Utopianism, communism, feminism, totalitarianism…. In which constitution do we wish to unite ourselves, on top of the fundamental law of love between man and brother?
Insofar, we have established social unity as a continuity of union similar in essence to the united self. Two fundamental principles, from the natures of love, give reason and justification to the ethics and value in life. The first principle was for the social affirmation of the individual identity- a union between individuals that harmonizes diversity by individuality. The second principle was that this union brings about a certain qualia to life- a purpose to exist on top of basic self preservation.
Yet we know that social unity based only on love is an over idealized model of thought. While we attempt to conceptualize a utopia (heaven) where all men are equal, and where love can truly be the sole mechanism of social union – we know that in real life, relations between individuals do not merely end on how much they are in union with each other. On hindsight, we see that our model of love as a primary means of social union still does not completely capture the full essence of social unity.
What is missing from our discussion, as we transit from the unified self to social unity, insofar? Love is the sole mechanism of meaning in our lives, bringing about a form of qualia to life- and a justification that our existence is not merely just for the sake of self perseverance. But love itself cannot be the only construct of all social relationships. We do not have to dwell into deep philosophy to find out that not every relationship we share with is purely built on the basis of love. We form alliances with our co-workers, compete against our rivals, are in servitude to our superiors, and manage our subordinates. Such relationships between us then are real, yet we can hardly take the model of metaphysical union and justify that we manage our subordinates because we wish to be in union with them in servitude.
Take very close note that all of the above analogies have three common concepts- these concepts overlap each other and have specific meanings. They are: role playing, responsibility, and authority
So the question of role playing, of responsibility and of authority, comes into the equation. The roles we play with relation (relative) to each other cannot be fully equal on face value (we will disregard metaphysical value for now), since common intuition tells us that there must always be a leader within any group. On a theological note- the qualia of every individual is unique, and from the assumption that there must be a meaning of man within this earth, we see immediately slight discrepancies of qualia (incorrect to state ‘meaning’) between individuals. It is from this relativity true authority is formed and from this phenomenal existence of authority- the question of responsibility and sovereignty.
On a sidetrack, we can use this reason of Goodness to justify the sovereignty of God. Since the qualia of God Himself is infinite (He is the fundamental source of Goodness), henceforth such infinite qualia transcribes to an ultimate sovereignty over all beings of creation. In light of this we then proclaim the words “all power and honor and glory and praise to you Lord”.
Let us focus back to the three concepts of role playing, responsibility and authority. If we were to allow ourselves to play a little further with definition games, we find out that the concepts of roles, responsibility and authority are actual one in nature. This nature, on a human context (we do not include the earlier mention of God) can be succulently summarized into the nature of politics. We will not be using the vigorous definition of politics as politicians utilize today; rather, when we use the term politics, we actually are describing the mechanisms of any form of social behavior that involve the any of the above three concepts. In this respect we will thus unify office politics, clique alliances, and sports competitions, all the way to the big words of communism, totalitarianism or utopianism.
Now, what is the nature of politics? We have just introduced politics as the ‘other’ form of social relation, apart from love, to social unity. From the above sidetrack, we can see how politics as a preclusion to authority, is directly related to meaning, qualia and goodness. Yet we hold that politics itself, and authority cannot hold any meaning, since it cannot convict the individual to meaning. Insofar, the definition of politics is still very muddled and ambiguous. However we will now attempt to define politics on a more methodological basis.
In essence, politics is not the ‘other’ form of social relation apart from love- politics does not account for certain relationships that love itself cannot define, neither does it justify as an alternative method of social unity. Rather, as we recall the fundamentals of the Moderation Doctrine once more, and from the earlier conclusion that love forms the ontological basis of all relationships; we realize that politics ultimately has to form the epistemic basis of relations. As we attempt to break down the essence of our relationship with each other on a logical basis into arguments, the intuitive aspect of love disappears first, since experience itself cannot be further broken down by empirical methods. Consequently, what remains as proof of our ‘relationship’ is no more than scientific concepts and politics, and a mere skeletal structure of epistemic logic.
From the theory of Truth, politics and love come hand in hand to compliment our relationship with each other. The political status (authoritical status) of mother and child, added on to the ontological (true) love between them, leads rise to the full relationship between two individuals. And it is from this political status we differentiate the relationship between an individual from his parents, and from his friends. From the basis of politics we recognize our roles within society, and on the basis of love we see union from diversity. From our social roles we play we express and re-affirm our individuality, and then we come back to the two concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. (see project RN (T) for further elaboration)
From the theory of Goodness, politics alone cannot convict the soul, but brings about a logical framework for the many different permutations of convicting love to manifest. While the world emphasizes overtly on politics and lesser on convicting love, we then see the fallacy of materialism, the futility of power struggles, and parody of success for the sake of success as described in our prologue. Yet we cannot disregard the importance of politics within this world- since the relative discrepancy of authority can serve as a means of a community towards objective goodness. From our current disposition such a claim still remains as a very idealistic view, however for now we may at least reconcile the nature of politics with respect to Goodness. We will discuss the validity of this claim in our later posts.
The question of authority still eludes many today, and sadly, our definitions of authority are still rather incorrect on a metaphysical basis. Should our above reasoning hold credit, then authority itself is directly related to goodness, and true authority can only manifest when the proponent is inherently good. In this respect, authority naturally follows the path of invoking respect from the people, through the service of love by the proponent, rather than the current view of invoking subjugation from the people, through the action of enslavement by the proponent. Laws then should liberate the people in ethics, rather than encroaching them in a world of do’s and don’ts- aimed only for the convenience of control by the government.
Moreover, such a theory would correspond with theology once more. Should God hold ultimate sovereignty, then it is true that his ‘kingdom is not one of this world’, where conventional notions of power apply. Rather as we integrate the basic concepts today with that of the bible, it becomes apparent what does that authority that Jesus speaks of truly mean. In truth it means goodness. We may sidetrack from here to discuss in detail the validity of every government and every specific law in comparison to the objective goodness (of God’s Kingdom). However due to constrictions in scope of this project, and our strive not to bring about religious allusions, we will only touch upon the fundamental factors (of politics, goodness and respect) in law, government and society in general.
We cannot do justice to the topic of politics within this project-although much more can be elaborated on the different kinds of constitutions (political movements) and their corresponding qualia. However, in summary we finally get to see the full construct of our social unity. We started our quest from the united self, brought about love as an ontological unity between individuals, seen that love brings about meaning but cannot account for all relationships, and finally complete this social unity with politics as its epistemic counterpart. In the meantime we introspect the natures of love and politics in light of goodness, and see that authority and goodness are directly linked.
In the next post we will wrap up our discussion on social unity. We will see to a complete moderation doctrine for social unity, congruent to the moderation doctrine that builds up the objective personal identity. As we transit from the theory of truth towards the theory of goodness by induction, we may hopefully gain further clues to the nature of goodness, and its implications to us and our lives.
28 December 2009
11 December 2009
What it means to say 'I love you'
It seems that from the last post we have reached a certain conclusion that all relationships must be based on ontological love, complimentary to just the epistemic theory of union as advocated by philosophers, before ethics may be fully realized. We get the see love as a form of conviction that brings about a certain meaning to life. There is also a very abstract link between meaning and goodness implied in the last post, but we will K.I.V. this notion for now. We will only elaborate on this abstract link in the next faculty of “The Meaning of Goodness” after more light is made known on the fundamental concepts of love and social union.
Do pause the expansion for a while- we shall deviate a little from our quest for goodness today to recap, tie up open conclusions, and introspect a little further into the natures of love. The theme of this post will be ‘what it means to say I love you’. We shall be using this theme, with psychologist Sternberg’s Triangular Model of Love as a conceptual framework (for this post only), and from there summarize and derive some important concepts essential to our next level of discussion.
According to Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, the parameters of passion, intimacy and commitment form the three bases (he calls them dimensions) of the ‘love triangle’. Any given relationship may consist of a single basis, a combination of two bases, or a permutation of all three bases in varying degrees and proportions. A basis of pure passion would be analogous to an infatuation. On the other hand, pure intimacy would be analogous to liking. And finally, Commitment alone can be called as ‘empty love’. Three other forms of love can be derived from the combination of any two parameters, namely: romantic love, companionate love, and fatuous love. Ultimately, a full permutation of all three bases forms consummate love.
A graphical representation of his triangular theory of love can be charted as follows:
On top of these parameters of love, many psychologists have postulated that loving appears to be a qualitative different feeling from liking, not simply strong liking. This postulation becomes obvious in light of the above model, since we can see liking as a subset of love. Naturally, the full nature of love transcends the concept parameters of liking, although the full nature of liking can be fully accounted for within the parameters of love.
Of course we can restrict ‘I love you’ to these three dimensions, but we know that love is far more than just that- after all the title itself is already a pun.
On deeper though, a question that may arise within some of us- What do these three bases have anything to do with the natures of interpersonal union (via truth) and meaningful conviction (via goodness) that we have been discussing? The triangular theory of love breaks down the concept of love (via logical analysis) in a very systematic manner, down to its partial concepts of passion, intimacy and commitment. On the other hand, we have been examining the natures of love in the dimensions of truth, goodness and beauty (I will touch on this only in the future). I do not mean to say that Sternberg’s model of love is incomplete or inaccurate, neither am I contradicting myself in my earlier posts. On the other hand, I do not want to crudely rehash either theory into the other model. Indeed, we can see from hindsight that commitment brings about conviction, and intimacy brings about union, but that explanation will not do justice to the True nature of love itself.
So how can so many differing perspectives of love be simplified into one simple theory? How ought we to truly love our girlfriends then, bearing in mind all of these above concepts, yet bearing in mind that we are merely laymen trying to live a better life?
