I recently visited the fire department museum in Marietta, GA (outside ATL). There were very many interesting things to look at, but one of the things that caught my eye were the gauges on the 19th century fire engine. I experienced them on an emotional level as works of art. The faces and the hands were exquisite, and were no doubt created by hand, by someone dedicated to doing their very best job.

I couldn’t see it with old eyes, but I bet an optics assisted examination would reveal that a similar analogue gaguges on the 80’s style fire engines had a much higher degree of precision, smoother lines, more accuracy and consistency in measurement. But there was something ineffable about the dial, profound and unmistakable. The old timey dial adds to life, the mass produced dial, no matter how well produced, perform a function but otherwise just take up space.

One interesting thing about this quality, which I’ve called Wu after Dick’s book, is how immeasurable and subjective it is. Does that make it less real? I can’t even really define the quality, all I can do is acknowledge my experience of it. Another interesting quality is that it is only available to me in human creations. I don’t experience anywhere in nature, as much as I cherish wilderness.

Dick’s examination is often delivered in the context of distinguishing between original and counterfeit jewelry, which is apt. Another place I experience it is in audio equipment. Even modern ultra high fidelity equipment lacks wu for me, largely because so much of it is produced by machines. There’s a reason musicians who can afford any equipment often opt for old gear.

I wonder if a deliberate effort to restore wu, especially to everyday items, could benefit society at a fundamental level. Craft markets have hardly gone away, and we see a great many side hustle type products in sectors like soap and baby onesies and other home goods and fashion. But wouldn’t it be cool if your stove had wu? Your car? Your mobile?

No idea how we could decide to do that as a global population, let alone implement it. Perhaps it will be a side benefit of the apocalypse.

I promised @chocobean that I would talk about my recent turn to Christianity, so here goes.

The short, trite answer is that I’m taking a leap of faith on a few mystical experiences, and because I’ve run out of spiritual options. Everything else I have tried to do with my life has come up short. A lot of this outcome results from a traumatic early childhood formed, perhaps ironically, in part from Christian religious abuse. In some way perhaps I am trying to synthesize and re-narrate that experience. But also, I really want to go to a Church that is fun, fulfilling, challenging, and does progressive good in the world. There just ain’t a lot of those to choose from, so I figure I need to start my own. For a little more detail, read on. You can skip to the last two paragraphs for a little more reasoned “why Christianity here and now,” independent of my experience.

I was born into a fundamentalist family. Lots of rules, hell, purity, that sort of thing. Very traumatic, and I mean clinical trauma. I left the church in high school thanks to drugs and some smart people, but I maintained a kind of love affair (infatuation?) with good preaching. Something deep inside me responds to the gospel message. I cry when I listen to Jesus Christ Superstar, and a passionate preacher with a good heart, and great gospel music. This is likely tied to suffering-religion at its best helps us grieve and carry on, find joy in a broken world.

One time in college, after a psychedelic party, I found myself unable to sleep, a common side effect I experienced from LSD. I turned on the local gospel station, and suddenly was struck with the urge to go to church. This was black folks gospel, and so I wanted to go to a black church. There was one I knew about, and I have no idea how it was in my consciousness. It was called Life Community Church in Durham, NC. I put on my best suit, tied my tie, and with dilated eyes and doughy disposition I set off. I arrived at precisely 10:30, the service time identified on the marquee.

You may be familiar with black folks time, which is often most evident at church. Black folks time is about moving when the spirit moves you. When I arrived, on white folks time, the church was half-full. It met in an old movie theater, the kind with hundreds of seats. I was ushered to a seat, which was basically the next available seat, they were filled sequentially from the front. This was different from other churches I attended, where members generally seat themselves in their customary location, a respectful distance from others.

There was a large, energetic gospel ensemble delivering the real gospel goods. Large choir, lots of electric instruments, percussion. Everybody dressed better than I was. And I did my best to keep up, clapping hands and shouting and grinning. I was all in.

After a while, the pastor came on stage, a 6’8 Nigerian native. He made a few comments, and invited us to pass the peace. In a white church, this takes a couple minutes, and you politely smile and shake the hands of the people around you. At Life Community, however, everybody left their seats and wandered around giving hugs and smiles and lots of time to each other. No idea how long we were at that, but I did notice that space was now standing room only.

