God doesn't "exist as a concept" (and neither does anything else)

[blü 2]

They're literary characters. There's nothing to them but the model.

That is, each of them exists as a concept or thing imagined in individual brains and in no other manner.

Like God.

 

[F1fan]

Is real real and how does it exist?

Are you confused about what's real?

If you are driving a car (are you confused about whether the car you're driving is real, or not?) and you travel down a road (is the road real or just imaginary?) and you see (is your vision and perception accurate?) a large truck stopped in the road, are you confusing about whether the truck is really there or imaginary?

My guess is you have no problem discerning real objects in your environment if your life depends on it, assuming you exist.

 

[Aupmanyav]

.. but the whole idea of God - or anything - "existing as a concept" or "existing in the mind" is nonsense. Thoughts?

Yes, either God/Gods/Goddesses exist or they don't. There is no third option.

My guess is you have no problem discerning real objects in your environment if your life depends on it, assuming you exist.

Are the 'real' objects really 'real'? 'Your life depends on it'. Is our life the reality? What exists is just a blob of atoms, there as well as here, the truck as well as the car. How much real are we?

 

[F1fan]

Yes, just as the imagery idea of human rights. Now draw human rights.

This isn't an accurate example. Human rights are not objects, they are abstractions.

Now someone could draw a cartoon that represents what humans rights are, and how they are expressed.

 

[F1fan]

But the fact that our brains filter and process the information doesn't mean there is no table there.

I suspect this touches on something i see many theists do when we discuss perception and the imaginary. Theists tend to be in favor of being in a more confused state, trying to blur the distinction between the real and the imaginary. My suspicion is this creates a vacuum for God to exist. The "you can't know it's not there" the of thinking.

I can't understand any useful motive to be confused about what is real and what isn't when most everyone has no problem discerning the real from imaginary when they walk, run, or drive.

 

[F1fan]

Yes, either God/Gods/Goddesses exist or they don't. There is no third option.Are the 'real' objects really 'real'? 'Your life depends on it'. Is our life the reality? What exists is just a blob of atoms, there as well as here, the truck as well as the car. How much real are we?

This only gets confusing on the philosophical level as we sit safely on our couch. When driving our car the "real versus imaginary" issue is quite black and white.

 

[PureX]

I disagree. There are differentiated phenomena.

No, it's all one big, complicated, inter-related phenomenon. The phenomenon of existence. The differentiation comes from us. We are deciding "this" from "that", "here" from "there", "truth" from "fiction", by how the phenomenon of existence is effecting US. Perception IS imagination. Reality is an imagined state within which we create a context for whatever we experience.

We don't have access to all of the information about the external world, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.

"Internal" and "external" are imaginary conditions based on our own particular experience of existence. But "the world" is all of it. It's the phenomenon of existence AND it's our perception of and subsequent presumed understanding of that phenomenon.

I am honestly puzzled by how difficult this is for a philosophical materialist to grasp.

 

[PureX]

That is an exceptionally inaccurate statement.

Energy/matter is not imaginary.

What is imaginary is "energy" and "matter". What is not imaginary is the phenomenon of existence, and it's effect on us. We define the phenomenon of existence according to that effect. And then we presume our definitions to be the "reality" of what exists.

Now you may be confusing how our minds sense the rest of the universe, and that perception is processed in our minds as representations. This doesn't mean what we sense is imaginary.

You don't understand; to perceive is to imagine a context within which to 'place' the various stimuli our minds are receiving. Imagination is how we think; it's how we 'understand' (or presume to understand) what we experience. There is no "un-imagined" reality, for us. It's all imagined.

We know what tomatoes are from experience, but when we pick a tomato from our garden, slice it, and eat it, we aren't relating to a concept of a tomato, we are having an experience with a real tomato that isn't subject to our imagination.