Do recall from the earlier post ‘on love and work’- from the previous faculty of truth, we have defined love as: an ontological intuition that unifies two or more individuals (or subjects); when subjected to the individual perspective, love becomes an emotional experience that brings about a certain affection, and attachment. Love forms the basis of positive (unifying) interpersonal relationships, and indirectly affects one’s sense of social and personal identity. We observed then that this definition (the definition by truth) was incomplete, since it does not account the meaning of love within.
Insofar, we have been digging around the meaning of love- from the definition by truth we see love as a form of social unity- a continuity of union similar in essence beyond the united self; analogous to the electroweak and gravitational theories of physics. From there we also see that love has been venerated as a value that brings about qualia (quality) to our lives, bringing forth a potential meaning to life. It is from this meaning that ethics is formed- to that implied postulation of Goodness. Love then naturally becomes a source of conviction (the definition by meaning a.k.a the second nature of love) for the soul.
What has been stated in Sternberg’s Triangular Model of Love has little to do with our quest for meaning in love (the second definition). But nevertheless plays a very important key in understanding love as a social union similar in essence beyond the united self. As we recall the ingredients key to the formation of the individual, we see that four fundamental concepts that stem from the theory of truth: Epistemology, Ontology, Realism and Idealism; which in turn transcribes to logic, intuitive feelings, materialism and idealism in The Moderation Doctrine.
The moderation doctrine as we recall, is an analysis by truth into the constructs of being. Now do try to compare elements from the moderation doctrine to Sternberg’s Triangular Model of love, which we said previously to be a logical analysis (truthful analysis) of love. Immediately we see a greater correlation between the two theories, owing to their groundings in truth (only). Passion would correspond to ontological materialism, Commitment to epistemic materialism, and Intimacy to ontological idealism. As noted in ‘on love and work’, there is no counterpart for epistemic idealism, since love cannot be created by ideals alone; or technically because idealistic truth alone cannot convict the soul, especially when love is supposed to be ontological in nature. (Do note that love can still be created out of logical processes owing to the feedback from cognitive processes to emotive feelings. Do also note that Sternberg calls epistemic materialism Empty Love.)
So in this respect we conclude once more for clarity: Love has a definition of truth (we have came from), as a social union beyond the united self. From both the statement in ‘on love and work’, and now from the Sternberg’s Model of love, we confirm that epistemic idealism cannot create love- on the lack of basis of meaning, and hence we confirm that love is ontological in nature. We also confirm the second definition of love- as a conviction to the soul.
What does it mean to say ‘I love you’ then? To transcribe the above concepts into meaningful actions, technically this declaration of love means a couple of things:
Firstly, ‘I love you’ has a meaning congruent to ‘I want to be in union with you’, and ‘I want you to be in union with myself’. Coincidentally it takes two consensual declarations of union for love to manifest, and in this respect, this union can be what we call colloquially fifty-fifty. Secondly, it also has a meaning congruent to ‘You mean a lot to me’. This can build up from the first definition, or it can exist on its own; after all, we (our united selves) mean everything to our selves, and ‘you mean’ (social unity) is an essence similar to personal unity. We imply meaning with goodness earlier, so ‘I love you’, for now, also means a statement of affirmation ‘to me, you are good’. (We will see to the validity of this subsequently)
Also, we can take a leaf out of Sternberg’s analysis, and the moderation doctrine, to break down the ‘love’ in ‘I love you’ into coherent sections. True love implies that ‘our love is a union that encompasses the full theory of truth’, and in this respect we throw in all the findings of Sternberg (or the moderation doctrine) to try to consummate this love. Romantic Love, Companionate Love, Fatuous Love, Infatuation, Liking and Empty Love; where does the love that we make in our declarations ‘I love you’, exactly lie?
Project RN (T2), at this stage, is still not complete. But at least in the essence of truth and goodness, we have at least made a holistic address to what it means to say ‘I love you’. However, bear in mind that there is still a third nature of love- describing how beautiful love is, and how it in-turn affirms the individual to a better state of being. I am very sure that many of us would have heard of this nature of love before, but unfortunately we cannot discuss this today due to the limitations in scope of this project. This final nature of love may be explained through the theories of Beauty in project RN (T3), and we may then piece together the full picture of love.
Pulling ourselves back to our quest of meaning, other questions of love and ethics, goodness and meaning still remained unanswered. In the next post we will see a convergence between the love in ethics that we speak of, and the real-life relationships we forge with acquaintances (that we all can’t just love equally). We will use the moderation doctrine to a great extent to introspect the theories of Plato and Aristotle. Hopefully, as we finally integrate ethics and politics, we may see to a unified community, and hopefully a better and more meaningful life.
Do pause the expansion for a while- we shall deviate a little from our quest for goodness today to recap, tie up open conclusions, and introspect a little further into the natures of love. The theme of this post will be ‘what it means to say I love you’. We shall be using this theme, with psychologist Sternberg’s Triangular Model of Love as a conceptual framework (for this post only), and from there summarize and derive some important concepts essential to our next level of discussion.
According to Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, the parameters of passion, intimacy and commitment form the three bases (he calls them dimensions) of the ‘love triangle’. Any given relationship may consist of a single basis, a combination of two bases, or a permutation of all three bases in varying degrees and proportions. A basis of pure passion would be analogous to an infatuation. On the other hand, pure intimacy would be analogous to liking. And finally, Commitment alone can be called as ‘empty love’. Three other forms of love can be derived from the combination of any two parameters, namely: romantic love, companionate love, and fatuous love. Ultimately, a full permutation of all three bases forms consummate love.
A graphical representation of his triangular theory of love can be charted as follows:
On top of these parameters of love, many psychologists have postulated that loving appears to be a qualitative different feeling from liking, not simply strong liking. This postulation becomes obvious in light of the above model, since we can see liking as a subset of love. Naturally, the full nature of love transcends the concept parameters of liking, although the full nature of liking can be fully accounted for within the parameters of love.
Of course we can restrict ‘I love you’ to these three dimensions, but we know that love is far more than just that- after all the title itself is already a pun.
On deeper though, a question that may arise within some of us- What do these three bases have anything to do with the natures of interpersonal union (via truth) and meaningful conviction (via goodness) that we have been discussing? The triangular theory of love breaks down the concept of love (via logical analysis) in a very systematic manner, down to its partial concepts of passion, intimacy and commitment. On the other hand, we have been examining the natures of love in the dimensions of truth, goodness and beauty (I will touch on this only in the future). I do not mean to say that Sternberg’s model of love is incomplete or inaccurate, neither am I contradicting myself in my earlier posts. On the other hand, I do not want to crudely rehash either theory into the other model. Indeed, we can see from hindsight that commitment brings about conviction, and intimacy brings about union, but that explanation will not do justice to the True nature of love itself.
So how can so many differing perspectives of love be simplified into one simple theory? How ought we to truly love our girlfriends then, bearing in mind all of these above concepts, yet bearing in mind that we are merely laymen trying to live a better life?
Do recall from the earlier post ‘on love and work’- from the previous faculty of truth, we have defined love as: an ontological intuition that unifies two or more individuals (or subjects); when subjected to the individual perspective, love becomes an emotional experience that brings about a certain affection, and attachment. Love forms the basis of positive (unifying) interpersonal relationships, and indirectly affects one’s sense of social and personal identity. We observed then that this definition (the definition by truth) was incomplete, since it does not account the meaning of love within.
Insofar, we have been digging around the meaning of love- from the definition by truth we see love as a form of social unity- a continuity of union similar in essence beyond the united self; analogous to the electroweak and gravitational theories of physics. From there we also see that love has been venerated as a value that brings about qualia (quality) to our lives, bringing forth a potential meaning to life. It is from this meaning that ethics is formed- to that implied postulation of Goodness. Love then naturally becomes a source of conviction (the definition by meaning a.k.a the second nature of love) for the soul.
What has been stated in Sternberg’s Triangular Model of Love has little to do with our quest for meaning in love (the second definition). But nevertheless plays a very important key in understanding love as a social union similar in essence beyond the united self. As we recall the ingredients key to the formation of the individual, we see that four fundamental concepts that stem from the theory of truth: Epistemology, Ontology, Realism and Idealism; which in turn transcribes to logic, intuitive feelings, materialism and idealism in The Moderation Doctrine.
The moderation doctrine as we recall, is an analysis by truth into the constructs of being. Now do try to compare elements from the moderation doctrine to Sternberg’s Triangular Model of love, which we said previously to be a logical analysis (truthful analysis) of love. Immediately we see a greater correlation between the two theories, owing to their groundings in truth (only). Passion would correspond to ontological materialism, Commitment to epistemic materialism, and Intimacy to ontological idealism. As noted in ‘on love and work’, there is no counterpart for epistemic idealism, since love cannot be created by ideals alone; or technically because idealistic truth alone cannot convict the soul, especially when love is supposed to be ontological in nature. (Do note that love can still be created out of logical processes owing to the feedback from cognitive processes to emotive feelings. Do also note that Sternberg calls epistemic materialism Empty Love.)
So in this respect we conclude once more for clarity: Love has a definition of truth (we have came from), as a social union beyond the united self. From both the statement in ‘on love and work’, and now from the Sternberg’s Model of love, we confirm that epistemic idealism cannot create love- on the lack of basis of meaning, and hence we confirm that love is ontological in nature. We also confirm the second definition of love- as a conviction to the soul.
What does it mean to say ‘I love you’ then? To transcribe the above concepts into meaningful actions, technically this declaration of love means a couple of things:
Firstly, ‘I love you’ has a meaning congruent to ‘I want to be in union with you’, and ‘I want you to be in union with myself’. Coincidentally it takes two consensual declarations of union for love to manifest, and in this respect, this union can be what we call colloquially fifty-fifty. Secondly, it also has a meaning congruent to ‘You mean a lot to me’. This can build up from the first definition, or it can exist on its own; after all, we (our united selves) mean everything to our selves, and ‘you mean’ (social unity) is an essence similar to personal unity. We imply meaning with goodness earlier, so ‘I love you’, for now, also means a statement of affirmation ‘to me, you are good’. (We will see to the validity of this subsequently)
Also, we can take a leaf out of Sternberg’s analysis, and the moderation doctrine, to break down the ‘love’ in ‘I love you’ into coherent sections. True love implies that ‘our love is a union that encompasses the full theory of truth’, and in this respect we throw in all the findings of Sternberg (or the moderation doctrine) to try to consummate this love. Romantic Love, Companionate Love, Fatuous Love, Infatuation, Liking and Empty Love; where does the love that we make in our declarations ‘I love you’, exactly lie?
