Metaphysics of Gender.

[John D. Brey]

All things have potential for buddahood.

. . . Did Buddha say that? Or did you?

And if Buddha said it, how do you know it's true? And if you said it, how do you know it's true?



John

 

[MonkeyFire]

. . . Did Buddha say that? Or did you?

And if Buddha said it, how do you know it's true? And if you said it, how do you know it's true?



John

even if you include everyone, everything doesn't require nothingness including evil and suffering.

 

[John D. Brey]

even if you include everyone, everything doesn't require nothingness including evil and suffering.

. . . Not wanting to sound pithy or nit-picking your statement sounds like a canned koan. But if you can can a koan it's thus ko-opted and Buddha would likely KO or opt out of any relation to it.



John

 

[blü 2]

. . . I've tried to make a distinction between "correct," "factual," "accurate," versus "true."

I see none, unless we should also require the statements to be expressed in a manner which doesn't obfuscate, mislead by omission &c. An accurate statement about reality is true by virtue of its accuracy.

The accurate statements we make about our external world today will seem laughable in a hundred years.

We've already touched on that. Indeed it was true that the world was flat. You simply had to look to know this; and that the sun moves round the earth, as do the stars, the moon, &c. Likewise it was true that in 2010 the Higgs boson was a hypothetical particle but in 2012 it was a real particle. Not a big deal. The important thing is that the test for truth remain as objective as we can make it.

a statement is accurate, correct, and factual, to the extent it accurately reflects, or corresponds with the world external to the self. But that accuracy, and correctness, is context dependent.

Which we've also touched on ─ there are no absolute statements.

I don't necessarily agree that truth is a concept. You haven't proven that to be factual, correct, or actual. . . Imo, truth is the power to posit things about observations, facts, and such, that aren't evident about the observation, or the fact, without the power of, and access to, truth.

If 'truth', 'justice', even 'the American Way', aren't concepts, what on earth are they? They're generalizations, abstractions, ideas. Such things have no objective existence; in the absence of a brain which contains the concept of them, they don't exist at all. At this point my usual example is the number 2 ─ it's simply the case that nowhere in the known universe can you point to an uninstantiated 2 with objective existence. Not only that, but you can't point to an instantiated example without yourself defining the what that's being counted, and the field in which those particular whats are found. Two sheep? The ones in the barn? (&c).

. Your statement is the foundation of materialism: the belief that the world we experience it is made up of material things, and states of material things, sitting out there hard and solid and . . . material . . . just as we experience it.

Not quite ─ rather, just as our mature and best-informed judgment tells us is the most accurate description.

But as Noam Chomsky said, materialism is utterly bankrupt until someone proves there's such a thing as material.

I suppose Chomsky lived up to his bold words by never sitting down because the chair was imaginary, and never hesitating to drop a brick on his foot or get run over by a truck? Or how he came to be born at all? You may recall Dr Johnson's refutation of Berkeley's (version of) immaterialism, which Boswell reported:

I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it: "I refute it thus."​

To date, every single thing we thought was material breaks down into packets of information.

Nope. "Information" is one of those fuzzy fudge words, not as entirely loose as "mind", but actually meaning not more than 'data' ─ and data don't work in the manner your statement requires.

 

[John D. Brey]

An accurate statement about reality is true by virtue of its accuracy.

. . . There's no such thing as an accurate statement about reality since "reality" isn't something that can be defined accurately but only tentatively and circumscriptly within a particular time, place, and context.

As Carlos Castaneda might say, you and I inhabit A Separate Reality. . . And as Schopenhauer might say, well actually he did, the world is my world.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

If 'truth', 'justice', even 'the American Way', aren't concepts, what on earth are they? They're generalizations, abstractions, ideas. Such things have no objective existence; in the absence of a brain which contains the concept of them, they don't exist at all.

Justice, and The American Way, might be concepts, and or abstractions. But truth is different. It's the requirement for thought and not a thought in itself. I realize that's not what materialist, atheists, and communists think. . . But I will meet any of them on the battlefield of thought to fight a fair fight and see who must retreat into their wrongheaded belief-sphere first. <s>



John

 

[John D. Brey]

I suppose Chomsky lived up to his bold words by never sitting down because the chair was imaginary, and never hesitating to drop a brick on his foot or get run over by a truck? Or how he came to be born at all? You may recall Dr Johnson's refutation of Berkeley's (version of) immaterialism, which Boswell reported:

I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it: "I refute it thus."​

. . . Quantum physics made Berkeley almost irrefutable. Einstein said if Bohr (and thus Berkeley) are correct, the very concept of refutation is in jeopardy. Quantum physics refuted the classical, material, understanding of the world.

How good then is it that most persons are too daft to understand what quantum physics posits and utterly refutes.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

"Information" is one of those fuzzy fudge words, not as entirely loose as "mind", but actually meaning not more than 'data' ─ and data don't work in the manner your statement requires.

. . . Suffice to say "information" can't be chewed or gnawed on with the teeth. You've to inhale. Swallow. Get it in you.

What's Gatorade say: "Is it in you?"



