holding on to reason - Removed from the file structure of the argument, at least temporarily, because nothing yet justifies the work necessary to integrate it. - Introspective discovery of quotidien struggle to hold on to practical reason. - Likeness to that of the child holding onto the balloon or cookie. - Failures attended by fear, and on reflection a sense of shame, or unworthiness. - How the aim of holding on to reason does not suffice as an end in itself. - Being limited by the span of a life that alone, in itself, it is finite and of doubtful worth. : see notebook:2021-8-1 - Neither securing nor holding can be an end in itself, as both are but means to what is secured or held. : see notebook:2021-8-5e - In trying to hold on to reason, it seems my life can contain no final end as the task demands. - What further end, I ask, could I be the means to? - I look to what is up there, and take as end the existential security of all humanity, but that too does not suffice as final. - What further end, I ask, could that grand structure be the means to? ?+ How might this help. - Certainly it is a good joiner from the *holding* file to what follows. | if just once I think to take as end what I try to hold on to here, then the answer to both questions is within reach - More than that, the answer to the means is within reach. : see `means.+is to take care of practical reason` @ `^*- The logic of using a star-spanning structural condition of reason` ?+ Is the means one of spatial extent, and the end of temporal? - Regardless my attempt at expansion to get to the final end failed only because I was expanding the wrong thing, my person, my humanity. - The cosmic architect thinks to hold on to reason over a much longer time span, and does so by extending his care over a broader spatial extent. - Emulation|imitation, or at least taking the cue, would lead me in the right direction: I must expand my care spatially to others’ abilities to hold on to reason. : see `means.+is to take care of practical reason` @ `^*- The logic of using a star-spanning structural condition of reason` \ - I cannot hold practical reason independent of others holding it. \ - Cf. intercast networks, where this same condition rules waycasts and waycasting. \ : see ~/work/wayic/intercast/external_fit_and_internal_form.brec \ - I must see what ends others pursue, and (where necessary) what means they bring to it, and \ what reasons they give for these choices. \ - I cannot make a rational choice of ends or means in isolation, blind to the choices of \ others, and the reasons they give for them. \ - I must coordinate my choice of ends and means with others. \ - Efficient execution of means may require coordinating with others. \ ∵ Means may be shared. \ ∵ Means may be shared even where ends differ. \\ - This is a weak reason. \ - I must relate as described here to others’ exercises of practical reason only to the \ extent they exist. gift worthiness : see `^^being worthy of a gift$` - The child knows the balloon is only a toy, the cookie only a token, but also senses what holding on to it represents, and cries at the loss of that. - I know this, because I remember feeling that I had let my mother down, and it is this I could not explain to my aunt. - Re our initial misreading of Margie: - We can relate to the smile of a baby child and think we understand it. - It is a sign of pleasure, of joy. - It is not. It is a means to survival. - Likewise in the case of Maggie’s balloon, what is at stake for her is not a toy. - The child puts all her resources into holding on to what is at stake. - In the case of the baby, a ready smile, and a tight grip. - All too often in the past, the failure of a smile to connect or a grip to hold was attended by a terrible cost. - For an older child, to disappoint the expectations of a care giver is no less an extential threat. - Margie’s story brings a preliminary sense (before the full argument) of what is at stake. - She is too young to read|see the meaning in the night sky, but sees it in the balloon. - To lose reason is to lose everything of value. - This will require argument. - But it helps to see that we owe the whole of it to those who came before. - And it helps to see that it all came at a terrible cost. - Margie shows something about holding on to it, carrying it forward: how unworthy of them we would be to fail. reason at risk - Types of risk to which practical reason is exposed. • rational incompetence : see `^^holding on to reason$` • structural failure • existential hazard : see `^^facing existential hazard$` @ http://reluk.ca/project/way/diaspora/working_notes.brec : see also notebook:2021-8-5e,g ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Gift concept ────────────── - Removed from the file structure of the argument, at least temporarily, because nothing yet justifies the work necessary to integrate it. seeing a gift : privately cf. http://reluk.ca/project/100-0/poll/c/pipe/100-5/norm.xht - A gift from on high. : see notebook:2021-8-2c,f - One could hardly *design* a better cosmos in which to flourish, than one which underwrites our sense of purpose. \ - The bottom line is it allows time in which to realize final ends, \ without which practical reason would be liable to unravel. \ : see notebook:2021-8-5a \ ?+ Does this save the claim from going too far. \ - It might go too far in that a different final end (than its eternal security) \ could be chosen. \ !+ Some final ends can be realized in finite time and space. \\ identifying the gift as one of reason so early in the argument raises too many problems + Salvage in terms of purpose. - An expansive field of space and time in which to formulate purpose, pursue it and realize it. / Arguments in Scheffler’s *Death and the afterlife* might reflect this. It may be that Shiffrin affirmed something of the sort there. - A gift from our ancestors. : see notebook:2021-8-2g - One might see this as a blind effect of nature, but I think that would be an oversimplification, misleading in its implications. - Considering the generosity that underlies the care of children, that they may grow to have children of their own. - It is on the basis of struggles of this sort, often at great sacrifice, that natural selection has been conceived since its earliest publication. / Joint presentation in 1858 of papers both by Wallace and Darwin. : cf. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsta.2015.0065 : *The meaning of biological information.* It may be relevant. - I have earlier theory drafts that treated of this notion. - This is a mere point of view. : join naming the gift + Rebase on purpose (also basic to gift sense). - An indication of purpose implies reason. - Formulation and realization of purpose implies practical reason. / Arguments in Scheffler’s *Death and the afterlife* might reflect this. It may be that Shiffrin affirmed something of the sort there. - Identifying what is given. - What is given is identified as [practical] reason. - The gift view helps to frame the search. : see `^^seeing a gift$` - In considering what we pass on from generation to generation, and into the future, reason is a plausible candidate. salvage, a justification deprecated in favour of one in terms of purpose - Two criteria of identification are value (worthy of holding) and risk (need of holding). - Reason is of value, worth holding. - Preliminary evidence of its value comes from the gift view. : see `^^seeing a gift$` - Full justification comes later. - Reason is at risk, it needs holding. - Two files which follow will give evidence that reason needs holding onto. : see `^^reason at risk$` : see `^^holding on to reason$` salvage, an argument from an old draft of ‘a gift of reason’ (now ‘seeing a gift’) • The underwriting|assurance|guarantee of a condition of practical reason. / Re underwriting: the gift is not the condition itself, as other instances of it are possible, but rather a particular instance. For any who has trouble finding an end in itself, there is one on display each clear night. / A note that I will be distinguishing practical from instrumental is in order here. • The capacity to reason. - It can be seen as a gift from our predecessors; a gift from our parents, grandparents and ancestors, and from as far back as we care to look. / Somewhere I have notes on the possibility of seeing reason in all of life (e.g. a flower) and the related difficulty that biology has of eradicating from its thinking the concepts of design and purpose. Some journal articles, too, treat of the latter. : see `^^reason at risk$`i / Its logical place would be here. being worthy of a gift - To be worthy of a gift of this sort, and to be worthy of the gift giver, one must hold on to the gift. - The balloon and the cookie. - This is a mere point of view. - Nothing in the argument logically depends on it. - I do not attempt to prove it, but rather to make use of it. : see `^^holding on to reason$`i / Its logical place would be here. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Introduction ────────────── - A short introduction to the main argument. : cf. `^^ Gift concept$` : as a lengthy introduction - To be placed after *Meaning in the night sky*. : see http://reluk.ca/project/way/diaspora/premise.brec : [presumeably] - Without some kind of joiner, the transition from that file to the main argument would be jarring. statement | some combination of these alternatives | of where the revelation (from the night sky) fits in the argument - Stating that here I make use of the security on offer in the night sky as a means, e.g. to something further, and of greater value. | of the overall logic of the argument : see notebook:2021-8-12e,f,h - My means to the final end is to enable others to freely choose and pursue that end and other ends productive of it. - This I do by enabling them to freely choose and pursue *any* final end, viz. to exercise practical reason.   General exercise   of practical reason Spatial extent     ↓ ↓     Practical reason Temporal extent   extant and continuous   through all possible ends - I trust that practical reason alone suffices. - Otherwise what, for this purpose, could possibly be added? / We can hold on to reason it seems only by giving it to others, it is that kind of gift. - The logic of using a star-spanning structural condition of reason by emplacing stepping-stone structural conditions is (or could be) beautiful. / It could be, if I word it the right way. - To make full use of that beauty in the argument, as I yearn to do, it seems I must: • state this logic immediately after the *meaning* file and the beauty of *its* logic has done its work • tie the two together, if only by assertion - And maybe (if feasible): • write that logic into the file structure ?+ What is the proper statement of it? : N.B. notebook:2021-8-12 - I end up with a means that is to take care of practical reason in others, and at two levels: societal structuring and normative ethic. - Though I care nothing for myself (at least as a final end), I do care for the practical reason in me, and therefore in others. - The would-be cosmic architect also seems to care for practical reason. ? Is there anything else beside that instrumental means, anything in e.g. practical reason itself, that would call for such a universalization of the means of practical reason? | imitation of the apparent cosmic architect | temporal security of practical reason is the necessary means of any final end to the extent its achievement lies in the future - From this comes an opportunity of harvesting partial means to that security. \ | combining what I learned from wayics \ with my attempt to formulate a final end \ : re `what I learned from wayics` see \ `^^→ I cannot hold.+independent of others` \ - Being stretched to formulate a final end, how am I to assume that \ others have succeeded here, and are engaged in practical reason? \\ - But this would be a weak argument. \ - Surely others believe they are pursuing final ends, \ as for witness Christians do. \ - What I learned from wayics is also weak in this connection, \ and now commented out. ? Where in the structure of the present argument would this fulfill an unspoken need? ?+ What then is the statement? : see notebook:2021-8-13 | The end suggested in the night sky we will reach by taking care that others can … their ends. : see `^^reason at risk$`i - The content could be part of the introduction. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Motive, motivation and meaning ─ an afterword ──────────────────────────────── - Removed from the file structure of the argument, at least till I learn how to integrate it, lest it appear that I answer the open question on whose openness the ethic is premised. - A larger problem is its being *improper* to the ethic. - It arises from relating the ethic to other things, on which the meaning bears equally. - It is unwise to burden the ethic with things improper to it. + Consider whether this is called for. ?+ What purpose does it serve? / It appears there will be at least two conclusions here, if indeed both are proper to the ethic. : see notebook:2021-9-11n.r.u | it outlines my motive in writing it : see notebook:2021-9-14b - This appears to be helpful in understanding both the meaning of the ethic, and what might motivate people to respect it and adhere to its rules | it explains a real source of motivation : see `‘motivation’` @ `^^\+ Consider.+Margie and gift worthiness` : see notebook:2021-9-11b,d,k,m - The rational grounds of an ethic do not suffice as motivation. - They fail to bridge the gap between knowledge and application. + Expect to frame the whole under the category of motivation. - I think any claim to have found the meaning would be mistaken and presumptuous. : re `mistaken` see notebook:2021-9-13b : re `presumptuous` see notebook:2021-9-15i - I prefer the unimpeachable solidity of a sincere, confessional frame. | it suggests a meaning for the ethic : see notebook:2021-9-11 - The ethic has puzzling properties, which demand an explanation. - The meaning itself might fall under the topic of motive in the sense of what moves reason, what it wants and seeks. : see notebook:2021-9-14c + Consider starting this file as related in the notebook. : see notebook:2021-9-14b - It would be good if I could sustain that kind of taut narrative throughout. - Apropos ‘structural supports’, I hope some day we can write with pride, like the engineer of the Roman bridge at Alcántara, ‘I leave a bridge forever in the centuries of the world.’ : see http://reluk.ca/project/100-0/poll/c/pipe/100-5/norm.xht#Conclusion / Yet such ‘bridge’ will take more than one engineer to build. fit to the logic of the ethic : see notebook:2021-9-16a-d / This matters because the structure of the whole may depend on it. - Its support is necessary to keep the ethic from collapsing *in practice*. : see `^^meaning: apropos the improbable refuge we see in the night sky$` @ `^^motive, motivation and meaning`i - But even to serve that role properly, it ought to fit with the logic of the open question that drives the ethic. - I have suggested elsewhere that it presents something question-like, wherein its support lies. : see `^^- It underpins the hope we need to keep going` @ `^^asking for reason is crucial$` @ `^^motive, motivation and meaning`i : see `^^- Then it becomes another open question` @ `^^meaning: apropos the improbable refuge we see in the night sky$` @ `^^motive, motivation and meaning`i | it motivates morality itself, if I can say that \ - The duty in the open question has no force unless \ we care about morals in the first place. \ - It rests on a motive to respect morality and not defy it. \ ? Should I preface the ethic with this, what seems its firm foundation? \ : see notebook:2021-9-16d : The answer is no, \\ untrue, see notebook 2021-9-16d,e meaning: apropos the improbable refuge we see in the night sky : re `improbable refuge` see http://reluk.ca/project/way/diaspora/premise.brec : [presumeably] : see notebook:2021-9-11c,k,l : see notebook:2021-9-16a-c - I can hardly say any of what follows. - But somehow I must say something, and find a way to do justice to it. - Maybe present the two alternatives concerning meaning in the night sky: | what we see is a meaningless fluke, nothing behind it but random cause and effect - Then HR collapses, motive will eventually fail us. | what we see is no fluke, it is there on purpose - Then it becomes another open question, but one we have no duty to answer, but an obligation to (what) assume the best. - For whatever put that there is of a higher order than we. - The ethic itself is empty|hollow form. - All we find in it is justification of a further search. - Ultimately we would tire of the search, as the formula of HR necessarily allows. - And foreseeing it today makes it all the harder to postpone the fact till tomorrow. - If we all we saw on a clear night left us cold … - Or if it reduced us to insignificance, as Kant saw it; Kant who could count postulate an immortal soul, which we cannot … - That we bear a gift of real worth, that Maggie’s tears are not without cause, … - All seems to rest on what we see in the night sky. - If the whole is not to collapse, as again the formula of HR necessarily allows, then it needs support. - We need something that sustains a search for {what | a consummation} we cannot possibly see, and ought not try to imagine. / I want here to be true to what Dickinson implies in putting ‘all we hope’ and the ‘whole we fear’ on a level in indicating ‘madness near’. - I’m left in awe that we actually find that in the night sky. - No conjecture of mine could do justice to the worth I see in this, it could only diminish it. / Here can be true to Dickinson, and also sincere. - Even if I knew that the universe were certain to collapse, it would not shake my belief that we bear a gift of worth that we can (and must) carry to the end. - All the more, knowing that such a collapse is not only plausible, but might plausibly occur (for us) tomorrow, does not give me pause at all. - The limit of light speed is the improbable thing, that thing that secures. / However I approach it, whether how that physical fact came to fit reason, or how reason came to fit the physical fact, it is a wonder. - It secures us mainly from each other, just the security we need. - For even moral certitude could never ensure moral rectitude. - Right and wrong must always go hand in hand, the choice of either being open to us. - And there are other ways, inadvertent ways we can stray into danger. - The only possible security would have to come from outside, and there (with wonder) we find it. - Even then it requires that some us at least choose right, and maintain the diaspora. - Only then are we secure from wrong. - That we must never *assume* right is perhaps one way to interpret Dickinson’s equation of ‘see all we hope’ with ‘madness near’. - Always the ‘whole we fear’ must be given its due, and not ‘told tranquil’. concise version, abandoned ∵ it is improper to the ethic : re `improper to the ethic` see `^^- A larger problem.+being \*improper\* to the ethic\.$` ' It once occured to me, — here relating the idea of a refuge among the stars : re `refuge among the stars` see http://reluk.ca/project/way/diaspora/premise.brec : [presumeably] - But here I must first prepare the reader by saying that what occured to me raises a question in light of the present ethic. - This file will do just two things: a) It will point to the coincidence of discovering out there a cosmos, and in here a{n} [normative] ethic, both perfectly tailored to a rational nature that is exposed to hazards not only external, but also of its own making. : re `out there a cosmos` see http://reluk.ca/project/way/diaspora/premise.brec : [presumeably] : see `^^meaning: apropos the improbable refuge we see in the night sky$` @ `^^ Motive, motivation and meaning ─ an afterword$` b) It will address in the fewest words the puzzle this presents. + Consider that (from what follows), concision is going to be infeasible here. - I might have to admit that I cannot attempt here to unravel the puzzle this presents. + Try ∴ to finish quickly by saying I saw *that*, and I wrote *this*, and it remains to be seen whether I have been equal to the task. - This is not my field; the ethic could easily prove indefensible. / A prudent admission, I think. + Consider ∴ whether this approach might be married with the opening that was originally planned for the afterword. : see `^^\+ Consider starting this file as related in the notebook\.