Project RN (T2), at this stage, is still not complete. But at least in the essence of truth and goodness, we have at least made a holistic address to what it means to say ‘I love you’. However, bear in mind that there is still a third nature of love- describing how beautiful love is, and how it in-turn affirms the individual to a better state of being. I am very sure that many of us would have heard of this nature of love before, but unfortunately we cannot discuss this today due to the limitations in scope of this project. This final nature of love may be explained through the theories of Beauty in project RN (T3), and we may then piece together the full picture of love.
Pulling ourselves back to our quest of meaning, other questions of love and ethics, goodness and meaning still remained unanswered. In the next post we will see a convergence between the love in ethics that we speak of, and the real-life relationships we forge with acquaintances (that we all can’t just love equally). We will use the moderation doctrine to a great extent to introspect the theories of Plato and Aristotle. Hopefully, as we finally integrate ethics and politics, we may see to a unified community, and hopefully a better and more meaningful life.
7 December 2009
On Ethics and Love (An Introduction)
Before we may begin on the topic of ethics, it would be beneficial if we may retrospect the nature of ethics as it is understood today.
Ethics as we know today, is greatly split into two opposing views, to which we may differentiate from their ontologically objective and epistemologically subjective interpretations. Most religions throughout this world (and to a certain degree, the layman) conventionally consider ethics as a set of moral choices that ultimately aims for goodness. What would be deemed ethical would then weighted on a ontological basis, where acts that promote the qualia of life are encouraged, and acts that bring about destruction and disdain frowned upon.
On the other hand, philosophers have often viewed ethics in a rather contrasting light. As stated by Wikipedia: Ethics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics and morality is (meta ethics), how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), how moral capacity or moral agency develops (applied ethics), how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what it’s nature is (moral psychology), and what moral values people actually abide by (descriptive ethics)
I am sure that many of us would have a certain grasp on the concepts of ethics and morality way before our address in this topic today. Ethics and morality are important, if not imperative to our lives as we live within a communal world of social interaction. Fundamentally, it is on these grounds we consider the nature of ‘doing good’ and question ourselves the appropriate course of action to be taken given a set situation. We know that it’s not ethical to kill and morally unsound if we were to show disrespect to our elders. We also know that it is good to be considerate and bad to be self-centered.
But what constitutes such responses from us? What justifies our justification that killing is unethical and wrong while preserving a life is ethical? On what grounds do we consider showing respect to the elderly a morally upright action? Beyond the superficial recognition of ‘this is because my teacher says so’ or ‘because my religion does not advocate to this’ many people find themselves at a loss to bring justification to their ethical propositions. Deep within them they intuitively know that killing is wrong, but when logical premises are brought on the table and substantially considered in turn, many a times most people would have a proposition shift from an objective viewpoint to a relativistic viewpoint.
A typical case scenario is as follows:
Take for example our nineteen year old female living in Ang Mo Kio, supposedly she is a healthy and bright student of NUS, we immediately know that it is psychologically unsound, lest morally unethical, to even contemplate killing her. Our laws of society would deem any attempt to take her life away as a murder. In this case, the ethical viewpoint is an objective cognitivist proposition. Now, do allow us to alter the premise slightly with each subsequent statement:
Is it then ethical to kill a healthy female of thirty nine years?
Or a young teenage girl with a terminal illness,
Or the woman of thirty nine with diabetes,
Or the woman of thirty nine with a terminal illness,
Or an old woman of seventy nine with diabetes,
Or the old woman with a terminal illness,
Or the young teenage girl who wishes to die, wishing somebody would alleviate her misery,
Or that old woman doomed to die wishing somebody would alleviate her misery?
Do note that as each subsequent statement is proposed, additional logical premises which advocate the action of killing are brought into the scenario, primarily through the age of the woman, as well her corresponding health status. While some combination of premises still does not justify the termination of her life, there are certain combinations that would ever so slightly shift our previously objective viewpoint to one possibly of “okay, I got to think about it”.
Such a viewpoint, in light of epistemic ethics, is now a Subjectivist cognitivist proposition.
At precisely how and when did we shift our viewpoints? Typical ethical case scenarios usually involve the use of logical analysis, built on top our basic intuitions (yes, we are back on to the moderation doctrine) on what is right. However, we now know that logic itself can be easily warped into two opposing stands, since it draws feedback from the cognitive processes, which in turn draw feedback from emotions. This leads rise to relativity, and thus the subjective nature of ethics.
Now, what is the true nature of ethics? Should it be an objective intuition (as advocated by humanists), or should ethics be another subjective argument? Conventional philosophy has substantiated both propositions extensively with various justifications- drawing reason mainly from empiricism, rationalism and intuitionism to justify the objective truth of ethics; against reason from skepticism, prudentialism, preferentialism, and ultimately, amoralism (i.e. ethics does not exist). These concepts are highly abstract and elaborate in nature, and it would be highly taxing for us to dive head-on into this domain of idealistic concepts to seek understanding of the nature of ethics.
On the other hand, from our previous faculty on identity we recall the concepts of the individual, the community, and love. From the premise of love being a form of ontological union between individuals, as well as an action-mechanism to define both personal and social identity, we get to see an objective better in terms of truthful identity identification- should that form of union exist within our world as compared to a world devoid of it. If ethics is fundamentally about the set of common goods for both the individual & the community that we value and abide by, and love is the primary force that defines both the individual and the community, how are these two related?
Interestingly enough, the concept of ethics is interlinked very strongly with the concept of ‘righteousness’ and ‘goodness’. With regard to ethics, what has been deemed rights by society naturally becomes ‘good’; and if we were to carry on with this train of thought, ethics itself becomes a cognitive justification of what is right and good. While what may be deemed right and good may come during the ‘means’ , or the ‘end’ of a moral act, it is very important to note that the human perception of righteousness, be it as an objective entity, or a relativistic viewpoint, is very intimately related to our earlier concepts of ‘love’ and ‘individuality’. In fact, be it the ‘means’ or ‘the ends’- what humanity has deemed a righteous act is actually an act that promotes love, and the individuality.
And how is this so?
It is no coincidence that the concept of love as a certain form of ontological union had persisted throughout the history of mankind. While the exact definition itself is diverse (and sometimes radically erroneous), the prevailing intuition of congeniality, of empowerment for the self, and the re-affirmation to the like-minded, have been indulged over cultures. It is from this respect, love and its derivative concepts have often been venerated as a (living) value on top of the basic drives to exist and reproduce, and to seek pleasure for oneself. And it is from this in turn love has always been seen as an act that brings about qualitative meaning to life- after all, the layman intuitively knows that a lifestyle of pleasure and gratification hardly holds any meaning (or purpose).
It is actually on this premise of love as a value that had brought up the entire faculty of ethics, and subsequently the philosophy of ethics. As stated in “On Love and Work”, it is impossible to bestow meaning and conviction based on pure reason. Similarly, we cannot mean ethics by just simply considering it in the comfort of our homes as a philosophical inquiry. For a fact that epistemic ethics have only led many into a wild-goose chase of never-ending subjectivity and relativism; and for a fact that ethics for the sake of ethics is a actually a logical-paradox, since the nature of ethics is supposed to bring about a form of purpose on top of living. Ethical questions (similar to the above postulation of our nineteen year old-girlfriend) would be never ending, with all attempts to address ethics would be no more than another attempt to debunk the opposition in a debate session. The question of the purpose of the purpose of life would thus be no more than an intelligent-folly of man.
As usual, to the philosophy of ethics must be added the basis of convicting love, can we then bring out the essence of the true ethical way of living, and subsequently the meaning of life. Now that we may finally understand the nature of ethics itself, to what are we leading to?
Indeed, the question on what exactly is ethical (and what’s not) can never be fully be answered. We may never be able to specifically point our fingers unto a given situation and objectively set an empirical justification to it. But as we attempt to break down ethical situations with a little more philosophy, or while we attempt to live what we deem as the morally righteous life, the basis of love for the self and the neighbor would be imperative in our quest for that elusive ‘good’ we have experienced, and yet never understood.
Ethics as we know today, is greatly split into two opposing views, to which we may differentiate from their ontologically objective and epistemologically subjective interpretations. Most religions throughout this world (and to a certain degree, the layman) conventionally consider ethics as a set of moral choices that ultimately aims for goodness. What would be deemed ethical would then weighted on a ontological basis, where acts that promote the qualia of life are encouraged, and acts that bring about destruction and disdain frowned upon.
On the other hand, philosophers have often viewed ethics in a rather contrasting light. As stated by Wikipedia: Ethics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics and morality is (meta ethics), how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), how moral capacity or moral agency develops (applied ethics), how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what it’s nature is (moral psychology), and what moral values people actually abide by (descriptive ethics)
I am sure that many of us would have a certain grasp on the concepts of ethics and morality way before our address in this topic today. Ethics and morality are important, if not imperative to our lives as we live within a communal world of social interaction. Fundamentally, it is on these grounds we consider the nature of ‘doing good’ and question ourselves the appropriate course of action to be taken given a set situation. We know that it’s not ethical to kill and morally unsound if we were to show disrespect to our elders. We also know that it is good to be considerate and bad to be self-centered.
But what constitutes such responses from us? What justifies our justification that killing is unethical and wrong while preserving a life is ethical? On what grounds do we consider showing respect to the elderly a morally upright action? Beyond the superficial recognition of ‘this is because my teacher says so’ or ‘because my religion does not advocate to this’ many people find themselves at a loss to bring justification to their ethical propositions. Deep within them they intuitively know that killing is wrong, but when logical premises are brought on the table and substantially considered in turn, many a times most people would have a proposition shift from an objective viewpoint to a relativistic viewpoint.
