some Buddhist and occult groups try to exist outside of ideology by having a clear mind and living in the moment. Attempting to do this is an ideology, but the attainment of those goals should place one outside of ideology.

Or maybe you were talking about something else.

intended to eliminate the effects of ideology, of preconceptions.

It's the only religion that I find acceptable.

There is no such thing of a purely clear mind or "living in the moment" where the mind is entirely free of the effects of or its awareness of ideology. That's magic talk.

Sometimes the Eastern religions get as fantastical as the monotheistic ones.

with such certainty?

I myself have never had a thought or moment free from ideology, have you? Neurologists have never found a brain state free from memory, subconscious thought, physical experience, and/or external stimulation. All are imbricated within ideology or are directly affected by it.

It's as mystical an idea as God, the trinity, and the Easter Bunny. like those, I am always willing to accept scientific proof an ideology-free brain state can exist. Do you got one?

I just want to make sure we're all talking about the same thing before we argue about it.

My notion of ideology comes from Althusser's more complex reading of Marx' notion that ideology comes from the "imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence," and that this ideology primarily comes from hegemonic "Ideological State Apparatuses" such as our churches/synagogues, governments and government ideologies (including our constitution), and Capitalism-promoting institutions (or dominant ideology of the culture). Althusser goes on to assert that this "relationship" manifests itself in our material actions since our beliefs and material bodies manifesting them are inherently intertwined.

So, a person is "swimming" in ideology promoted by ISA's and their "inhabitants"--mom and dad first--from their moment of birth. He or she reproduces, refashions, and manifests these ideologies throughout their mental and physical life. As I told the above poster, I'm open to scientific proof that one can act or think free of Ideology as I am open to scientific proof of God. I just haven't seen or heard either yet.

There is no state, and therefore, there are no "Ideological State Apparatuses," such as churches, governments, etc. Those aren't real things. They're make believe. Scientific evidence of the existence of those "things" would likely change my mind.

If you truly believe there are no churches or governments, I will spend no time freeing you from your delusion.

However, if that's the case, then you can't believe in America's government, the American president, the Democratic party, and most other things discussed on this forum, either. So, you're posting on it is both odd and hypocritical.

For example, the world of Harry Potter does not exist outside of our minds, our imaginations, so the world of Harry Potter is strictly imaginary.

Organizations such as countries and churches are social/rhetorical constructs. They are not a property of matter. Social constructs don't exist outside of the imagination. Therefore, the social constructs we use are strictly imaginary.

I'm also an atheist who moderates the Religion Group.

I believe behavior is real. I believe behavior is strongly influenced by beliefs. In my view, all politics, religion, etc. is propaganda. I happen to enjoy a lot of the propaganda I see on this website. So even though my belief system may be different than many of people who use this website, I don't believe I am a hypocrite for using it, since I share many of the values the creators and other users hold.

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You're a hypocrite because you said governments and churches are imaginary, and yet you post on a site dedicated to governments, government parties, government members, and government institutions. If you truly didn't believe those things existed, you wouldn't post on this site...and yet you do. If you actually think discussions of those killed in Palestine and Israel or our real Government's real use of torture is just discussion of "propaganda," you have my sympathies.

Also, governments and churches operate out of real buildings--have you seen the Vatican?--in specific material places. They are run by material people who extend their power through material means. The victims of the holocaust weren't just killed by "social/rhetorical constructs." They were killed by material gas chambers run by real people and technology overseen by a real Nazi government in real buildings imbricated in social/rhetorical constructs. Big difference.

I'm sure the victims of the Inquisition, or Native Americans wiped out by the American Government and its material army, would have loved to hear you tell them Churches and governments are "imaginary." I'm sure it would have been very comforting. If you could tell them they were no more real than Dumbledore, I'm sure they would be truly comforted...

1. Objects, such as buildings and people.
2. Human behavior, such as violence and typing.
3. Social constructs, such as laws and countries.

Your rebuttal had examples of human on human violence. I agree the violence happened, but I disagree on the objective truth of the labels we place on the people who committed those violent acts. What method do we use to determine if a person is American, German, or something else? Paperwork? Paper is real, and ink is real. We can detect those objects, but what gives those objects meaning? The meaning comes from our minds. Identity comes from our minds. Public opinion comes from the public's mind. What method do you think we should use to detect which country a person belongs to?