$` @ `^^ Motive, motivation and meaning ─ an afterword$` - It is difficult to control speculation, but I think it would be misplaced. - A theoretic approach seems unhelpful here. - It would be equally unsettling to dismiss the coincidence as a *mere* coincidence, or to accept a causal connection in one direction or another. - A practical approach, then, seems better. - We leave the theoretic uncertainty as an open|unsettled question, alongside the moral uncertainty on which the ethic is grounded. - We look at how the fact serves the bounden search for moral certainty. asking for reason is crucial - The question ‘What reason?’ is all we have to hold on to. + This might better be ‘The quest for reason’, as that echoes even R. - As though reason’s apparent motive of striving forward found a purchase in planting these questions in us, by which means it sustains itself. - Always a search for reason, as though reason’s striving forth is the very thing that animates us. - And why not? Do we not define humanity as a rational nature? - At the very least, this lends credence to the definition. - It seems to underpin the deontic ground of HR, in that what it asks has a rational basis, especially if you include the corollary (?) questions, ‘What final end might there be? What thing of value in its own right?’ - It seems to ask the [nihilistic] question, ‘What reason even to exist?’ - It underpins the normative rules that safeguard us, in ‘What reason to impose this duty?’ - It underpins the hope we need to keep going, in ‘What reason lies behind the improbable refuge we see in the night sky?’ : see notebook:2021-9-11c,k,l Dickinson is crucial : cf. notebook:2021-9-11g - Now that all the grounds of HR but the deontic have collapsed, I see that humanity must risk|venture all on a search for a reason even to exist, to carry on and keep trying. / That is basically what that one remaining ground implies. - Everything hangs on the one slim question that it asks, and the duty that question implies. - This gives new meaning to the ‘whole we fear’ and ‘madness near’ of Dickinson’s letter. - Yes, somehow her beautiful letter echoes not only the meaning in the night sky, but the meaning of the ethic, and all that is at stake for us. - It would help greatly, and deserves a prominent place, e.g. at the end. - It together with the exclamation, ‘Oh, how shameful if we should fail even to try!’ : see notebook:2021-9-11d,n final argument + Bear in mind that this was written early, and has not been maintained. / A second teleological argument, so to speak, this one for the whole ethic. The value being the satisfaction in pursuing an answer to a profound mystery. / A second deontological argument, so to speak, the obligation revealed by a feeling of shame, the like of that behind Margie’s tears, at failing to hold onto a gift of inestimatable value. + Consider how Margie and gift worthiness be might instead be central here. : see also `^^ Gift concept$` / No longer using them in the ethic proper, but only in the afterword. / No longer using them as grounds or explanation, but as a sincere confession. - The gift is as always: what was passed to us from ancestors and — by reference to the otherwise hard-to-explain refuge in the night sky — possible further progenitors. - But the crux (the confession) is that here is my own ground for pursuing HR, in the sense of my own motivation. - It is compatible with the other grounds offered for pursuing HR, as well as the separate grounds of right, but closer to the heart. - They come after the fact, for I was motivated to write them. - They seem superficial explanations in lieu of an understanding that escapes me. - I experience it, but I cannot explain it, so I should not try. - Instead I merely relate it. - But rational grounds, too, I can only relate. ?+ What then is this alternative (this ‘instead’) that I speak of here? + Consider how Dickinson’s letter might give voice to its inexplicable nature. + Consider how this file might be titled (or subtitled) with ‘motivation’. - Motivation is, after all, a live topic in ethics. + Mark the file fractum private, and under copyright. - We might explain how nature was the cradle of reason and determinant of its structure. - There is natural selection. - There is the support offered by a visible night sky, if not to its origin, then certainly to its exercise in culture. / Was it Carl Sagan who suggested this? - But what explains the appearance that reason has had a hand in structuring nature? : see e.g. http://reluk.ca/project/way/diaspora/premise.brec : [presumeably] - Is it just a fluke, or is there something else behind it? - We should stick around to find out.