A typical case scenario is as follows:
Take for example our nineteen year old female living in Ang Mo Kio, supposedly she is a healthy and bright student of NUS, we immediately know that it is psychologically unsound, lest morally unethical, to even contemplate killing her. Our laws of society would deem any attempt to take her life away as a murder. In this case, the ethical viewpoint is an objective cognitivist proposition. Now, do allow us to alter the premise slightly with each subsequent statement:
Is it then ethical to kill a healthy female of thirty nine years?
Or a young teenage girl with a terminal illness,
Or the woman of thirty nine with diabetes,
Or the woman of thirty nine with a terminal illness,
Or an old woman of seventy nine with diabetes,
Or the old woman with a terminal illness,
Or the young teenage girl who wishes to die, wishing somebody would alleviate her misery,
Or that old woman doomed to die wishing somebody would alleviate her misery?
Do note that as each subsequent statement is proposed, additional logical premises which advocate the action of killing are brought into the scenario, primarily through the age of the woman, as well her corresponding health status. While some combination of premises still does not justify the termination of her life, there are certain combinations that would ever so slightly shift our previously objective viewpoint to one possibly of “okay, I got to think about it”.
Such a viewpoint, in light of epistemic ethics, is now a Subjectivist cognitivist proposition.
At precisely how and when did we shift our viewpoints? Typical ethical case scenarios usually involve the use of logical analysis, built on top our basic intuitions (yes, we are back on to the moderation doctrine) on what is right. However, we now know that logic itself can be easily warped into two opposing stands, since it draws feedback from the cognitive processes, which in turn draw feedback from emotions. This leads rise to relativity, and thus the subjective nature of ethics.
Now, what is the true nature of ethics? Should it be an objective intuition (as advocated by humanists), or should ethics be another subjective argument? Conventional philosophy has substantiated both propositions extensively with various justifications- drawing reason mainly from empiricism, rationalism and intuitionism to justify the objective truth of ethics; against reason from skepticism, prudentialism, preferentialism, and ultimately, amoralism (i.e. ethics does not exist). These concepts are highly abstract and elaborate in nature, and it would be highly taxing for us to dive head-on into this domain of idealistic concepts to seek understanding of the nature of ethics.
On the other hand, from our previous faculty on identity we recall the concepts of the individual, the community, and love. From the premise of love being a form of ontological union between individuals, as well as an action-mechanism to define both personal and social identity, we get to see an objective better in terms of truthful identity identification- should that form of union exist within our world as compared to a world devoid of it. If ethics is fundamentally about the set of common goods for both the individual & the community that we value and abide by, and love is the primary force that defines both the individual and the community, how are these two related?
Interestingly enough, the concept of ethics is interlinked very strongly with the concept of ‘righteousness’ and ‘goodness’. With regard to ethics, what has been deemed rights by society naturally becomes ‘good’; and if we were to carry on with this train of thought, ethics itself becomes a cognitive justification of what is right and good. While what may be deemed right and good may come during the ‘means’ , or the ‘end’ of a moral act, it is very important to note that the human perception of righteousness, be it as an objective entity, or a relativistic viewpoint, is very intimately related to our earlier concepts of ‘love’ and ‘individuality’. In fact, be it the ‘means’ or ‘the ends’- what humanity has deemed a righteous act is actually an act that promotes love, and the individuality.
And how is this so?
It is no coincidence that the concept of love as a certain form of ontological union had persisted throughout the history of mankind. While the exact definition itself is diverse (and sometimes radically erroneous), the prevailing intuition of congeniality, of empowerment for the self, and the re-affirmation to the like-minded, have been indulged over cultures. It is from this respect, love and its derivative concepts have often been venerated as a (living) value on top of the basic drives to exist and reproduce, and to seek pleasure for oneself. And it is from this in turn love has always been seen as an act that brings about qualitative meaning to life- after all, the layman intuitively knows that a lifestyle of pleasure and gratification hardly holds any meaning (or purpose).
It is actually on this premise of love as a value that had brought up the entire faculty of ethics, and subsequently the philosophy of ethics. As stated in “On Love and Work”, it is impossible to bestow meaning and conviction based on pure reason. Similarly, we cannot mean ethics by just simply considering it in the comfort of our homes as a philosophical inquiry. For a fact that epistemic ethics have only led many into a wild-goose chase of never-ending subjectivity and relativism; and for a fact that ethics for the sake of ethics is a actually a logical-paradox, since the nature of ethics is supposed to bring about a form of purpose on top of living. Ethical questions (similar to the above postulation of our nineteen year old-girlfriend) would be never ending, with all attempts to address ethics would be no more than another attempt to debunk the opposition in a debate session. The question of the purpose of the purpose of life would thus be no more than an intelligent-folly of man.
As usual, to the philosophy of ethics must be added the basis of convicting love, can we then bring out the essence of the true ethical way of living, and subsequently the meaning of life. Now that we may finally understand the nature of ethics itself, to what are we leading to?
Indeed, the question on what exactly is ethical (and what’s not) can never be fully be answered. We may never be able to specifically point our fingers unto a given situation and objectively set an empirical justification to it. But as we attempt to break down ethical situations with a little more philosophy, or while we attempt to live what we deem as the morally righteous life, the basis of love for the self and the neighbor would be imperative in our quest for that elusive ‘good’ we have experienced, and yet never understood.
Beyond the United Self
In essence, Project RN (T) itself is a complete address on the conceptual fundamentals required to bring the ‘living best’ to our lives, but it is still incomplete in terms of allowing us to be ourselves fully. Personal definition of the knowledge beyond the ‘united self’ on the meaning of life and the higher reason of ethics have to be in place to complete the human epistemological knowledge on the theory of life, and as this project highlights, an ontological counterpart has to be undertaken to fully affirm the epistemological knowledge acquired by the individual.
In this post we will overview the potential problems beyond the united self- we find out that see that the living best does not merely end with the united self, but actually continues on to the united community. We also see that one of the major obstacles that hinder our path of truth and objectivity in Project RN (T) would be the nature of goodness itself. We also expand (as in introductory introspective) the notion of truth and goodness as sibling concepts being one in nature.
In our previous project we have focused greatly on the theories to bring about ‘the living best’, and had dwelled in detail on the fundamentals that would allow us to live the best way of life. Much of the findings in Project RN (T) were based on the assumption of existence of the objective truth, and throughout the project we have been using the major arguments of truth to justify our objective makeup. The project had three main topics: Truth, The Moderation Doctrine, and Identity- and ended on the premise that love defines the individual and sets the fundamentals of higher ethics and meaning of our lives. This was also partially owing to the reason (given then) that as far as the human epistemological knowledge was concerned, topics beyond the threshold of the ‘unified self’ are currently deemed to be still subjective in nature- ethics, as we know it to be, is very relative.
And so we ended the living best, in light of truth, there.
But even we have an ‘united self’ that is capable of both logical reasoning and intuitive experiencing, of both the material and the ideal, to built up a moderated personal identity that is not compromised to one’s social identity on the grounds of love, we know that such an integrated personality does not necessarily entail a full life of goodness and meaning. Indeed, the ‘living best’ may allow us to live a lifestyle of objective ease and meaning, however it remains no more than a technique for a good life on face value. To our objective way of living must be added the objective purpose of living; that was highlighted especially in the concepts of ‘Materialism’ and ‘Idealism’, and many times throughout project RN (T) we were reminded that personal conviction for the definition of ‘a meaningful life’ must be personally added on top of the theories presented before the essence of this project may be fully realized. In other words, ‘the living best’ that we speak of can never be truly be the living best unless there is a certain meaning to it.
Now, a certain conflict arises- on one hand we postulate that there was an objective truth to all things, and if we were to follow this train of thought down the concepts discussed in Project RN (T), we would eventually preclude that there is indeed an objective truth for our subjective morality and ethics to converge to. Perhaps some of us would have an intuitive answer to this issue- that such subjectivity would eventually converge on the premise of Goodness- But on the other hand, our conventional world has adopted a view that Goodness itself is subjective- since there is no hard and fast rule to compel humans to acknowledge a certain set of Goods just as our objective innate social tendencies had compelled the need of interpersonal unity and love.
Indeed, the idea of goodness itself has been a very elusive concept. Virtually every layman has a certain intuition on what goodness is, based on what is good for them and the things they hold meaning to (I’ll dwell into the dynamics of conventional goodness later). However, that objective ontology becomes no more than a subjective debate when placed on the grounds of reason and persuasion. Many a times we watch an advertisement knowing that it is unscrupulous and un-ethical, but when we attempt to go deeper to analyze why and how it is ‘wrong’ we find out that there is nothing very wrong with it at the first place.
It is in this respect some of us will begin to question the nature of Goodness itself. Goodness apparently does not follow the critique method for investigating truths, since it appears to be objective and subjective at the same time to even the same individual. Goodness cannot be conveniently classified as idealistic or realistic, and epistemic or ontological, although the dimension of the individual and the community may capture some essence of Goodness- If ‘the living best’ that we speak of involves a certain objective best (the superlative of good), how can this postulate be realized if the idea of ‘best’ is still very much bogged in murky waters by our theories of truth?
The problem of the nature of Goodness does not end there. From the Introduction to the Moderation Doctrine, we have observed once that ‘the concept of truth and goodness are actually interlinked’, although the very different nature of these two domains has led to great confusion on whether such a link is ‘objective or an arbitrary invention of the human cognition’ (i.e. goodness is not a truth).
