail to think logically, and this failure is non-propostional truth, an absolutely amazing experience if you will call it that, just completely indescribable

⚡I would call it not a failure to think logically, but a success in seeing that truth is directly realized, beyond the conceptual capacity of the mind.