The term "knowledge" refers to personal experience. It does not refer to the 'truth of what is'. So yes, we experience things, and we imagine a whole contextual array within which to place our new experience. We can label it, and repeat it, until we no longer doubt it's validity as an independent experience of being. ... We "know" it, now. And yet the exprience remains what it always was: undifferentiated phenomena until we came along and imagined it to be a "separate" (differentiated) phenomena of it's own. And we labeled it, and placed it in our conceptual multiplex of 'existence' until something happens to cause us to have to re-contextualize the experience.

Now we can imagine eating one of our tomatoes before they are ready and ripe. That is an imaginary experience.

All experiences are being imagined as we experience them. It's what 'perception' is: our contextualizing that incoming sensory information. Once 'logged' and contextualized, we can then recall that process later as a 'memory', and replay it using that our imagination. Imagination is our primary cognitive tool. We can do a lot with it.

What can be confusing is if our brains have distorted perception, like being tired or low blood sugar and how this affects brain functioning. When our brains are out of whack we can believe we sense things that aren't real. Even heightened states of fear can distort what we think is happening around us. Look into the God Helmet experiments as it shows that the brain can have an imbalance and subjects believe they are having a spiritual experience. Our brains have a lot of flaws and to keep perception accurate requires a good deal of learning and understanding.

We become so dependent upon that contextual array in our minds that we call "reality" that when some experience occurs that isn't immediately able to be comfortably contextualized, labeled, and thereby 'understood', we often become frightened, and confused, and respond irrationally.

 

[PureX]

This only gets confusing on the philosophical level as we sit safely on our couch. When driving our car the "real versus imaginary" issue is quite black and white.

Yes, it's a lot like mathematics. 2 + 2 = 4 so long as we continue to ignore all the ways that these two 'things' and those two 'things' are not actually equal (when the numbers are applied to reality]. And that, in fact, no two things are ever really equal, or they would have to be the same thing. Which makes them one thing, and not two.

It's why philosophy is so important. Without it, we'd just go on believing in the "truth" of our own ideological fictions.

 

[PureX]

This isn't an accurate example. Human rights are not objects, they are abstractions.

True, but objects aren't really objects, either. We simply perceive them to be objects because of our relationship to their material density.

 

[F1fan]

Yes, it's a lot like mathematics. 2 + 2 = 4 so long as we continue to ignore all the ways that these two 'things' and those two 'things' are not actually equal (when the numbers are applied to reality].

Math isn't concerned with what the things are. It could be two piles of **** and two kittens, regardless there are four objects on the floor. You are trying to make things murky by inserting value into it.

And that, in fact, no two things are ever really equal, or they would have to be the same thing. Which makes them one thing, and not two.

Completely irrelevant.

But I do make a joke about identical twins, when someone asks me if I'm dating anyone I ask them "Does dating identical twins count as one?"

It's why philosophy is so important. Without it, we'd just go on believing in the "truth" of our own ideological fictions.

Like do you believe in one imaginary God or three, because that Trinity thing is very confusing.

 

[F1fan]

True, but objects aren't really objects, either.

Well, I'll tell ya man, you get hit in the head with a brick you're gonna know it's an object. But try to deny the pain away if that works for you.

We simply perceive them to be objects because of our relationship to their material density.

So you acknowledge they are material and dense, but also that they are not objects?

 

[Nakosis]

I didn't come up with this challenge, but I really like it:

Draw a bicycle.

Pretty much everyone has a concept of a bicycle... so draw it in as much detail as you can manage. Draw either a specific bike that you have in mind or a "generalized" bike that you dreamed up yourself.

Whenever you decide you're done, hit the spoiler button below.

Spoiler

All right. Now that you're done, look at it critically and ask yourself a few questions:

- would this bike actually function? Would the wheels turn? Would the pedals propel you? Would the brakes work? Would the gears shift properly?

- (if it was a depiction of a real bike): does this drawing look like the real bike? Are there any differences between the real thing and your drawing? Did you get the scratch on the fork or the scuff on the crank correct?

When asking yourself these questions, feel free to make reasonable allowances for your drawing ability (or lack thereof), but please be honest with yourself and don't pretend that you were conceiving of details that you really didn't.

