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angellous_evangellous
Guest
No*s - Am I seriously off topic - why no response to my posts? Feeling like I'm the odd man out...:sad4:
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Philosophy in religions
- Thread starter No*s
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... unless you're a naturalist.angellous_evangellous said:
Same here; (I guess big guy has too many questions to answer)angellous_evangellous said:
Would the reality of Solipsism (hypothetically) make any difference ? The reality might be virtual, but still 'real'. I have a philosophy that dictates my interaction with others; whether they are real or not makes no difference, surely?
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angellous_evangellous
Guest
Precisely. I just wish that Einstien had left not out of his statement. I think that philosophy has long left metaphysics behind.Jayhawker Soule said:
EDIT: Obviously, metaphysics as "thinking about thinking" is obviously the work of philosophy, but presupposing that there is something beyond nature seems to have been replaced by naturalism in rational thought.
Anyway, thanks for the attention Jay.
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angellous_evangellous
Guest
HAHAHAHA - I do have a few posts that I haven't deleted that you haven't responded to.... :biglaugh:No*s said:I did, but you responded to a different post, I responded to that one, you deleted that, then I deleted mine
EDIT: Posts # 31, 36, 39. I deleted two posts because I misread you. :bonk: I'm sorry for the confusion. The thread showed you as offline, and there was not yet a response.
No*s
Captain Obvious
This one, I didn't see (I'd just finished a post and went to other threads for a while)
How? Something doesn't beget itself. One can assert that the universe has always been, but one cannot assert that there can be a natural first cause for the universe, when nature refers to the rules within that universe.
Some of the ancient Greek conceptions of the "prime mover." He wasn't Zeus or anything like that. He just got the ball rolling. Nothing is said of sentience, will, desire, or the like. Often, the most one got is that the universe was an overflow of this beings completeness or perfection or some other thing (which later blurred the lines). It exists.
That statement is true only if reason is synonomous with empiricism, which is something I have challenged. After all, we can use reason in non-empirical things. It must, therefore, operate with different rules in different fields (it is true that divine revelation is a trump on science, but one cannot make a hard separation between reason and faith, because we never use one without the other to some degree).
It is true in the address, because the person I responded to admitted that he accepted some axioms solely on the basis of faith. In his case, the statement was true.
No, we don't. An axiomatic presupposition is, by definition, one we treat as an axiom. We almost regard it as self-evidently true. We cannot validate them with reason, and only sometimes can we invalidate them. They may be affected, but ultimately, they are the metaphysical underpinning that make any philosophy possible.
You cannot assert that you accurately know truth or perceive the world as anything but an axiom. We know that children can't, on account of how their brains function. They, however, must assume they do in order to function themselves. They, thus, live in an illusion. We know that we often make mistakes about how the world functions and in our perception of the world.
We cannot say that "It works, so we understand it aright." The ancient shaman believed plants healed because of spirits in them. Europeans believed that some of their medecines worked because they cured humors. In none of these cases were they right, but the things they used frequently worked.
Ultimately, every attempt to rationally validate that we can accurately know truth assumes that we can as one of its founding principles. It cannot be validated in any way other than circular logic. It is an axiom, one that underpins empiricism and cannot be escaped. Every philisophical system has such axioms built into it, every epistomology, every metaphysics (and everyone has those). Reason cannot operate without axioms, and each philosophy has slightly different axioms, but all axioms are unified in that they are assumed, not proven.
Likewise, it cannot be denied that the affect of empiricism on philosophy is tempered by culture and axioms. It is no coincidence, to me, that major scientific break-throughs coincide with cultural shifts. Quantum mechanics, for instance, arose alongside post-modernism, to which it is quite amenable. The theory of evolution (which I accept) arose alongside a cultural movement that sought an enlightened tolerance of religions, after all those religious wars in Europe, and thus the culture was increasingly seeking a more natural way to address things.
I used science, because it is the most empirical of philosophies, but it is still a philosophy, and it is also affected by its culture. For all we know, none of those are accurate, despite the positivve eidence for them. A new culture shift may occur, and science itself may simply accept a new material theory to explain it. If empirical evidence isn't the only force that affects the most empirical of philosophies, then we must admit that in progressively less empirical realm, it holds increasing sway. That, in its turn, would validate my point that most of the time philosophy is more a tool to prove something than seek it out.
angellous_evangellous said:
How? Something doesn't beget itself. One can assert that the universe has always been, but one cannot assert that there can be a natural first cause for the universe, when nature refers to the rules within that universe.
angellous_evangellous said:
Some of the ancient Greek conceptions of the "prime mover." He wasn't Zeus or anything like that. He just got the ball rolling. Nothing is said of sentience, will, desire, or the like. Often, the most one got is that the universe was an overflow of this beings completeness or perfection or some other thing (which later blurred the lines). It exists
.angellous_evangellous said:
That statement is true only if reason is synonomous with empiricism, which is something I have challenged. After all, we can use reason in non-empirical things. It must, therefore, operate with different rules in different fields (it is true that divine revelation is a trump on science, but one cannot make a hard separation between reason and faith, because we never use one without the other to some degree).
angellous_evangellous said:
It is true in the address, because the person I responded to admitted that he accepted some axioms solely on the basis of faith. In his case, the statement was true.
angellous_evangellous said:
No, we don't. An axiomatic presupposition is, by definition, one we treat as an axiom. We almost regard it as self-evidently true. We cannot validate them with reason, and only sometimes can we invalidate them. They may be affected, but ultimately, they are the metaphysical underpinning that make any philosophy possible.