Then the preacher was joined by his 5’4 (at most) Guatemalan wife, who greeted us cheerfully before the pastor began his sermon. It was all mostly about leading a decent life, strong families, moderation, godliness, fairly conservative socially. I was riveted to every word, I clapped and shouted and prayed.
When everything was finally over, and I had been repeatedly and warmly welcomed and invited to come back, I finally made it to my car and noted the time: 3:30 p.m.! And I knew then, this was what I wanted to do with my life-bring this kind of joy, and be a channel of this kind of power.

I didn’t have any real religion then, however, wrongly thinking that was some kind of requirement, and so I left the dream on the table. I went on to become a drug addict, get clean, get married, have kids and begin life as a lawyer.

When the kids started to get mobile, their mom and I decided we ought to go to church, that it would be good for the kids morals, provide community, that sort of thing. I was buddhist/atheist/soft new age, not really in on the Jesus thing, but it seemed right. We found a church with a great garden out front and a pride sticker on the door, and headed in. Compared to Life Community Church, the preaching was good, but not as passionate, though the message more closely aligned with my values.

The best part of the experience was Sunday school, however, and I even taught a couple classes, really enjoyed doing the bible study part of it. I started paying more attention and getting more involved. We brought in Nadia Bolz-Weber as guest preacher one Sunday. Nadia is a powerful preacher, and her work in Colorado was very promising for a time. While she was preaching, I had a mystical experience, a feeling of lightness and an urgent awareness that I should be up there doing that same thing. My (now Ex) wife was surprisingly into the idea, and so were the pastors. I went and toured a seminary in pursuit of the call. But at the seminary I was like, there is no way I can spend three years with these people, and I still wasn’t really a believer, so I let the moment pass. It’s one of the few regrets I have in life, following the call then may have led to my marriage having a very different outcome. Alas for life choices.

Come forward a few years, the marriage has dissolved bitterly, I have come out of denial about how awful my childhood was and how dysfunction of a human I had become, and how much my kids suffered as a result. Among my many ongoing efforts to remedy this, I found myself at a spiritual retreat in what is known in some circles (mainly Quaker) as a “Clearness Committee.” It’s a space where someone with some kind of intractable problem becomes the subject of a conclave of caring folks. I was there to figure out career transition. There were some q and a, some breathwork, and in the middle of a silent spot someone asked the shockingly straightforward question, “what do you really want to do?”

The answer in my mind was immediately, “I want to preach.” And almost as immediately, a voice came into mind “you can’t do that,” coupled with a profound fear of saying so out loud. I knew from previous spiritual work this was a sign that I should immediately take the contrary action, and so spoke it out.

Now, this was not a Christian gathering, but as it happened, the person who asked the question was a Christian pastor, and she gave me some names and numbers of people to talk to. As it also happened, she used to work for a guy in my current Church, who, as it further happened, was the past president of a prestigious divinity school. This was my favorite guy in Church, and so I talked to him, and here we are. A lot of yes all in a row.

So, it’s really a gamble on a set of experiences I don’t fully understand about a God I barely believe in. But I knew almost instantly as soon as I arrived in divinity school that I was doing the right thing. I still don’t believe, but I have made a decision to act in faith anyway. From an intellectual point of view, I have a strong impulse to do something, anything, to try and bring some goodness to the world. And since, in my estimation, for better or worse, America is a Christian nation, it seems Church could be an effective vehicle for that. Plus, I really do want to be a preacher.

I was about to end there because it sounded cool, but I want to say a little more about why Christianity might be especially good for my values, and for the West. More than just custom and tradition, I’m discovering that a lot of the way I think about the existence of the world is really Christian in nature. Most intellectuals since the 18th century or so would point to Plato, or more recently, to chaos as the proper way to order a mind. But in practice, most people are espousing a neo-Platonist Christian kind of justice and morality. In a super short sentence, this is that creation and humanity were made for each other. Ten years ago I would have said, and a large part of me still believes, the truth is more a kind of Manifestatum ex Chao of both together, and perhaps there is nothing particularly special about humanity. However, most people, practically at least, seem to recognize that rational ordering exists uniquely in the human mind alongside a more programmatic animal nature. They also seem to believe in the notion of goodness. Many humanists argue that we can be “good without God,” however, as far as I can tell they arguing about a goodness which is derived from Christian scholarship (love your neighbor). Even if I’m wrong on that, and/or they are right about the uselessness of God for good, most people in the way they act suggest an assumption that true compassion flows from the Christian God. As a result, I think the best way to foment good for most people here where I am geographically is within the Christian religious framework.