Curiously, the link between Truth and Goodness, as we transit from project RN (T) to project RN (T2) is a link quite analogous to a similar problem in the world of physical sciences. While we are able to explain the individual components to compose the unified self, we find that it is relatively impossible to use that same model to compose a justifiable unified community out of a collection of unified personalities; even though we somehow know throughout that both unions are similar in nature. This problem bears no difference in our failure to reconcile the theory of gravity (a mass collection of atoms) with our theories of the electro-weak forces (within the atoms). We cannot do justice in applying equations from one domain to another, although we intuitively know that these forces are one in nature, since they both obey the inverse square law.
It is very interesting to note that it is on these very areas of conflict the question of the existence of a God had arisen throughout the history of mankind. Should Truth and Goodness be one in essence (not in nature), it is imperative (since we are creations and subsets of Truth and Goodness) that we were objectively created, along with our world and the rest of the universe- by a single objective God that encompasses both qualities of Truth and Goodness. Should it be so, then naturally the meaning of life would then be a lifelong strife to such ideals. From there, the concept of improvement progress and evolution would arise, to creation- as part of the journey to the ultimate Truth and the Good. This interpretation has been embodied by Christianity, which advocates the existence of a True objective God, in which we were created to journey on this earth to the ultimate reconciliation with Him and our neighbors (The Church) in love. From which we get the three aphorisms: God is Truth, God is Good, and on both occasions, God is Love.
Such a monotheistic view is one very possible way of postulating the meaning of life; on top of the living best- and scientific studies that such (religiously devout) people actually do live better lives (at least in their own subjective sense) than people without a personal interpretation of meaning.
So we return back to the fundamental questions- what is goodness? How does it relate back to truth? And how do they interplay to build up the true ‘living best’ of both theory and meaning? In the process, what does love got to do with truth and goodness, since it (coincidentally) lies between that dimension of the individual and the community- between the stand-off of truth and goodness? After all, if there is no purpose to life, then existence would be no more than for the sake of existence, and we all know that existence itself does not require anything beyond the united self. So why the natural strive to the community: why does nature strive to a better when a state of being already exists? These are what we usually perceive as the deep questions of life asked by only profound theologians, but today we finally join them in search to these questions. To find that they are actually fundamental questions, simple and empirical, merely put-off at the back of our minds while we address much more complex questions of calculus, MO theory, and literary interpretations.
And so the quest on for the living best continues.
In the following post we will start our search from the premise of love. We shall begin our attempt to unite love and goodness via induction into one satisfactory explanation (for the time being) through the faculty of ethics and morality. Hopefully by the end of this faculty, we can see a convergence between these two concepts, and from there deduce more possible ways to the living best in light of both love and goodness.
In this post we will overview the potential problems beyond the united self- we find out that see that the living best does not merely end with the united self, but actually continues on to the united community. We also see that one of the major obstacles that hinder our path of truth and objectivity in Project RN (T) would be the nature of goodness itself. We also expand (as in introductory introspective) the notion of truth and goodness as sibling concepts being one in nature.
*
In our previous project we have focused greatly on the theories to bring about ‘the living best’, and had dwelled in detail on the fundamentals that would allow us to live the best way of life. Much of the findings in Project RN (T) were based on the assumption of existence of the objective truth, and throughout the project we have been using the major arguments of truth to justify our objective makeup. The project had three main topics: Truth, The Moderation Doctrine, and Identity- and ended on the premise that love defines the individual and sets the fundamentals of higher ethics and meaning of our lives. This was also partially owing to the reason (given then) that as far as the human epistemological knowledge was concerned, topics beyond the threshold of the ‘unified self’ are currently deemed to be still subjective in nature- ethics, as we know it to be, is very relative.
And so we ended the living best, in light of truth, there.
But even we have an ‘united self’ that is capable of both logical reasoning and intuitive experiencing, of both the material and the ideal, to built up a moderated personal identity that is not compromised to one’s social identity on the grounds of love, we know that such an integrated personality does not necessarily entail a full life of goodness and meaning. Indeed, the ‘living best’ may allow us to live a lifestyle of objective ease and meaning, however it remains no more than a technique for a good life on face value. To our objective way of living must be added the objective purpose of living; that was highlighted especially in the concepts of ‘Materialism’ and ‘Idealism’, and many times throughout project RN (T) we were reminded that personal conviction for the definition of ‘a meaningful life’ must be personally added on top of the theories presented before the essence of this project may be fully realized. In other words, ‘the living best’ that we speak of can never be truly be the living best unless there is a certain meaning to it.
Now, a certain conflict arises- on one hand we postulate that there was an objective truth to all things, and if we were to follow this train of thought down the concepts discussed in Project RN (T), we would eventually preclude that there is indeed an objective truth for our subjective morality and ethics to converge to. Perhaps some of us would have an intuitive answer to this issue- that such subjectivity would eventually converge on the premise of Goodness- But on the other hand, our conventional world has adopted a view that Goodness itself is subjective- since there is no hard and fast rule to compel humans to acknowledge a certain set of Goods just as our objective innate social tendencies had compelled the need of interpersonal unity and love.
Indeed, the idea of goodness itself has been a very elusive concept. Virtually every layman has a certain intuition on what goodness is, based on what is good for them and the things they hold meaning to (I’ll dwell into the dynamics of conventional goodness later). However, that objective ontology becomes no more than a subjective debate when placed on the grounds of reason and persuasion. Many a times we watch an advertisement knowing that it is unscrupulous and un-ethical, but when we attempt to go deeper to analyze why and how it is ‘wrong’ we find out that there is nothing very wrong with it at the first place.
It is in this respect some of us will begin to question the nature of Goodness itself. Goodness apparently does not follow the critique method for investigating truths, since it appears to be objective and subjective at the same time to even the same individual. Goodness cannot be conveniently classified as idealistic or realistic, and epistemic or ontological, although the dimension of the individual and the community may capture some essence of Goodness- If ‘the living best’ that we speak of involves a certain objective best (the superlative of good), how can this postulate be realized if the idea of ‘best’ is still very much bogged in murky waters by our theories of truth?
The problem of the nature of Goodness does not end there. From the Introduction to the Moderation Doctrine, we have observed once that ‘the concept of truth and goodness are actually interlinked’, although the very different nature of these two domains has led to great confusion on whether such a link is ‘objective or an arbitrary invention of the human cognition’ (i.e. goodness is not a truth).
Curiously, the link between Truth and Goodness, as we transit from project RN (T) to project RN (T2) is a link quite analogous to a similar problem in the world of physical sciences. While we are able to explain the individual components to compose the unified self, we find that it is relatively impossible to use that same model to compose a justifiable unified community out of a collection of unified personalities; even though we somehow know throughout that both unions are similar in nature. This problem bears no difference in our failure to reconcile the theory of gravity (a mass collection of atoms) with our theories of the electro-weak forces (within the atoms). We cannot do justice in applying equations from one domain to another, although we intuitively know that these forces are one in nature, since they both obey the inverse square law.
It is very interesting to note that it is on these very areas of conflict the question of the existence of a God had arisen throughout the history of mankind. Should Truth and Goodness be one in essence (not in nature), it is imperative (since we are creations and subsets of Truth and Goodness) that we were objectively created, along with our world and the rest of the universe- by a single objective God that encompasses both qualities of Truth and Goodness. Should it be so, then naturally the meaning of life would then be a lifelong strife to such ideals. From there, the concept of improvement progress and evolution would arise, to creation- as part of the journey to the ultimate Truth and the Good. This interpretation has been embodied by Christianity, which advocates the existence of a True objective God, in which we were created to journey on this earth to the ultimate reconciliation with Him and our neighbors (The Church) in love. From which we get the three aphorisms: God is Truth, God is Good, and on both occasions, God is Love.
Such a monotheistic view is one very possible way of postulating the meaning of life; on top of the living best- and scientific studies that such (religiously devout) people actually do live better lives (at least in their own subjective sense) than people without a personal interpretation of meaning.
So we return back to the fundamental questions- what is goodness? How does it relate back to truth? And how do they interplay to build up the true ‘living best’ of both theory and meaning? In the process, what does love got to do with truth and goodness, since it (coincidentally) lies between that dimension of the individual and the community- between the stand-off of truth and goodness? After all, if there is no purpose to life, then existence would be no more than for the sake of existence, and we all know that existence itself does not require anything beyond the united self. So why the natural strive to the community: why does nature strive to a better when a state of being already exists? These are what we usually perceive as the deep questions of life asked by only profound theologians, but today we finally join them in search to these questions. To find that they are actually fundamental questions, simple and empirical, merely put-off at the back of our minds while we address much more complex questions of calculus, MO theory, and literary interpretations.
And so the quest on for the living best continues.
In the following post we will start our search from the premise of love. We shall begin our attempt to unite love and goodness via induction into one satisfactory explanation (for the time being) through the faculty of ethics and morality. Hopefully by the end of this faculty, we can see a convergence between these two concepts, and from there deduce more possible ways to the living best in light of both love and goodness.
Prologue- On Love
This excerpt touches on concepts highlighted on the topic of truth, epistemology, ontology, materialism, idealism, personal identity, social identity and love. For clarity and comprehension, please read this excerpt after completing the entire faculty of ‘The living Best’.
“Man’s two greatest purpose of living is of work and love” – Sigmund Freud
What is love again?
From the topic of identity we get to see the nature of love. Love is an ontological intuition that unifies two or more individuals (or subjects); when subjected to the individual perspective, love becomes an emotional experience that brings about a certain affection, and attachment. Love forms the basis of positive (unifying) interpersonal relationships, and indirectly affects one’s sense of social and personal identity. The passion towards one’s interest derives from the love of oneself, and the love of oneself in turn derives from the love towards one’s neighbor.
Summarizing, love defines the identity, and brings about unity. It is from the concept of love that socialization can occur successfully, and from the act of interpersonal socialization we build up that faculty of Ethics and Morality. Ethics and Morality are a certain set of introspection that questions the values of the individual and the community. Subsequently, the question of ethics and morality leads to the significance of existence, which then leads to the question of meaning- to finally the universal question of a God, should He exist. We would leave such lofty topics to be addressed at a later point in time- in the meantime, let us focus in greater detail on the preclusions of ethics: namely Love and Work.
