Discussion: Doppelgänger and Sunstone: No Holds Barred

[doppelganger]

So far, I find Sunstone's responses to Doppelgänger's insightful questions to reveal a deep bitterness and resentment. Why is he evading that all-important question #10? What is he hiding?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I really like the discussion on underwear as an evolving metaphor (for something else).

Very insightful.

 

[Sunstone]

So far, I find Sunstone's responses to Doppelgänger's insightful questions to reveal a deep bitterness and resentment. Why is he evading that all-important question #10? What is he hiding?

Doppleganger's shallow insistance on my answering question #10 before its time reveals a deeply disturbing impatience on his part -- an impatience that precisely reflects the malaise of "fast food" culture in which a wait of only a few moments is accounted intolerable. As such, his impatience threatens the very survival of civilization. All things in their time!

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I wish that we could have a whole thread discussing the underwear metaphor.

 

[doppelganger]

I wish that we could have a whole thread discussing the underwear metaphor.

Let's.

Why do people wear underwear? Is it a buffer between our true selves and the masks we wear in social reality? Is the function of underwear to make sure than our true self doesn't seep through the masks that protect us?

 

[Sunstone]

I wish that we could have a whole thread discussing the underwear metaphor.

When you say that, do you speak from the standpoint of a man in his boxers, or of a man in his wife's thong?

 

[Sunstone]

Why do people wear underwear? Is it a buffer between our true selves and the masks we wear in social reality? Is the function of underwear to make sure than our true self doesn't seep through the masks that protect us?

Do people tend to think of their underwear as their "private self" -- a self they show only to certain people they are close to?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

When you say that, do you speak from the standpoint of a man in his boxers, or of a man in his wife's thong?

As a commando!

O perish ye enemies of freedom!

 

[doppelganger]

Do people tend to think of their underwear as their "private self" -- a self they show only to certain people they are close to?

I think most people do (though not our neighbor, "Old Gus," when I was a kid :cover.

It's the protective shield at the next layer of intimacy that conceals me from others. A security blanket against revealing my naked self if you will.

 

[doppelganger]

Is it understandable that people would be shocked, dismayed or threatened by a discussion of underwear? What about metaphorical underwear? What might serve as the undergarment to professions of faith that keep a level of security for a person's naked self?

Is that what we encounter when someone responds with arguments about "that just what I believe" or "it's based on faith"? Are such statements akin to "Please stop looking at my metaphorical underwear!"

 

[doppelganger]

Is a person's epistemology the "underwear" for their faith?

 

[Sunstone]

Is a person's epistemology the "underwear" for their faith?

A person's epistemology would usually be closer to them -- and more revealing -- than their faith, don't you think?

 

[doppelganger]

A person's epistemology would usually be closer to them -- and more revealing -- than their faith, don't you think?

You might be right, Phil. But since this relates to a no holds barred struggle for the very survival of western civilization, I can only assume that your ignorance is a product of having been dropped on your head as a child.

Perhaps underwear is that space that connects epistemology with belief. It conceals the epistemology that lies behind belief, even from yourself! What say you?

 

[Sunstone]

Perhaps underwear is that space that connects epistemology with belief. It conceals the epistemology that lies behind belief, even from yourself! What say you?

It is obvious to me that you have somehow managed to come up with a valid metaphor even despite your early-in-life experience of having your brains addled by colliding head-on with an 18 wheel truck.

However, that tragic accident seems to have blinded you to at least one needed clarification here: If we speak of underwear as the space that connects epistemology with belief, we must be careful to assert that "epistemology" refers to one's actual, living epistemology, and not to one's represented or merely conceived of epistemology. The former is the thing commented on, the thing mapped, the terrain of epistemology. The latter is the commentary, the map of epistemology -- anything we in our wisdom say about our epistemologies.

Surely, we must distinquish between an epistemology and a representation of an epistemology -- in much the same way we can distinquish between a barn and a representation of a barn.

 

[doppelganger]

However, that tragic accident seems to have blinded you to at least one needed clarification here: If we speak of underwear as the space that connects epistemology with belief, we must be careful to assert that "epistemology" refers to one's actual, living epistemology, and not to one's represented or merely conceived of epistemology. The former is the thing commented on, the thing mapped, the terrain of epistemology. The latter is the commentary, the map of epistemology -- anything we in our wisdom say about our epistemologies.

Surely, we must distinquish between an epistemology and a representation of an epistemology -- in much the same way we can distinquish between a barn and a representation of a barn.

Undoubtedly. And with that détente was reached, and the world moved back from the brink of what only moments before had seemed certain disaster . . .

 

[Pariah]

Beautiful conversation.
A majority of the questions cropped up in my thinking, but never got put to words.

The one that stuck out was the difference in spirituality between non-theistic sects of philosophy such as deism, pantheism, panentheism, etc.