Your rebuttal suggests my view isn't comforting to some people, but I don't see how that is relevant. I don't think the truth is always comforting to all people.

I didn't conflate anything. Objects, laws, and human behavior are already conflated. They always coexist. Unless you can show me a law or human behavior that is completely unrelated to objects, and you can't.

You also have an inaccurate view of phenomenological relations. An idea of an external object cannot exist without that object existing as well. Once a perceptual relation exists between the two, the subject's concept of the object is always tied to that object to some degree. That's reality. And we were never discussing meanings. We were discussing governments and churches and whether they were real or material or not. My last post showed they clearly are.

Irony is also apparently lost on you, as you missed the irony of my final paragraph. The Nazi governments that killed the Jews was materially real. The American government that wiped out Indian nations was materially real. The material means they used were horribly real. For you to compare their existence to the imaginary existence of the Harry Potter world would have been a false and horrible insult to those victims. My saying it would have been "comforting" to them was a sardonic criticism of your erroneous views, not an observation on how comforting they are.

but human behavior is not an object, and objects are not human behavior. For example, if I draw a picture, the picture relies upon drawing, but the picture is not drawing. Drawing and picture have a relationship, but they are different.

I'm not sure what you mean here. What is the significance of this statement?



All of my posts to you in this thread have been about meaning. In post 7, I asked you about the meaning of ideology. In post 9 I discussed what the words "state" and "churches" mean to me. In post 11 I discussed the meaning of "strictly imaginary," and expanded on my meanings for "state," etc. And obviously I brought up meaning in my last post to you mentioned we weren't talking about meaning.



No. People killing people is materially real, the labels are imaginary. If the labels are not imaginary, or more than imaginary, then how should we detect them? How do we use science to prove a label, such as Nazi government or American goverment, is objectively present? If we know they are real then we should know ways to detect them.



I agree that the means were real.

What I object to are the objective existence of certain labels, such as "Germany." I also object to the objective existence of legal and moral authority. How do we detect legal authority?

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1. Human behavior is definitely an object. Anything that can be viewed or exists in the material world is.

2. "An idea of an external object cannot exist without that object existing as well." The meaning and statement of this statement are clear and true. If you think they are not, then say why.

3. We weren't discussing meanings in the previous exchange. So don't be coy; it doesn't help your argument.

4. Yes, the Nazis killed the Jews, it wasn't just "people" in general who killed them. Labels are definitely real; they exist in the real world both materially and ideally. And you and others type out these labels into other forms of reality when you type about them. So, I have to ask you, how do you define "reality" and what is "real" and what isn't. Your use of the term so far has been flawed and inconsistent.

5. You can object to the "objective existence" of Germany all you want, it still objectively exists. There is no objective moral authority, since the concept and its "authority" are inherently undecided. There are, however, clearly written and executed laws, so legal authority objectively exists in the hands of those wielding and interpreting it. All the people we have inhumanely executed have particularly felt the objective existence of legal authority.

So, I look forward to your definition of reality and how you decide what's real and what isn't

How do we detect Germany?
How do we detect legal authority?

If you wish, but this doesn't prove the existence of legal authority, just like prayers to Zeus doesn't prove Zeus is real.



I still don't know what you are saying because it is too vague for me to understand what you are saying. I don't know if you mean objectively real objects, like rocks, or any kind of object, or what. If you feel this is an important point, then explain it. Maybe use an example. If you don't feel this is an important point, then we should just forget it.



I have been discussing meanings. If you don't see that then you are not understanding my posts, which wouldn't be a surprise.



Reality is what exists outside of the imagination. The imagination exists, so it is real, but not everything imagined exists. Legal authority only exists within the imagination, so legal authority is strictly imaginary. If you feel legal authority exists outside of the imagination, surprise me and actually say how we can detect it.



OK. How do we detect Germany? How are countries made? How do countries cease to be? The land isn't any different, so what is different when a country enters or leaves existence?



My favorite method of determining reality is science. It's not perfect, but it's the best method I am aware of.

At one time the English (for one) planted flags all over the damn place, confiscating land for the purposes of colonization. The flags were "real". The English language was "real". The military force that backed the colonization projects was "real". The colonizers were "real". The land being colonized was "real". The natives being displaced were "real". The laws being laid down in the colonized lands were "real". Not all being the same kind of thing, to be sure, but all "real". So, which is "objectively real" vs "physically real"? Which is "mere imagination" and which is "scientifically verified reality"?