John

 

[blü 2]

Justice, and The American Way, might be concepts, and or abstractions. But truth is different. It's the requirement for thought and not a thought in itself. I realize that's not what materialist, atheists, and communists think. . . But I will meet any of them on the battlefield of thought to fight a fair fight and see who must retreat into their wrongheaded belief-sphere first.

Come now!

If you're right, you can show me the abstraction , the concept, 'truth', running around in the wild like an uninstantiated 2.

But you can't. And that's because ...

 

[John D. Brey]

Come now!

If you're right, you can show me the abstraction , the concept, 'truth', running around in the wild like an uninstantiated 2.

But you can't. And that's because ...

. . . Would it be too abstract for me to say truth is the epiphenomenon antecedent to the phenomenon that caused it? Because that's what the Talmud, the Zohar, and the Gospel, deal with in every sentence and every saying. Which is their glory. Which, as is said, is too high for a fool ("fool" meaning a materialist, a communist, or an atheist).



John

 

[blü 2]

. . . Would it be too abstract for me to say truth is the epiphenomenon antecedent to the phenomenon that caused it?

Not really. The issue isn't whether consciousness is a product of the hardware ─ there's no credible alternative view. The human brain comes into the world fully ready to understand it in terms of generalized abstract concepts, so that when the carer says 'car' or 'chair' the infant is already equipped to go quickly from specific to general (from 'that car' to 'a car' / 'carness', from 'this chair' to 'a chair' / 'chairness').

The concept of truth also arises very early , since even little kids are capable of lying to exculpate themselves (Did you take the last chocolate, Billy? No. ─ routinely provoking the carer's words about honesty.)

Because that's what the Talmud, the Zohar, and the Gospel, deal with in every sentence and every saying. Which is their glory. Which, as is said, is too high for a fool ("fool" meaning a materialist, a communist, or an atheist).

My acquaintance with the Talmud is limited to a handful of specific paragraphs, my interest in the Kabbalah is the same zero as my interest in astrology or the Tarot, and there are four gospels, so what passages are you referring to specifically?

 

[John D. Brey]

If you have time, I would appreciate a few examples of how metaphysics of gender is the lowest common denominator separating Judaism and authentic Christianity. Thank you.

Gender metaphysics isn't, precisely speaking, concerned with biological gender so much as it's concerned with the philosophical, logical, and theological nature of binary oppositions reified in biological gender.

For instance, "male" is fancied antecedent, first, while "female" is considered secondary, second. Part and parcel of that, ontologically speaking, is the fact that based on the first nuance, it can be posited that the "female" comes out of the "male," since as "first," the "male" is the ground from which the "female" is "manufactured."

In the standard metaphysical relationship between genders, i.e., Judaism's traditional understanding of binary mechanics, a certain dismissal of "woman" (or "female") as secondary, and subordinate, is hard-wired, or written into, the holy text, as interpreted by Jewish tradition. In this interpretation, what's secondary, and particularly what's "made" or "manufactured," is not of the same originality, authenticity, and thus authority, as that which is "created" (or formed first) and is thus the prototype or "original." The Jewish Sages point out that in the Hebrew text, the second human is said to be "made" or "manufactured" בנה while the first, original, human is "created," or formed יצר as the Adam Kadmon.

Which is where Philo and Christianity come into the picture. Philo implied that "male-ness" is immaterial, while "female-ness" is material. Male-ness is spirit, while female-ness is the flesh, concrete, solid, garment, home, or body, where the male (spirit) merely resides. . . If Philo is correct, and the arguments in this thread are founded on the belief he is, then the original human's material "body" would be "female" and not "male," which would throw a serious wrench into Judaism's entire gender metaphysics.

Not only would Philo's gender metaphysics undo Judaism's very foundational interpretation of Genesis, i.e., the idea that the adam (first human) is allegedly male, but once that wrong-headed Jewish traditional bias is undone, a plethora of textual dominoes fall right into place leading directly from Genesis chapter two to the Pauline Epistles in so direct a route and manner that it seems unthinkable that what I'm thinking about in relationship to Philo doesn't seem to have been thought a thousand times over.



John

 

[dybmh]

Gender metaphysics isn't, precisely speaking, concerned with biological gender so much as it's concerned with the philosophical, logical, and theological nature of binary oppositions reified in biological gender.

For instance, "male" is fancied antecedent, first, while "female" is considered secondary, second. Part and parcel of that, ontologically speaking, is the fact that based on the first nuance, it can be posited that the "female" comes out of the "male," since as "first," the "male" is the ground from which the "female" is "manufactured."

In the standard metaphysical relationship between genders, i.e., Judaism's traditional understanding of binary mechanics, a certain dismissal of "woman" (or "female") as secondary, and subordinate, is hard-wired, or written into, the holy text, as interpreted by Jewish tradition. In this interpretation, what's secondary, and particularly what's "made" or "manufactured," is not of the same originality, authenticity, and thus authority, as that which is "created" (or formed first) and is thus the prototype or "original." The Jewish Sages point out that in the Hebrew text, the second human is said to be "made" or "manufactured" בנה while the first, original, human is "created," or formed יצר as the Adam Kadmon.