Love itself is completely ontological in nature, and no amount of theoretical (epistemological) knowledge can bring about the complete understanding of love as much as a moment of intuitive experience can provide. We cannot learn love from books, and neither can we describe the true essence of love in any form of conceptual representation (be it words, pictures, film etc). Even within a medium, the conceptual representation of love (by the novel, picture or film) has to be inferred via personal experience by the individual before such conceptual representations (as in the act of kissing, hugging or declarations etc) can fully make sense.
But even in its ontological discipline love is still materialistic and idealistic in nature. A common example would be the concepts of true love and passionate love: True love is idealistic (since it is an ideal form of love), and passionate love is materialistic, and yet both aspects of love have to be present should any form of love be considered ‘complete’ and ‘true’. Now while it is simple to understand the concept of materialistic love when it comes in a form of a passionate kiss or a hug, the ontology (experience) of love becomes harder when it is applied in idealistic terms.
Now, what is idealistic love? Do allow me to quote a phrase as analogy:
...There are easy farewells like 'see you tomorrow'. And there are sad farewells when we know we will never see each other again. But no matter what kind of farewell it is, I want to believe that even if we can't see each other, even if death parts us, our feelings will never change...
-Mai, Itsudatte My Santa (film opening)
I believe that such quotes from films and other literary works are very common, and it is evident that the above quote is a quote of idealistic ontological love. Love entails unity, and farewells breaks the (materialistic) physical unity between two or more individuals; but we know that idealistic love (and the concept of idealism) transcends the parameters of physical space and time. In this case the proponent believes in an intuition that transcends the limits of ‘seeing’ (physical appearance) and ‘death’ (transition of circumstances). Henceforth, we can safely assume that should the above words be an accurate (more or less) conceptualization of the ontological sentiments felt by the proponent, that ontological sentiment is idealistic in nature.
It is also interesting to note that such idealistic love is commonly already referred to as a statement of ‘True Love’ or ‘unconditional love’ so as to speak. We know that a simple ‘I love you’ from a boyfriend to a girlfriend does not necessarily entail true love, for the fact that such love is not ‘eternal’ and might not withstand the tests of physicality, circumstantial transition (conditions), and death. Idealistic love, on the other hand, transcends passionate love, because since it cannot be created out of epistemological knowledge, it can only exist when some basis of passionate (materialistic) ontological love is already present. The layman has already assumed that the physical passion (materialistic ontology) behind such an idealistic statement is already true, and that ‘she had already actually fallen in love in him by the time she had made such a statement’.
Henceforth, since idealistic love has to be based on materialistic love for it to exist (there is no other way of epistemological creation), we commonly do away with the extra step of having to re-integrate idealistic love with materialistic love to form the ‘true love’ that we speak of. Strictly speaking, love can only be fully manifested (true love can only exist) when both idealistic and materialistic natures are encompassed within that unifying relationship itself. Most people do not recognize the idealistic nature of love, or misinterpret idealistic love to be epistemological love (since idealism stems from epistemology), and this is the fundamental reason why the layman observes that the world lacks ‘true love’.
The order of appearance of idealistic and materialistic love is still subjected to debate. The Christian Doctrine has it that love is a free act of the soul, and manifested by the body. While the soul is eternal and dimensional-less, bringing forth the idealistic nature of love that is not bounded (like the soul) by time and space; the body, on the other hand, realizes this idealistic love and manifests it. Others may construe that it is the influence of the human cognition (which understands epistemological idealistic concepts) to wish to preserve such ontological (materialistic) intuition beyond the decay of circumstance and transition, hence alluding the idealistic nature of love. But just as to the order of love to the neighbor or the self, we will not be concerned whether idealistic love came before materialistic love (or the other way around).
Now, we already know that much of this world lacks true love (which is also idealistic) due to the overemphasis of materialism and the self. The next question we would have to address would be on the reason of such- As stated by Rolheister, it is ultimately due to the biological evolution of genes that leads to ‘the survival of the fittest’, to affect our psychologies to ‘struggle to project image of calm, poise and easy accomplishment… where we never want to show signs of weakness, of being needy or lonely, of being ruffled and not perfectly in control.’ Rephrasing, we get to understand that it is the struggle for survival that compels the individual to tilt the balance of love away from the neighbor towards the self, and it is the need of evidential success that causes many to rely on materialism (physical results) rather than idealism, which they believe to be no more than empty castles in the air. As a result, many people emphasize overtly on the self, and fall into the fallacies of materialism and immediate gratification.
While materialism towards self-interest promotes success and power in life, the unifying concept of love is often misinterpreted to be a concept of dependence (since love is interpersonal), passion and weakness. Love is usually reserved for the religious humanist, as a projection of the weaker side of humanity to attenuate the harsh demands of natural selection and genetics, or to the ignorant teenage girl with her childish romance drama serials. As observed by Dawkins: the naturalistic world has no time for such childish ‘lets-pretend’ games such as true love, equality, morality and God. To chomp or to be chomped at, that had been the essence of nature itself, let alone our futile struggles for meaning and equality…
Such has been the stereotypical views of love, that had led to the abandonment of love, and yet to another futility of human nature today. Materialism towards self-interest does bring about its fair share or benefits to ‘the living best’, but beyond the glory many have been seen to live ‘isolated, meaningless lives’. The initial logical aim of ‘earning money to live a successful life’ blurs when the definition of ‘success’ gets increasingly abstract, and soon warps to an aim of ‘earning money for the sake of earning more money’. At the end of the day, should one reflect upon his life on earth on Erikson’s seventh and eighth psychosocial crisis stagnation, disappointment and despair would be the only truths he would be bringing to his grave.
While ontological love is seen as a stumbling block on our quest for knowledge, achievement, power and success- it is in actual fact that such a unifying intuition is needed, on top of the epistemological domains of the individual and materialism, should we wish to truly flourish and live successful lives. From the discussion from the previous project, we know that truth is epistemological and ontological, and should we want to live our true ‘best’ we need to integrate the conviction of experience to the wisdom of theoretical dynamics. Also, we have to emphasize equally on the neighbor as of on the self. Naturally love, being a unifying ontological intuition has to be incorporated to the dynamics of our lives should we wish to go beyond the selfish reliance of epistemological materialism. The reasons for such are two-fold.
The first reason holds that while the materialistic epistemology tends to focus on the dynamics of life (i.e. the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of success and strength), intuition in general provides the personal conviction (in a form of feelings) to drive the dynamics of success and power. It is via the integration of both epistemological and ontological domains (see the Moderation Doctrine) can we fully realize the ‘what is’ and ‘why is’ to the given subject. This point is succinctly re-quoted as follows:
“One who does not know the power of love will eternally be unable to gain true power. Love itself is an entity that ought not to be mocked; for love entails conviction, and conviction entails the will of the soul. Dynamic power without will can never be truly powerful, and remains no more as idealistic theories and meaningless stances. To the dynamics of power must be added the conviction of love, can we then bring out the essence of true power and work.”
Christian doctrine, in this respect, holds that creation (work) was based on the dynamics of wisdom and the will (conviction) of love. It is of this reason why Christianity holds that ‘work is a manipulation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, done in the service (love) of the community, to build up the church- the body of Christ’.
The second reason would be the complementary doctrine of life. Recalling from above, many have viewed love as a form of dependence, acceptance and weakness- although such views are often misinterpreted to be weakness in general, we know that love as a form of unifying ontological intuition does require us to ‘hold our horses and rely on the map’. While our lofty epistemological aspirations on achievement and power allow us to forge new paths of improvement; the ontological respect of love reduces such ‘truths’ empirically back to the fundamentals of experience and intuitive feelings, and reduces the pride of personal accomplishment to the shared success of the community. Such reductions come in a form of appreciation of where we currently are, acknowledgement of the merits of others, and allow us to understand what we have yet to know or gain in our quest for perfection and success,
The complimentary doctrine holds that the journey of knowing (or success) can never complete unless one knows the distance left to go, as well as the distance already travelled. Indeed, personal identity can be deduced by an act of dissociation and mutual exclusion, but cannot be fully realized till we know who we really are. Similarly, success and power cannot be fully embraced via the logical ‘to do’ that epistemological materialism provides, but also require the intuitive appreciation that ontology (love) advocates. This can be re-quoted as follows:
Acceptance of one’s strength and weakness is mandatory for one to be truly powerful. It isn’t until you truly do attain infinite strength and wisdom you realize how impossible attaining it is. You will never understand in fullness what you can do, until you know what you are still unable to do. Strength without acceptance of weakness is a sham… and so is maturity without acceptance of childlike-ness… you may as well compare who’ll get the first pimple-
Yue Ayatse
Of course we do not go to such commanding extremes as both quotes have presented their conceptual equivalents (in a form of you), but we can see the prevalent underlying message throughout: that be it in a form of conviction, or a form of appreciation, ultimately love and its ontological qualities are essential should we wish true work to manifest or attain true success and power.
As a conclusion, we have discussed on the concepts of love and its significance to work, success and the ‘living best’. It would be here that I would leave you with the fundamental concepts prologue to the second installation of Project Re-Affirmation. In the next post we will dwell in greater detail into applied love and work, in the form of morality and ethics; to hopefully seek out the meaning behind these actions, and ultimately the meaning of life.
“Man’s two greatest purpose of living is of work and love” – Sigmund Freud
What is love again?
From the topic of identity we get to see the nature of love. Love is an ontological intuition that unifies two or more individuals (or subjects); when subjected to the individual perspective, love becomes an emotional experience that brings about a certain affection, and attachment. Love forms the basis of positive (unifying) interpersonal relationships, and indirectly affects one’s sense of social and personal identity. The passion towards one’s interest derives from the love of oneself, and the love of oneself in turn derives from the love towards one’s neighbor.