Science itself is a mere process. It's a set of rules guiding procedure. Is science "real"?

The whole universe is a being in process. It is not static. Nothing stays the same and even our decisions regarding what are and aren't significant things is subject to change as we, being part of the ever changing universe, change our focus. What seems to be a mountain from one perspective is a hill from another, and from yet another is part of a smooth gradient.

If the argument were whether e.g. economics could ever be a science, according as definitions accepted by most physicists, that'd be one thing. I'd agree with those who say no, the object of study in economics is not the same as the object of study in physics, and it's a mistake to apply the same terminology and guidelines across the board. But I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the object of study in economics as not being "real", or "objectively real".

Sure. Matter without interpretation, which is tough, since we need interpretation to talk about it.



The atoms are real, the meaning is imaginary.



No. There were humans, but calling them "English" is an opinion or belief.



There was violence.



People were walking on atoms that were grouped in a way that we call dirt, grass, rocks, etc.



No, the laws were strictly imaginary. But people were probably inspired to act based upon these imaginings.



There were humans who moved around and acted violently toward other humans. The rest is imaginary.



Science is a label we give to a type of behavior, just like eating, running, violence, painting, etc.

The test to determine if something is strictly imaginary is try to determine if that something exists outside of the imagination. If it doesn't, then it is strictly imaginary. Some things we cannot know for certain, like Zeus or unicorns, but some things we know we invented, like values and laws.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

I don't know what you mean by "matter without interpretation".
m=e/c2, according as one theory (interpretation). What do you imagine "matter" is?

About the English flags: "The atoms are real, the meaning is imaginary."
Meaning is what we apprehend when we read or hear, and understand, a word or group of words. Apprehension and imagination are different faculties.

"There were humans, but calling them "English" is an opinion or belief."
There were humans speaking the English language. That is objective fact, and your opinion that it is not is just that, your opinion. Although I suppose that you imagine that your opinion becomes, when stated over and over, somehow more valid than contrary ones.

"There was violence."
Yes, that's another description of the events, and the violence was objective fact.

"People were walking on atoms that were grouped in a way that we call dirt, grass, rocks, etc."
Yes, the land being colonized was real, just as were the colonizers. That you want to call that land "atoms" is your predilection but is no more valid than others who call dirt 'dirt'.

"the laws were strictly imaginary"
In my *opinion* you are again misusing the term "imaginary". Reciting a meme. But then, my opinion is just imaginary (right?) and so not real? Not composed of your "atoms"?

"There were humans who moved around and acted violently toward other humans. The rest is imaginary."
What you call "the rest" is comprised of more precise and expansive description.

"The test to determine if something is strictly imaginary is try to determine if that something exists outside of the imagination. If it doesn't, then it is strictly imaginary."
That's all well and good, a tautology. But you misuse your tautological maxim when you conflate apprehension with imagination, when you tout the "reality" of "atoms" but deny the reality of human groupings, of rules for human behavior, and so on.

Symbols don't have inherent meanings. We have to imagine to interpret their meanings. I think memory is a function if the imagination.

There is a language called English, but you claimed the people were English. How do we detect English as a human trait? Is English a property of matter?

We agree on this.


My description here was to avoid using the social construct of countries, states, etc.



A thought of a unicorn is a real thought, even if unicorns are not real. So your opinion is a real opinion.

Where do the laws exist? I think they exist solely within the imagination.

What if instead of saying things like "laws and countries only exist within the imagination," I said they exist "solely within the mind?" Perhaps my understanding of the imagination doesn't match the psychiatric understanding. If we agree they exist within the mind, then we would know which scientific discipline to use to examine the situation.

'Apprehension', 'understanding', do not have the same meaning as 'imagination'.

I am saying understanding abstract things, like symbols, requires the imagination.


Where do laws exist?

Or do you distinguish the different fields?

Have you read any classical western philosophy? Esp. the empiricists, the nominalists?
The nominalists, in particular, would object to your needless multiplication of entities, where you posit the existence of a distinct image with each distinct term as somehow required for its understanding. As if a child, exclaiming "horse!" upon seeing a horse in a field should also require an image of a horse to understand what she said. Occam's razor was first formulated to cut through exactly that kind of confusion. All that we require to posit is an act of understanding. In the same way we aren't required to vocalize the words to understand a printed page (consider the deaf).