We think in mental models. These models are not the entirety of the things they represent; they're only the details we think are important... and even then, only the details we recognize.

Just as your mental model of a bike isn't actually a bike "existing in your mind," your mental model of God isn't actually God existing in your mind, either. It's an action figure version of God. A Potemkin Village God.

The idea of God "existing as a concept" is a foundational part of the Ontological Argument. It also gets used occasionally for snark thrown at atheists ("what do you mean God doesn't exist? *I* believe in God, so God at least exists as a concept"... that sort of thing).

... but the whole idea of God - or anything - "existing as a concept" or "existing in the mind" is nonsense.

Thoughts?

My understanding is that our entire conscious reality is a concept created by the brain. So your experience of the reality of a bicycle is a concept created by your brain. The difference here is that the concept of reality that you experience is subconsciously created vs your conscious creation of the drawing of the bicycle. Concepts exist as physical processes in the brain. Your brain receives receives stimulus from the body, turns this signals into a concept of reality which you consciously experience.

To say God exists as a concept is to say that God exists as a physical process of the brain.

Most of our perceptions come from stimulus originating external to the brain. However after being processes, what we consciously experience is no less of a concept. It is just not a conscious process so w accept it as the fact of reality.

However the brain can also create internal concepts which have not originated externally. The conceptualization is the same and if we are not consciously aware of creating the concept, we can mistake it being externally generated.

Therefore God. If one believes in God, then the brain can include God in our experience of reality. It's like adding an app to our experience of reality. I think normally this "app" is added through nurture and culture. Not consciously.

All we consciously know is a concept of reality. This concept of reality is flexible/malleable. Concept exists as physical processes of he brain. Sometimes the concept we experience is an accurate representation of reality, sometimes not.

 

[F1fan]

True, but objects aren't really objects, either. We simply perceive them to be objects because of our relationship to their material density.

Are cars not really cars? Are birds not really birds?

Your statement here is exactly what I referred to earlier. There's this deliberate attempt to murky how we humans perceive and understand by many theists. The irony is that if our perception is this faulty and poor then that just makes claims of "knowing" a God exists even LESS likely.

The smart thing would be to advocate for excellent perception, and theists have a special extra sensory ability to detect a God that atheists lack.

 

[PureX]

Math isn't concerned with what the things are. It could be two piles of **** and two kittens, regardless there are four objects on the floor. You are trying to make things murky by inserting value into it.

Mathematics without any applied value is just ideological fiction. "Zippo" + "wambo" = "majento". ... Yep! Absolutely! (And absolutely meaningless.)

But I do make a joke about identical twins, when someone asks me if I'm dating anyone I ask them "Does dating identical twins count as one?"

There are no identical twins. It's a misuse of terminology.

Like do you believe in one imaginary God or three, because that Trinity thing is very confusing.

If you'd stop auto-defending your own nonsense for a minute you'd become less confused. I don't 'believe in' any gods. I don't 'believe in' anything. As a mere human, I don't find that sort of blind self-justification helpful.

 

[Polymath257]

No, it's all one big, complicated, inter-related phenomenon. The phenomenon of existence. The differentiation comes from us. We are deciding "this" from "that", "here" from "there", "truth" from "fiction", by how the phenomenon of existence is effecting US. Perception IS imagination. Reality is an imagined state within which we create a context for whatever we experience.
"Internal" and "external" are imaginary conditions based on our own particular experience of existence. But "the world" is all of it. It's the phenomenon of existence AND it's our perception of and subsequent presumed understanding of that phenomenon.

I am honestly puzzled by how difficult this is for a philosophical materialist to grasp.

It isn't that I don't grasp the concept.

I simply disagree. In fact, I find it a rather silly viewpoint.

 

[F1fan]

What is imaginary is "energy" and "matter". What is not imaginary is the phenomenon of existence, and it's effect on us.

The words are representative of real phenomenon. These specific words are English. There are other languages that mean the same thing. these are more accurately called abstractions.

So the word "energy" means a number of things and they all exist outside of human awareness and imagination. We can verify this.