Summarizing, love defines the identity, and brings about unity. It is from the concept of love that socialization can occur successfully, and from the act of interpersonal socialization we build up that faculty of Ethics and Morality. Ethics and Morality are a certain set of introspection that questions the values of the individual and the community. Subsequently, the question of ethics and morality leads to the significance of existence, which then leads to the question of meaning- to finally the universal question of a God, should He exist. We would leave such lofty topics to be addressed at a later point in time- in the meantime, let us focus in greater detail on the preclusions of ethics: namely Love and Work.
Love itself is completely ontological in nature, and no amount of theoretical (epistemological) knowledge can bring about the complete understanding of love as much as a moment of intuitive experience can provide. We cannot learn love from books, and neither can we describe the true essence of love in any form of conceptual representation (be it words, pictures, film etc). Even within a medium, the conceptual representation of love (by the novel, picture or film) has to be inferred via personal experience by the individual before such conceptual representations (as in the act of kissing, hugging or declarations etc) can fully make sense.
But even in its ontological discipline love is still materialistic and idealistic in nature. A common example would be the concepts of true love and passionate love: True love is idealistic (since it is an ideal form of love), and passionate love is materialistic, and yet both aspects of love have to be present should any form of love be considered ‘complete’ and ‘true’. Now while it is simple to understand the concept of materialistic love when it comes in a form of a passionate kiss or a hug, the ontology (experience) of love becomes harder when it is applied in idealistic terms.
Now, what is idealistic love? Do allow me to quote a phrase as analogy:
...There are easy farewells like 'see you tomorrow'. And there are sad farewells when we know we will never see each other again. But no matter what kind of farewell it is, I want to believe that even if we can't see each other, even if death parts us, our feelings will never change...
-Mai, Itsudatte My Santa (film opening)
I believe that such quotes from films and other literary works are very common, and it is evident that the above quote is a quote of idealistic ontological love. Love entails unity, and farewells breaks the (materialistic) physical unity between two or more individuals; but we know that idealistic love (and the concept of idealism) transcends the parameters of physical space and time. In this case the proponent believes in an intuition that transcends the limits of ‘seeing’ (physical appearance) and ‘death’ (transition of circumstances). Henceforth, we can safely assume that should the above words be an accurate (more or less) conceptualization of the ontological sentiments felt by the proponent, that ontological sentiment is idealistic in nature.
It is also interesting to note that such idealistic love is commonly already referred to as a statement of ‘True Love’ or ‘unconditional love’ so as to speak. We know that a simple ‘I love you’ from a boyfriend to a girlfriend does not necessarily entail true love, for the fact that such love is not ‘eternal’ and might not withstand the tests of physicality, circumstantial transition (conditions), and death. Idealistic love, on the other hand, transcends passionate love, because since it cannot be created out of epistemological knowledge, it can only exist when some basis of passionate (materialistic) ontological love is already present. The layman has already assumed that the physical passion (materialistic ontology) behind such an idealistic statement is already true, and that ‘she had already actually fallen in love in him by the time she had made such a statement’.
Henceforth, since idealistic love has to be based on materialistic love for it to exist (there is no other way of epistemological creation), we commonly do away with the extra step of having to re-integrate idealistic love with materialistic love to form the ‘true love’ that we speak of. Strictly speaking, love can only be fully manifested (true love can only exist) when both idealistic and materialistic natures are encompassed within that unifying relationship itself. Most people do not recognize the idealistic nature of love, or misinterpret idealistic love to be epistemological love (since idealism stems from epistemology), and this is the fundamental reason why the layman observes that the world lacks ‘true love’.
The order of appearance of idealistic and materialistic love is still subjected to debate. The Christian Doctrine has it that love is a free act of the soul, and manifested by the body. While the soul is eternal and dimensional-less, bringing forth the idealistic nature of love that is not bounded (like the soul) by time and space; the body, on the other hand, realizes this idealistic love and manifests it. Others may construe that it is the influence of the human cognition (which understands epistemological idealistic concepts) to wish to preserve such ontological (materialistic) intuition beyond the decay of circumstance and transition, hence alluding the idealistic nature of love. But just as to the order of love to the neighbor or the self, we will not be concerned whether idealistic love came before materialistic love (or the other way around).
Now, we already know that much of this world lacks true love (which is also idealistic) due to the overemphasis of materialism and the self. The next question we would have to address would be on the reason of such- As stated by Rolheister, it is ultimately due to the biological evolution of genes that leads to ‘the survival of the fittest’, to affect our psychologies to ‘struggle to project image of calm, poise and easy accomplishment… where we never want to show signs of weakness, of being needy or lonely, of being ruffled and not perfectly in control.’ Rephrasing, we get to understand that it is the struggle for survival that compels the individual to tilt the balance of love away from the neighbor towards the self, and it is the need of evidential success that causes many to rely on materialism (physical results) rather than idealism, which they believe to be no more than empty castles in the air. As a result, many people emphasize overtly on the self, and fall into the fallacies of materialism and immediate gratification.
While materialism towards self-interest promotes success and power in life, the unifying concept of love is often misinterpreted to be a concept of dependence (since love is interpersonal), passion and weakness. Love is usually reserved for the religious humanist, as a projection of the weaker side of humanity to attenuate the harsh demands of natural selection and genetics, or to the ignorant teenage girl with her childish romance drama serials. As observed by Dawkins: the naturalistic world has no time for such childish ‘lets-pretend’ games such as true love, equality, morality and God. To chomp or to be chomped at, that had been the essence of nature itself, let alone our futile struggles for meaning and equality…
Such has been the stereotypical views of love, that had led to the abandonment of love, and yet to another futility of human nature today. Materialism towards self-interest does bring about its fair share or benefits to ‘the living best’, but beyond the glory many have been seen to live ‘isolated, meaningless lives’. The initial logical aim of ‘earning money to live a successful life’ blurs when the definition of ‘success’ gets increasingly abstract, and soon warps to an aim of ‘earning money for the sake of earning more money’. At the end of the day, should one reflect upon his life on earth on Erikson’s seventh and eighth psychosocial crisis stagnation, disappointment and despair would be the only truths he would be bringing to his grave.
While ontological love is seen as a stumbling block on our quest for knowledge, achievement, power and success- it is in actual fact that such a unifying intuition is needed, on top of the epistemological domains of the individual and materialism, should we wish to truly flourish and live successful lives. From the discussion from the previous project, we know that truth is epistemological and ontological, and should we want to live our true ‘best’ we need to integrate the conviction of experience to the wisdom of theoretical dynamics. Also, we have to emphasize equally on the neighbor as of on the self. Naturally love, being a unifying ontological intuition has to be incorporated to the dynamics of our lives should we wish to go beyond the selfish reliance of epistemological materialism. The reasons for such are two-fold.
The first reason holds that while the materialistic epistemology tends to focus on the dynamics of life (i.e. the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of success and strength), intuition in general provides the personal conviction (in a form of feelings) to drive the dynamics of success and power. It is via the integration of both epistemological and ontological domains (see the Moderation Doctrine) can we fully realize the ‘what is’ and ‘why is’ to the given subject. This point is succinctly re-quoted as follows:
“One who does not know the power of love will eternally be unable to gain true power. Love itself is an entity that ought not to be mocked; for love entails conviction, and conviction entails the will of the soul. Dynamic power without will can never be truly powerful, and remains no more as idealistic theories and meaningless stances. To the dynamics of power must be added the conviction of love, can we then bring out the essence of true power and work.”
Christian doctrine, in this respect, holds that creation (work) was based on the dynamics of wisdom and the will (conviction) of love. It is of this reason why Christianity holds that ‘work is a manipulation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, done in the service (love) of the community, to build up the church- the body of Christ’.
The second reason would be the complementary doctrine of life. Recalling from above, many have viewed love as a form of dependence, acceptance and weakness- although such views are often misinterpreted to be weakness in general, we know that love as a form of unifying ontological intuition does require us to ‘hold our horses and rely on the map’. While our lofty epistemological aspirations on achievement and power allow us to forge new paths of improvement; the ontological respect of love reduces such ‘truths’ empirically back to the fundamentals of experience and intuitive feelings, and reduces the pride of personal accomplishment to the shared success of the community. Such reductions come in a form of appreciation of where we currently are, acknowledgement of the merits of others, and allow us to understand what we have yet to know or gain in our quest for perfection and success,
The complimentary doctrine holds that the journey of knowing (or success) can never complete unless one knows the distance left to go, as well as the distance already travelled. Indeed, personal identity can be deduced by an act of dissociation and mutual exclusion, but cannot be fully realized till we know who we really are. Similarly, success and power cannot be fully embraced via the logical ‘to do’ that epistemological materialism provides, but also require the intuitive appreciation that ontology (love) advocates. This can be re-quoted as follows:
Acceptance of one’s strength and weakness is mandatory for one to be truly powerful. It isn’t until you truly do attain infinite strength and wisdom you realize how impossible attaining it is. You will never understand in fullness what you can do, until you know what you are still unable to do. Strength without acceptance of weakness is a sham… and so is maturity without acceptance of childlike-ness… you may as well compare who’ll get the first pimple-
Yue Ayatse
Of course we do not go to such commanding extremes as both quotes have presented their conceptual equivalents (in a form of you), but we can see the prevalent underlying message throughout: that be it in a form of conviction, or a form of appreciation, ultimately love and its ontological qualities are essential should we wish true work to manifest or attain true success and power.
As a conclusion, we have discussed on the concepts of love and its significance to work, success and the ‘living best’. It would be here that I would leave you with the fundamental concepts prologue to the second installation of Project Re-Affirmation. In the next post we will dwell in greater detail into applied love and work, in the form of morality and ethics; to hopefully seek out the meaning behind these actions, and ultimately the meaning of life.