Recall the topic:
Q. Do you equate "objectively real" with "physically real"?
A. Sure. Matter without interpretation, which is tough, since we need interpretation to talk about it.

That is your claim. To tell the truth, it reminds me a bit of some DU contributors who claim to be from a "reality based community", and who claim that their political positions (and those who agree with them) are "realist" as opposed to whatever dismissive term they categorize the opinions of those whose opinions differ.

But back to your claim. The topic of my question wasn't "matter", you introduced that highly abstract term as the sole focus of your answer and in doing dismissed all other content, in effect denying the existence of "objectivity" except as falls in line with your theories or whatever about what "matter" is. Is Euclidean geometry not objectively real? Is Riemannian geometry not objectively real? If one asks a physicist or mathematician, I daresay most would say that objective truths about these systems of mathematics are much more certain than any statement that a physicist might make about "atoms", or "matter". After all, what we know about the physical world is acquired through our sense perception. Again, read the empiricists if you haven't already. Read what Hume has to say about such a basic "law" as of cause and effect. These topics have been debated by the best.

Thanks for discussing this. I'm totally rusty, my mind is half-asleep, so I hope not to have been too much of a bother.

Yes. I dislike Kant. Nietzsche is ok. Marquis de Sade is ok. I love Hakim Bey.



This is not what I am saying, so the nominalists can sleep well tonight.



In other words, an apple is objectively real, but our opinions on the apple are subjective.



I consider my politics to be value based. I don't make those claims.



I used the term "matter" as explained by my 8th grade science teacher. Basically anything that has mass. I probably should have said "matter and energy." I currently believe matter and energy exist outside of the mind. But again, I was talking about the laws of governments, such as a speed limit. The laws of physics are discovered, while the laws of government are created. I'll let physicists debate the laws of physics.

I deny the existence of objective authority, such as the authority of the POTUS, and the objective existence human organizations, such as the US. I believe these "things" only exist in our minds. I believe this type of authority and these types of organizations only exist in our minds. I believe these are examples of subjective social constructs created by persuading people into believing these things are objectively real.



I've enjoyed your posts very much. I've been sick and taking various meds around my house, such as codeine, so my posts may be bothering people too. I look forward to your reply.

You say: "The laws of physics are discovered, while the laws of government are created."
I agree with you.

But recall, you've been denying the "objective reality" of the English language. You've been saying that all "meaning" is just "imaginary". You've engaged yourself in some massive generalizations and simplifications, where your focus has been on according the sole "objective reality" on entities that you call "matter" and "atoms", while dismissing as imaginary everything else.

I say, be more careful in your use of language.

In Marx' critique, ideology emerges from on a separation between knowledge and action. As soon as knowledge, or theory, is not returned to reality through action and in effect criticized by said action, it becomes a closed-system, an ideology, an *-ism. When the movement between knowledge and action is uninterrupted, when reality continuously criticizes knowledge, becomes the input of knowledge, which then returns to reality, a dialectic oscillation is created and there is no ideology.
As the entire system of human exploitation rests on separation, any ideology, regardless of its content, will serve the purpose of validating such separation and contributes to upholding the system.
Overall, there is no logical reason why one could not live outside ideology. There are however many circumstantial reasons why it is indeed very difficult as it goes against the way the world is currently organized and unified.

and yes, i have. i meditate, and i've had moments free from everything, including what you call ideology. what "scientific proof" have you offered? a statement about neurologists is not scientific proof.

How can you say and/or prove that you had moments "free from everything, including what you call ideology." Do you have scientific proof of that?

but I didn't want to be rude. I just kept thinking, "how can someone be this dense?" Well that was entertaining.

You can exist without ideology, but the question should be whether you live!

Ideology is a base of a human being as because our ideas help us to make ourself better from others and we have to be like that. Ya what you can do is change your ideology from others and make your point a good justice.

I think it would help if you defined "ideology" more clearly.

But since some have brought up the mystical empty mind state versus microbiological accounts of the brain's functions (according to which the mind cannot be empty), it's worth asking whether we regard the mind and the brain as the same things. I don't. The mind is intangible and cannot be studied using solely the scientific method.

I think it is possible to attain an empty mind. It is just a lot of hard work and takes some conviction.