The word "god" means many things and there is not a single example that can be verified to exist outside of human imagination.

So words can represent both real phenomenon and the imaginary. Intellect and objectivity allows us to know the difference.

 

[F1fan]

Mathematics without any applied value is just ideological fiction. "Zippo" + "wambo" = "majento". ... Yep! Absolutely! (And absolutely meaningless.)

Math is representative. 2 means 2 of whatever the relevant application is. Or 2 can mean nothing but an abstraction without any referant. You can do an excersize with the Pythagorean theorem in some abstract way. It doesn't have to be for any practical application.

There are no identical twins. It's a misuse of terminology.

Actually identical twins are a fertilized egg that splits. You didn't know this?

If you'd stop auto-defending your own nonsense for a minute you'd become less confused. I don't 'believe in' any gods. I don't 'believe in' anything. As a mere human, I don't find that sort of blind self-justification helpful.

Irony.

 

[PureX]

Are cars not really cars? Are birds not really birds?

"Real" compared to what?

Your statement here is exactly what I referred to earlier. There's this deliberate attempt to murky how we humans perceive and understand by many theists. The irony is that if our perception is this faulty and poor then that just makes claims of "knowing" a God exists even LESS likely.

Only fools claim they "know God", just as only fools claim they know there isn't one, because if there were, they'd know it. But the world is full of fools. It's part of the human condition. We can't avoid it. But that doesn't mean we have to wallow in it, either, or defend it as some absurd form of wisdom.

The smart thing would be to advocate for excellent perception, and theists have a special extra sensory ability to detect a God that atheists lack.

Yes, they do, in fact. It's called 'faith'. And it does add another methodology to our perceptual tool belt.

 

[Polymath257]

What is imaginary is "energy" and "matter". What is not imaginary is the phenomenon of existence, and it's effect on us. We define the phenomenon of existence according to that effect. And then we presume our definitions to be the "reality" of what exists.

I disagree. If anything, I think this is exactly the reverse of the correct position. Out internal experiences are fleeting and unreal, while the external world is the reality. The external world affects us through our senses, but in a weak and filtered way.

You don't understand; to perceive is to imagine a context within which to 'place' the various stimuli our minds are receiving. Imagination is how we think; it's how we 'understand' (or presume to understand) what we experience. There is no "un-imagined" reality, for us. It's all imagined.

And I disagree. There is reality and then there is our imagination. Our conceptions are all inaccurate to various degrees since they are based on imperfect information.

The term "knowledge" refers to personal experience. It does not refer to the 'truth of what is'. So yes, we experience things, and we imagine a whole contextual array within which to place our new experience. We can label it, and repeat it, until we no longer doubt it's validity as an independent experience of being. ... We "know" it, now. And yet the exprience remains what it always was: undifferentiated phenomena until we came along and imagined it to be a "separate" (differentiated) phenomena of it's own. And we labeled it, and placed it in our conceptual multiplex of 'existence' until something happens to cause us to have to re-contextualize the experience.

And I disagree. We are an accident in all of this. Things exist independently of us. We manage to sense and understand only a small part of reality. But there is far more than merely what we perceive directly and we *know* our perceptions are often wrong.

All experiences are being imagined as we experience them. It's what 'perception' is: our contextualizing that incoming sensory information. Once 'logged' and contextualized, we can then recall that process later as a 'memory', and replay it using that our imagination. Imagination is our primary cognitive tool. We can do a lot with it.
We become so dependent upon that contextual array in our minds that we call "reality" that when some experience occurs that isn't immediately able to be comfortably contextualized, labeled, and thereby 'understood', we often become frightened, and confused, and respond irrationally.

This is focused on psychology, not on reality. yes, we have natural barriers to understanding because our senses are imperfect, they filter aspects in ways that make it difficult to figure out the reality, they are often contradictory, and our minds are poor at analysis past basic instincts.

But that doesn't mean there isn't a reality out there that is affecting us in these ways. It isn't *all* just mind games we play with ourselves.

That seems very clear to me.