Introduction to Project Re-affirmation 2
Campaign RN is a campaign aimed towards the improvement of life in general, sparked by a seven hour in-flight reflection of lifestyles from Japan to Singapore. Since the 21st December 2008, an attitude of objectivity was formed, and a belief that perhaps the true method of living was not a subscription to a particular lifestyle, but rather a full integration and moderating of contrasting lifestyles. Subsequently, for the next 4 months, the first Project RN (T) was established to convict such ideals into a unified comprehensive theory on the living best.
Project RN (T) officially ended on the 16th April 2009 on the premise of love as a means to bring out the best of life. While it itself is a complete address on the conceptual fundamentals required to bring the true way of living to our lives, project RN (T) is ‘still incomplete in allowing us to be ourselves fully’. This was highlighted many times throughout the series of discussions, with the reason that ‘personal definition of the meaning of life and the higher reason of ethics has to be in place to complete the human epistemological knowledge in the theory of life’. Upon this realization, a second project RN (T2) was conceptualized to address this aspect of the theory of life. It was on the 28th April 2009 when work was dedicated towards this postulation; however, this project was placed on hold shortly after due to commitments in academics.
Project RN (T2) as conceptualized today, does hold subtle changes with its initial conceptualization seven months ago, even though the general idea of goodness and meaning are still grounded as underlying philosophies. While the series of discussions were placed on hold, personal inquiry and external assistance towards the domain of goodness during the ‘seven months of madness’ had consequent in several new ‘breakthroughs’ and ‘findings’. An additional parameter of Beauty was added into the thesis, on top of Truth and Goodness, which was previously thought to be able to explain life in its entirety. Also, the concept of goodness was extended beyond than just a means to qualify life, but rather as an ultimate qualia that nature strives itself unto.
One of the biggest changes in this project today from Project RN (T) is it’s groundings in philosophy. Throughout the course of this project, we will still be going in-line with conventional philosophy with regards to ethics and ‘personal Goodness’. However, we will deviate from this path of objectivity beyond the scope of ethics to reconcile elements of theology on the definition of meaning and the qualia of life. This move itself is a bold move to attempt to merge both philosophy and theology into a single coherent theory. I do not mean a personal achievement from this merging, and neither do I claim that theology and philosophy is congruent; but naturally, the concepts of Truth and Goodness (and Beauty) are very closely related, and that they are in essence one.
This triad of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is in line with conventional philosophy and natural theology. Known as the Transcendental(s), the values of Truth, Goodness and Beauty have been highlighted many times throughout human history as philosophical strives- towards the understanding and improvement of life. Indeed, it’s imperative that we converge project RN (T), project RN (T2), and possibly a third discussion on the domain of beauty towards a unified Transcendental theory that (from all monotheistic doctrines, stem directly from a God Himself). However, we will not be addressing concepts of this higher theory within the scope of this project. The parameter of Beauty (or the state of being) may be briefly touched on, though, with detailed explanations and footnotes so that readers may not be confused.
On the other hand, many concepts from the previous series of discussions i.e. Project RN (T) would be constantly highlighted throughout the course of this project. This reflects the postulation that to all true processes accompanies the meaning (value) of that process itself.
Our approach of defining Goodness today can be described colloquially as a ‘back-door’ approach in terms of explaining religious doctrines and Goodness. Religious doctrines usually hold that all goodness and love stems from God himself, and it is from this ultimate source of goodness that all creation in essence, is good. It is also held that it is from this concept of goodness and agape that love between humans is promoted. However, our approach of defining goodness would be a reverse (although in line) address on these concepts. From the premise of love we will invoke qualia into life, and subsequently from qualia we will derive the concept of meaning- this would be addressed in part four of our discussion “From Love to Goodness”.
As we cross over from conventional philosophy to theology, we will restate the definition of goodness as concept analogous to meaning. It is in this faculty we will fully address our notion that ‘to the objective method of living must be added personal conviction to meaning’. We may then retrospect The Moderation Doctrine with this new-found meaning of goodness. Also, we will see to our previous theory of ‘identity’ and postulate a higher meaning to these ‘true’ processes. These deranged ideas would all be elaborated upon part five: “In an Address of Meaning”,
In part six, we would then attempt to tie up the remaining loose strings of our discussion- we will touch a little more on the theological aspects of goodness, and reconcile our take on goodness, with theistic doctrines of goodness- in terms of the meaning of life.
While part, four five and six would play host to one of the most deranged and complicated theories ever (even to my own self- I don’t know why exactly am I doing this), I must restate that these ideals are not complete, and may not hold complete objective truth to the matters and hand. There will be instances where the nature of language will fail (probably out of my poor vocabulary), and may more instances where very complex (and daunting) English may be utilized. I really do not mean to make these posts completely incomprehensive to the layman, but as what we can finally coin (literally) today: “this is not supposed to be easy; we are after all trying to explain the meaning of life.”
In the online series of Project RN (T2), an added feature would be added to these posts. Instead of comments by readers as in the first series of discussions, a shorter- and very simple summary of four to five lines would be added as ‘comments’ below every post itself. These summaries are aimed to alleviate confusion, and hopefully, make this madness slightly more understandable.
Otherwise, do enjoy the following excerpts and concepts touched within these posts. Compiled in a form of The Series of Discussions and summarized for easier understanding. I personally hope that these posts would bring future benefit to your lives too. Have fun
Project RN (T) officially ended on the 16th April 2009 on the premise of love as a means to bring out the best of life. While it itself is a complete address on the conceptual fundamentals required to bring the true way of living to our lives, project RN (T) is ‘still incomplete in allowing us to be ourselves fully’. This was highlighted many times throughout the series of discussions, with the reason that ‘personal definition of the meaning of life and the higher reason of ethics has to be in place to complete the human epistemological knowledge in the theory of life’. Upon this realization, a second project RN (T2) was conceptualized to address this aspect of the theory of life. It was on the 28th April 2009 when work was dedicated towards this postulation; however, this project was placed on hold shortly after due to commitments in academics.
Project RN (T2) as conceptualized today, does hold subtle changes with its initial conceptualization seven months ago, even though the general idea of goodness and meaning are still grounded as underlying philosophies. While the series of discussions were placed on hold, personal inquiry and external assistance towards the domain of goodness during the ‘seven months of madness’ had consequent in several new ‘breakthroughs’ and ‘findings’. An additional parameter of Beauty was added into the thesis, on top of Truth and Goodness, which was previously thought to be able to explain life in its entirety. Also, the concept of goodness was extended beyond than just a means to qualify life, but rather as an ultimate qualia that nature strives itself unto.
One of the biggest changes in this project today from Project RN (T) is it’s groundings in philosophy. Throughout the course of this project, we will still be going in-line with conventional philosophy with regards to ethics and ‘personal Goodness’. However, we will deviate from this path of objectivity beyond the scope of ethics to reconcile elements of theology on the definition of meaning and the qualia of life. This move itself is a bold move to attempt to merge both philosophy and theology into a single coherent theory. I do not mean a personal achievement from this merging, and neither do I claim that theology and philosophy is congruent; but naturally, the concepts of Truth and Goodness (and Beauty) are very closely related, and that they are in essence one.
This triad of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is in line with conventional philosophy and natural theology. Known as the Transcendental(s), the values of Truth, Goodness and Beauty have been highlighted many times throughout human history as philosophical strives- towards the understanding and improvement of life. Indeed, it’s imperative that we converge project RN (T), project RN (T2), and possibly a third discussion on the domain of beauty towards a unified Transcendental theory that (from all monotheistic doctrines, stem directly from a God Himself). However, we will not be addressing concepts of this higher theory within the scope of this project. The parameter of Beauty (or the state of being) may be briefly touched on, though, with detailed explanations and footnotes so that readers may not be confused.
On the other hand, many concepts from the previous series of discussions i.e. Project RN (T) would be constantly highlighted throughout the course of this project. This reflects the postulation that to all true processes accompanies the meaning (value) of that process itself.
Our approach of defining Goodness today can be described colloquially as a ‘back-door’ approach in terms of explaining religious doctrines and Goodness. Religious doctrines usually hold that all goodness and love stems from God himself, and it is from this ultimate source of goodness that all creation in essence, is good. It is also held that it is from this concept of goodness and agape that love between humans is promoted. However, our approach of defining goodness would be a reverse (although in line) address on these concepts. From the premise of love we will invoke qualia into life, and subsequently from qualia we will derive the concept of meaning- this would be addressed in part four of our discussion “From Love to Goodness”.
As we cross over from conventional philosophy to theology, we will restate the definition of goodness as concept analogous to meaning. It is in this faculty we will fully address our notion that ‘to the objective method of living must be added personal conviction to meaning’. We may then retrospect The Moderation Doctrine with this new-found meaning of goodness. Also, we will see to our previous theory of ‘identity’ and postulate a higher meaning to these ‘true’ processes. These deranged ideas would all be elaborated upon part five: “In an Address of Meaning”,
In part six, we would then attempt to tie up the remaining loose strings of our discussion- we will touch a little more on the theological aspects of goodness, and reconcile our take on goodness, with theistic doctrines of goodness- in terms of the meaning of life.
While part, four five and six would play host to one of the most deranged and complicated theories ever (even to my own self- I don’t know why exactly am I doing this), I must restate that these ideals are not complete, and may not hold complete objective truth to the matters and hand. There will be instances where the nature of language will fail (probably out of my poor vocabulary), and may more instances where very complex (and daunting) English may be utilized. I really do not mean to make these posts completely incomprehensive to the layman, but as what we can finally coin (literally) today: “this is not supposed to be easy; we are after all trying to explain the meaning of life.”
In the online series of Project RN (T2), an added feature would be added to these posts. Instead of comments by readers as in the first series of discussions, a shorter- and very simple summary of four to five lines would be added as ‘comments’ below every post itself. These summaries are aimed to alleviate confusion, and hopefully, make this madness slightly more understandable.
Otherwise, do enjoy the following excerpts and concepts touched within these posts. Compiled in a form of The Series of Discussions and summarized for easier understanding. I personally hope that these posts would bring future benefit to your lives too. Have fun
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