Finally, I’m partial to the notion of classical (medieval?) professionalism: a professional is one who professes a noble principle, i.e. clergy profess goodness, educators profess truth, military officers, peace, lawyers, justice, physicians, health, and artists, beauty.

I often tell myself that I'm "already dead". I lost my ego long ago and I often don't mind looking dumb or making mistakes, because at the end of the day, why does it matter? We're all going to die and my existence will not change the earth's future.

Thinking this way has GREATLY helped me look forward to the future and reach true happiness. It feels like whatever happens, I've already reached rock bottom so I can only go ahead.

Having said that, ever since 2016, every year has been better than the last. I now have a good fulfilling career, I have a very good group of friends, I'm good financially and I have all the freedom in the world.

Why do I live? I live for experiences, I live to create memories, I live to explore, I live to create, I live to better myself.

So, what are your reasons? I'm always curious about other people's life stories.

I've found error theory, emotivism, etc. quite compelling, but I noticed that most philosophers are moral realists, though PhilPapers doesn't ask specifically about moral objectivism. As a non-philosopher, I feel that there may be considerations that I haven't come across. The SEP entry seems a bit lacking to me considering it's just a supplement to the entry on moral anti-realism, and there doesn't seem to be an IEP entry specifically focused on moral objectivism, just a tiny section in the entry on moral realism.

There have been a number of threads recently that have touched on this topic recently, and I thought the conversation deserved its own place.

My default worldview for the past decade+ has been something best characterized as naturalistic or materialist (the totality of reality can be explained by material and its interactions.) I've had a few things challenge this view recently, namely the "Hard Problem of Consciousness." I'll post my own comment about what moved me from hard materialist to agnostic on materialism, but I encourage you to post your own reasoning in your comment!

My contribution:

It's 2:17am on a school night, you're a teenager, and you're googling "most disturbing movie ever made" - because you can. Among mentions of films like A Serbian Film and Audition, you also notice that a film with two names is commonly mentioned: Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom. Huh, even the name sounds creepy. After looking behind you to make sure no one's watching, a brief glance at a summary of the movie explains enough to make you want to forget about the whole thing forever. Regardless, you fall further down the Wikipedia hole... (or in my case, you really do forget about it for 10 years, only to unfortunately stumble across it again yesterday.)

Salò was made in 1975 and is based on a novel written by Marquis de Sade in 1785. It is known as one of the most disturbing films ever made, but as I learned recently, the film and novel somewhat pale in comparison to the real life of the author. Sade was a French guy who committed all manners of wild, outrageous, and terrible behavior throughout his life, and his Wikipedia page is a crazy ride. You know the word "sadism?" This man is literally the etymological origin of sadism. (Also, practically his whole existence requires a content warning. In this case, it seems that the art has never been separate from the artist.)

In 1763, Sade was charged with "outrage to public morals, blasphemy and profanation of the image of Christ," which at first makes him seem pretty cool. Alas, it all goes downhill from here, as he was known as a nuisance and danger to every community he lived in.

Later, when Napoleon Bonaparte issued a warrant for his arrest after being offended by his novels, Sade was imprisoned, then had to transfer prisons because he was being such a disgusting sex pest to other prisoners at the first one. His family had him declared insane and moved to an insane asylum. While in the asylum, he was permitted to direct and perform his plays, using the other patients as actors. Somehow, even when living amongst the most underprivileged members of society in prisons or insane asylums, it seems that Sade was never fully prevented from promoting his ideas and art to the world, even though the subjects he explored were universally horrifying to society - then, as well as now. I found this fascinating.

Sade wrote The 120 Days of Sodom on scraps of paper while in an insane asylum in 1785, and lost it in the Storming of Bastille during the French Revolution. It was somehow rescued (eternally unbeknownst to him,) and was finally published in 1904, to eventually be adapted into the film that sent me down this whole rabbit hole.

While reading about Sade's life, I was surprised not only by the major events in history he was present for, but the lasting impact he had on philosophy, art, and culture. As mentioned above, the word "sadism" has its roots in his name. The Surrealists adopted him as an inspiration in the 1920s, dubbing him the "Divine Marquis" and praising his ideas about "sexual freedom." (Side note: I love surrealism, but I swear, I never stop discovering new, unsettling facts about Dali and his ilk.) Along with Surrealism, he is said to have had great influence over Modernist art. Some consider his work to be a precursor of nihilism. Sade also influenced Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, and at least one serial killer.