Which is where Philo and Christianity come into the picture. Philo implied that "male-ness" is immaterial, while "female-ness" is material. Male-ness is spirit, while female-ness is the flesh, concrete, solid, garment, home, or body, where the male (spirit) merely resides. . . If Philo is correct, and the arguments in this thread are founded on the belief he is, then the original human's material "body" would be "female" and not "male," which would throw a serious wrench into Judaism's entire gender metaphysics.

Not only would Philo's gender metaphysics undo Judaism's very foundational interpretation of Genesis, the adam (first human) is allegedly male, but once that wrong-headed Jewish traditional bias is undone, a plethora of textual dominoes fall right into place leading directly from Genesis chapter two to the Pauline Epistles in so direct a route and manner that it seems unthinkable that what I'm thinking about in relationship to Philo doesn't seem to have been thought a thousand times over.



John

Thank you.

 

[John D. Brey]

The issue isn't whether consciousness is a product of the hardware ─ there's no credible alternative view. The human brain comes into the world fully ready to understand it in terms of generalized abstract concepts, so that when the carer says 'car' or 'chair' the infant is already equipped to go quickly from specific to general (from 'that car' to 'a car' / 'carness', from 'this chair' to 'a chair' / 'chairness').

. . . And Noam Chomsky argued, in my opinion persuasively, that the child's ability to pick up grammar the way he does is irreducibly complex, literally impossible (since as he points out you need a particular complexity of grammar to work the way human grammar does, and you can't get there without human grammar).

When Chomsky's atheistic materialist friends chided him for saying such a thing, Chomsky's response was one of his most brilliant moments.

He said be careful what you're saying. For if what you believe to be true is indeed true, viz, the human mind is accidental, contrived, evolved from material things, i.e., a material machine, then why do you think it should be capable of piercing conundrums like irreducibly complex organizations, rather than simply accepting them as realities just as real as the limitations of the human mind.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Thank you.

. . . Sorry I didn't address your question earlier. It's the original direction of the thread. But you know well how thread drift occurs.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

The concept of truth also arises very early , since even little kids are capable of lying to exculpate themselves (Did you take the last chocolate, Billy?

. . . Semantics compounds the problem by not distinguishing between "factuality" and truth. Facts are context dependent and subject to refutation in a different contextual framework. Truth, not so much.

When Billy's dad gets home and mom tell him she thinks Billy has not spoke the truth about a disappearing cookie, the wise father tells her not to accuse Billy of not speaking the truth, but rather, accuse him of twisting the facts.

The father goes to the home-cam and rewinds it to see that Billy and Rebecca grab the cookie together, break it in half, and each devour their half. Billy didn't lie against truth. He merely relativized the factuality of the disappearing cookie. He didn't take it. "They" took it. As Bill Clinton might say, the truth depended on the meaning of "you" in "Did you take the cookie?"


John

 

[blü 2]

. . . And Noam Chomsky argued, in my opinion persuasively, that the child's ability to pick up grammar the way he does is irreducibly complex, literally impossible (since as he points out you need a particular complexity of grammar to work the way human grammar does, and you can't get there without human grammar).

I don't agree with that. Nor can I think of even one modern researcher who does. Perhaps you do and can point me to his or her work on the point?

["]be careful what you're saying. For if what you believe to be true is indeed true, viz, the human mind is accidental, contrived, evolved from material things, i.e., a material machine, then why do you think it should be capable of piercing conundrums like irreducibly complex organizations, rather than simply accepting them as realities just as real as the limitations of the human mind.["]

What does it matter whether or not the material brain be capable of piercing "irreducibly complex organizations" when we (unlike Noam) have no reason to think such things exist? That will underline my question to you in the para above.

Semantics compounds the problem by not distinguishing between "factuality" and truth. Facts are context dependent and subject to refutation in a different contextual framework. Truth, not so much.

It's not very complicated. Truth is a quality of statements. Facts are not.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Genesis says that G-d input a 'part' of Self into adama to make it living sou

No, it doesn't.It says God breathed into him. My breath is not part of me. Is your breath part of you? If I give you mouth to mouth resuscitation, do you become part me?

 

[leov]

No, it doesn't.It says God breathed into him. My breath is not part of me. Is your breath part of you? If I give you mouth to mouth resuscitation, do you become part me?

It is allegory - human is spirit, soul, mind, life force in physical body.
God does not have lungs...

 

[John D. Brey]

It is allegory - human is spirit, soul, mind, life force in physical body.
God does not have lungs...

. . . Right. And in Hebrew, blood is a material representation of breath. So that God forms the physical body of the first human and then places the blood in the body.

So symbolically, when the animal sacrifice is offered, its the blood that's spilled out on the altar. The blood represents the spirit, or soul, i.e., the masculine.

Which causes a problem for Western metaphysics and Judaism since the body is female, and the soul, or spirit, i.e., the blood, is male. Which means the female comes before the male. Which is an inversion of the Jewish rendering of Genesis 2 that has feed into Western metaphysics.



John