tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post6493573479337637034..comments2024-03-29T12:03:37.344+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: Semi-good (but significantly wrong) ideas: OK, then what? (With reference to Political Correctness and Transhumanism.)Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-89037118337493682252015-05-01T05:11:35.315+01:002015-05-01T05:11:35.315+01:00Thank you. I will save your reply, reread it, and ...Thank you. I will save your reply, reread it, and mull it over a bit.<br /><br />(I read <i>Surprised by Joy</i> in, I think, my early teens, and enjoyed all of it except the description of the actual conversion, which I simply could not process. Going by this excerpt, I think I should reread the book now; I think I am better prepared to understand it.)Wm Jas Tychonievichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-57989902987710457892015-04-30T10:15:16.904+01:002015-04-30T10:15:16.904+01:00@WmJas - I think the answer is quite simple and yo...@WmJas - I think the answer is quite simple and you already know it - but presumably it is not what you are looking for. <br /><br />What is required, demanded, is a level of ultimate explanation which (by definition) cannot be proven but must be assumed; and which satisfies our deepest personal longings, and which is not forced-upon us in any way, but voluntarily chosen as that which we will live by.<br /><br />This choice may seem arbitrary, but it isn't because if it is not assented to at the deepest level then it simply does not work. <br /><br />What is assented to is - must be - regarded as 'objective' - true for everybody' the personal choice involved is in assenting to it, and not in 'making it up'. <br /><br />This choice may be in error, indeed is bound to be at-least incomplete and distorted (because of the constraints of being a Man, mortal, limited in numerous ways) but that does not substantively affect the situation; because the very nature of the choice involves all such acceptances of human finitude and error. <br /><br />It is this which is lacking, and the perceived need for it is lacking, the concept of it is lacking, in Transhumanism and other utilitarian or hedonic secularisms - and there is a basic dishonesty, evasiveness, denial about this situation. <br /><br />My sense is that what blocks you is that you want the truth and reality of the bottom line assumption to be both compelled upon you (by facts and reason) and removed from possibility of error. My feeling is that to demand these, is to be smuggling assumptions into the primary evaluation - and be trying to evaluate the primary decision by these secondary assumptions. <br /><br />By contrast, I feel that there is an absolute purity and simplicity about the bedrock of faith; it presents itself existentially - 'me confronted with everything', as a single primary choice. <br /><br />I think this was what CS Lewis described in Surprised by Joy as his final conversion (although this was confused for me by being preceded by a lot about God hunting him down - which was something altogether outwith my own pre-Christian experience).<br /><br />"The odd thing was that before God closed in on me, I was in fact offered what now appears a moment of wholly free choice. In a sense. I was going up Headington Hill on the top of a bus. Without words and (I think) almost without images, a fact about myself was somehow presented to me. I became aware that I was holding something at bay, or shutting something out. Or, if you like, that I was wearing some stiff clothing, like corsets, or even a suit of armour, as if I were a lobster. I felt myself being, there and then, given a free choice. I could open the door or keep it shut; I could unbuckle the armour or keep it on. Neither choice was presented as a duty; no threat or promise was attached to either, though I knew that to open the door or to take off the corslet meant the incalculable. The choice appeared to be momentous but it was also strangely unemotional. I was moved by no desires or fears. In a sense I was not moved by anything. I chose to open, to unbuckle, to loosen the rein. I say, “I chose,” yet it did not really seem possible to do the opposite. On the other hand, I was aware of no motives. You could argue that I was not a free agent, but I am more inclined to think that this came nearer to being a perfectly free act than most that I have ever done. Necessity may not be the opposite of freedom, and perhaps a man is most free when, instead of producing motives, he could only say, “ I am what I do”. Then came the repercussion on the imaginative level. I felt as if I were a man of snow at long last beginning to melt. The melting was starting in my back – drip-drip and presently trickle-trickle. I rather disliked the feeling.”Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-21627972317444379422015-04-30T06:22:35.136+01:002015-04-30T06:22:35.136+01:00I agree, but I don't really see how Christiani...I agree, but I don't really see how Christianity avoids this problem. Certainly during my time as a practicing Mormon, I was often troubled by the "OK, then what?" question. Religion brought me many benefits, but a well-grounded feeling of <i>significance</i> was certainly never one of them.<br /><br />The problem is that a thing can have meaning or purpose only with reference to something else. (It has to mean <i>something</i> or be <i>for</i> something.) The idea of "ultimate" or "absolute" meaning or purpose is therefore incoherent. Religion's strategy for keeping nihilism at bay is precisely the same as Transhumanism's: to hold up a goal (Heaven) which is so remote from the world as we know it that we become absorbed in pursuing and advocating that goal and never stop think to ask "OK, then what?"<br /><br />(If you can show me how the above reasoning is incorrect, I will be eternally grateful and most likely become a Christian again on the spot! No pressure, though.)Wm Jas Tychonievichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.com