Discussion

Learning about this guy left me astounded, and I just needed to share with someone. Could I have just posted the Wikipedia article? Yes, but that's not as fun as writing down this crazy story and some of my feelings about it. (Note: I did not link sources excessively in this post, as it generally follows the structure of the Wikipedia article and sources can be found there.)

I couldn't believe I didn't already know about Marquis de Sade before today (maybe because I've never taken a philosophy class?) It also got me thinking that I'd like to hear about any other outrageous, controversial, or just plain strange characters in history that you might know of. Even the other historical figures mentioned above have pretty wild lives themselves. (And on the other hand, I suppose there's so much here to chew on that we may just discuss Sade in general. If so, have at it. I'm particularly fascinated by how such a sick individual has heavily influenced significant parts of our culture, and how to feel about that.)

Fun facts are welcome, considering I certainly didn't bring any.

Let's hear about religious and spiritual (maybe philosophical?) beliefs not considered "mainstream" in the modern West.

The percentage of people who identify as "spiritual", "other", or "none" is rising at the expense of larger "organized" religions.

Disclaimer: it's hard if not impossible to draw hard lines around what is considered a "religion" verses a philosophy, culture, or mere ritual or traditional practice. If you aren't sure if what you believe fits the prompt, err on the side of sharing.

Things that probably fit the prompt:

• Minority religions
• Native beliefs/cultures
• Highly syncretic beliefs
• Non-western religions or beliefs
• "Pagan" beliefs
• Esoteric or occult beliefs or practices

Things that might not fit the prompt

• Mainstream Christian beliefs or traditions
• Naturalism or a lack of belief in any particular religious or spiritual tradition

I don't exclude these two categories because they aren't important, but because they are incredibly important, and most of what we think about religious or spiritual beliefs exist in frameworks created by the above two groups. I want to use this opportunity to learn about others, and I feel that I already know a good bit more about atheism and mainstream Christian theism than most other perspectives.

This is a sensitive subject that is tied deeply to people's sense of meaning; please treat your fellow commentor's beliefs, cultures, and values with respect. Thank you in advance for your input and perspective.

Edit: I'm just gonna list the recommendations I found interesting for my future reference

Proudhon - One of the first anarchists. Wrote a lot about mutualism and tried to come up with mechanisms to share resources based on usufruct

The Dispossessed -Describes an alternate society. Supposedly written more like an anthropological study than a narrative

No God's, No Masters - Written by David Graber, who also wrote the 3 Problems with the Revolution

The Dawn of Everything - Talks about the organization structures of early societies

Participatory Economics - Talks about economic organization without compulsion

Walkaway - Recommended when I mentioned stealth anarchism

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I'm gonna be honest, I'm pretty sick of all the existing forms of politics. Conservatives, liberals, progressives, libertarians, I dont feel like I jive with any of them.

The closest thing I've found to a philosophy I can get behind is anarchism, but I'm not really a fan of revolutionary anarchism either. I'm interested in just discussion of the constructive aspects of it. Like how the alternative vision of the world they advocate for works in practice, and what different options there are for implementation.

I find it hard to really get into, because whenever I try to read up on any kind of political philosophy I run into the people who are trying to evangelize and it just really turns me off to the whole thing.

Does anyone have some good reading recommendations that skip past trying to recruit people, and just is a good discussion?

Hello everyone :)

I write as a hobby and have had an article in my drafts for a long, long time. In essence, I'd like to discuss the "repetitive nature of human tribulations/suffering/life", that is, the fact that regardless of superficial characteristics we all are confronted with extremely similar circumstances throughout our lives.

Whether it's 10 years into our lives or 40, there's joy, heartbreak, loss, a need to belong, some desire for freedom, a need for a purpose, lack of direction, obsession with a newly found direction, etc.

I'd love to come across poets, philosophers, psychologists, etc who have touched upon this subject: we are not defined by our circumstances, as they are, in very broad strokes, largely the same, but by how we are able to adapt and reinvent ourselves amidst those same circumstances.

Looking forward for your answers :)

Thanks!

An interesting, although quite academic, read I was recently suggested was Moral Uncertainty by Krister Bykvist, Toby Ord, and William MacAskill. Does anyone here have any suggestions on (modern) philosophy that you have currently been reading or are interesting in reading?