You cannot assert that you accurately know truth or perceive the world as anything but an axiom. We know that children can't, on account of how their brains function. They, however, must assume they do in order to function themselves. They, thus, live in an illusion. We know that we often make mistakes about how the world functions and in our perception of the world.
We cannot say that "It works, so we understand it aright." The ancient shaman believed plants healed because of spirits in them. Europeans believed that some of their medecines worked because they cured humors. In none of these cases were they right, but the things they used frequently worked.
Ultimately, every attempt to rationally validate that we can accurately know truth assumes that we can as one of its founding principles. It cannot be validated in any way other than circular logic. It is an axiom, one that underpins empiricism and cannot be escaped. Every philisophical system has such axioms built into it, every epistomology, every metaphysics (and everyone has those). Reason cannot operate without axioms, and each philosophy has slightly different axioms, but all axioms are unified in that they are assumed, not proven.
angellous_evangellous said:
Likewise, it cannot be denied that the affect of empiricism on philosophy is tempered by culture and axioms. It is no coincidence, to me, that major scientific break-throughs coincide with cultural shifts. Quantum mechanics, for instance, arose alongside post-modernism, to which it is quite amenable. The theory of evolution (which I accept) arose alongside a cultural movement that sought an enlightened tolerance of religions, after all those religious wars in Europe, and thus the culture was increasingly seeking a more natural way to address things.
I used science, because it is the most empirical of philosophies, but it is still a philosophy, and it is also affected by its culture. For all we know, none of those are accurate, despite the positivve eidence for them. A new culture shift may occur, and science itself may simply accept a new material theory to explain it. If empirical evidence isn't the only force that affects the most empirical of philosophies, then we must admit that in progressively less empirical realm, it holds increasing sway. That, in its turn, would validate my point that most of the time philosophy is more a tool to prove something than seek it out.
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
Thanks, No*s. Unfortunately, I don't have time for a quick response to this. I have to go to work.
EDIT: We should talk about my current research sometime. I think you'd find it very interesting.
EDIT: We should talk about my current research sometime. I think you'd find it very interesting.
No*s
Captain Obvious
michel said:Same here; (I guess big guy has too many questions to answer)
Would the reality of Solipsism (hypothetically) make any difference ? The reality might be virtual, but still 'real'. I have a philosophy that dictates my interaction with others; whether they are real or not makes no difference, surely?
Sorry, I missed it.
Yes, it would. If you believe that everyone is a figment of your imagination, then you can justifiably treat them any way you want. It isn't any different than when I write a story, and I put a character through untold misery, kill people, and so on. They aren't real, so I can do what I want with the characters in the story. If the world and the people in it are figments of my imagination, then they are in the same category. The ethical implications are daunting.
No*s
Captain Obvious
Jayhawker Soule said:
I simply defined the deity necessitated by it as something outside the universe. Saying the universe begets itself would be like saying I'm my own father. It's even more "nonsensical" than aserting a being outside the universe.
Jayhawker Soule said:
No on both counts (much to my chagrine). Simply asserting a supernatural something doesn't tell us anything about it other than it is beyond the universe, which is all we can ever know (it is thus, beyond nature). I depend on something else than the first cause argument to get beyond that. Worse, I cannot validate a first cause; it is an axiom, and I could just as easily adopt the view that the universe is in some sense eternal, negating the first cause.
Yet the common understanding of "deity" is suernatural entity acting with volition. If, by 'deity', you mean nothing other than some supernatural thing or occurrence, then using the term "deity" serves only to muddy the conversation.No*s said:
Excellent!No*s said:
So, when you said "If I reject the view that the universe is eternal, then this presupposition leads inevitably to God", you were simply taking liberties with the word "God", i.e., redefining it to mean some supernatural thing or process about which nothing can be known.
No*s
Captain Obvious
Jayhawker Soule said:
Yes. I don't have another word I can really use. "God" and "deity" can be pretty flexible. It couldn't be something natural, because it must be beyond nature (hence where "supernatural" does enter in). Unfortunately, deity does muddy the discussion. I apologize for that (I should look for a better term for that point, but I am at a loss).
Sorry, I am not very good at this.No*s said:
Even if everyone is a figment of my imagination, and I am solipsic but don't know it; because how could I know ? Then surely the way I treat others is as it would be if I was in a reality full of strangers.
An 'off - the peg' equivalent. Schitzophrenics's different characters have attitudes and emotions towards each other, and the schtzophrenic might well be aware that he is such.........
No*s
Captain Obvious
michel said:Sorry, I am not very good at this.
Even if everyone is a figment of my imagination, and I am solipsic but don't know it; because how could I know ? Then surely the way I treat others is as it would be if I was in a reality full of strangers.
An 'off - the peg' equivalent. Schitzophrenics's different characters have attitudes and emotions towards each other, and the schtzophrenic might well be aware that he is such.........
If we don't know we hold to an illusion, then it has the force of reality. If I imagine a bunch of people around me, and I think they're real, then as far as I'm concerned they are. People never act on what is truly real; we act on what we think is real. If, however, we adopt solipsism and believe it, that's when the ethical problems come in.
Of course you do: "1st Cause" Your need to give it a name laden with additional meaning is not philosophy but psychology.No*s said: