What is naturalism?

[Goddess Kit]

That observation does not justify the axiom at all.

Furthermore, mental causation and/or consciousness is not explained by any physical parameter or process.

I will not get into this argument again.

If your physical body, your physical brain, did not exist with all that it entails, you would not have a mental process.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Sorry, I couldn't parse that. Could you rephrase?

E.g. you see a dog. The dog is in a relationship to you otherwise you wouldn't be able to see. Now imagine more generally something. Further imagine that it has no relationship to you, because it is independent of you/your mind and it is in itself. That is the strong version of objective: Having reality independent of the mind. But that is as really independent of the mind unknowable.
I.e. there is no knowledge of an observer independent reality other than it must be there.

 

[atanu]

If your physical body, your physical brain, did not exist with all that it entails, you would not have a mental process.

Vedanta calls it effect of mAyA or ignorance. It is akin to seeing a red hot steel ball and erroneously ascribing properties of hardness to heat and heat to steel.

The three phenomenal states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping are illumined and known by consciousness that runs through these three states. Meditators can strip away the mental-sensual objects that are taken as ‘me’ and abide as the awareness that alone is ‘me’.

Anyway the above is just for the record.

...

 

[Goddess Kit]

And for the record, nothing of importance was added to the argument.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

But are you truly learning anything?

Yes, I learned that there is theological naturalism.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

And for the record, nothing of importance was added to the argument.

Well, it is another world view than yours or mine. But I do get it in some sense.

 

[Goddess Kit]

Yes, I learned that there is theological naturalism.

And I suppose it has the same roots as creation science, which makes it essential only to theists who do not reason properly.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

And I suppose it has the same roots as creation science, which makes it essential only to theists who do not reason properly.

Well, evidence for what proper reasoning is?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

And I suppose it has the same roots as creation science, which makes it essential only to theists who do not reason properly.

Well, Wikipedia says otherwise.
Religious naturalism - Wikipedia

I am not a theist, but I do agree with religious naturalism.
Did you learn something?

 

[Goddess Kit]

Well, Wikipedia says otherwise.
Religious naturalism - Wikipedia

I am not a theist, but I do agree with religious naturalism.
Did you learn something?

From my divine perspective, there is much still for you to learn.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

From my divine perspective, there is much still for you to learn.

I don't have to do the world exactly like you. Now learn to live with that or if you need to, seek help. But please stop claim you are Authoritative for my life. That is in the end not allowed under the RF rules.

You and I believe differently. How you as you deal with that, is your problem.

 

[Goddess Kit]

You have made the claim above. I have not.

That is also an issue with which you need to deal.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

You have made the claim above. I have not.

That is also an issue with which you need to deal.

What claim have I made? That I don't need to learn to be you. Well, if that is the one, I stand by it.

 

[Goddess Kit]

As is often an issue with people who interpret with English as their second language, you alone have interpreted that I am an authoritarian figure.

I simply stated that I, as a divine being, is of the perspective that you have a great deal to learn.

The only ones who ever claim they are done learning, it seems, are the arrogant theists.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

As is often an issue with people who interpret with English as their second language, you alone have interpreted that I am an authoritarian figure.

I simply stated that I, as a divine being, is of the perspective that you have a great deal to learn.

The only ones who ever claim they are done learning, it seems, are the arrogant theists.

Well, I am not an theist. So what can you learn that I need to learn?

 

[Quiddity]

What does "elevation of natural processes" mean? What are some examples?

The effects exceeding the powers of the material world.

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Supernatural Order

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The effects exceeding the powers of the material world.

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Supernatural Order

That is one belief system. I am of another.

 

[Sunstone]

What is naturalism?
That is my question.

Naturalism is a philosophical term the meaning of which tends to vary from one philosopher or school of philosophy to another. Fortunately, philosophers are relatively good at defining their terms, albeit seldom perfect, so you can get a pretty good idea of what 'naturalism' meant to John Dewey by reading Dewey, or what 'naturalism' meant to Sydney Hook by reading Hook.

In general, though, naturalism tends to be used as an epistemic term denoting an attempt or doctrine of explaining empirical reality wholly in terms of empirical reality (in the broadest sense of 'empirical') and without resort to non-empirical explanations, such as "the gods done it". That is, it is most often defined as in opposition to supernatural explanations.* Or, to put it a little differently, naturalism is the idea or doctrine of explaining the empirical universe wholly in physical terms, as opposed to resorting to metaphysical terms.

I hope that helps.




* Note: Not all forms of naturalism contradict supernaturalism. e.g. methodological naturalism does not preclude the possibility of a supernatural or metaphysical reality. Most scientists, when doing science, act as methodological naturalists, or in ways indistinguishable from those of a methodological naturalist. Another way of saying that is most scientists, when doing science, ignore metaphysical concerns and issues -- and quite rightly, too. The use and power of the sciences to explain things would be castrated by introducing metaphysics into the scientific methods of inquiry.

 

[Polymath257]

E.g. you see a dog. The dog is in a relationship to you otherwise you wouldn't be able to see.

Hmmm...I would modify this a bit. The dog doesn't exactly have a *relationship* with me. The dog interacts with light. That light then interacts with me. I process the information from that light and thereby 'see' the dog.

Now imagine more generally something. Further imagine that it has no relationship to you, because it is independent of you/your mind and it is in itself.

Easy enough. Just take anything I have never interacted with anything it has interacted with.

That is the strong version of objective: Having reality independent of the mind. But that is as really independent of the mind unknowable.

OK, here is where I disagree. Just because *I* haven't interacted with it, doesn't mean it is unknowable. It just means *I* have no basis for knowing about it. others may well through their own interactions with it.

It is the interaction that makes something knowable. To whom it is knowable is determined by the chain of interactions.

I.e. there is no knowledge of an observer independent reality other than it must be there.

Again, I disagree. The reality is because of potential interactions. Things are *defined* by the range of possible interactions they engage in.

So, for example, I don't think it is meaningful to talk about a 'thing in itself'. That would imply it has an existence distinct from the ways it interacts with other things. And that, I believe, is fundamentally wrong.

Another way to put it: it is literally meaningless to say that something exists that doesn't interact with anything else.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Hmmm...I would modify this a bit. The dog doesn't exactly have a *relationship* with me. The dog interacts with light. That light then interacts with me. I process the information from that light and thereby 'see' the dog.


Easy enough. Just take anything I have never interacted with anything it has interacted with.



OK, here is where I disagree. Just because *I* haven't interacted with it, doesn't mean it is unknowable. It just means *I* have no basis for knowing about it. others may well through their own interactions with it.

It is the interaction that makes something knowable. To whom it is knowable is determined by the chain of interactions.



Again, I disagree. The reality is because of potential interactions. Things are *defined* by the range of possible interactions they engage in.

So, for example, I don't think it is meaningful to talk about a 'thing in itself'. That would imply it has an existence distinct from the ways it interacts with other things. And that, I believe, is fundamentally wrong.

Another way to put it: it is literally meaningless to say that something exists that doesn't interact with anything else.

transcendental idealism | Definition & Facts
Transcendental idealism, also called formalistic idealism, term applied to the epistemology of the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who held that the human self, or transcendental ego, constructs knowledge out of sense impressions and from universal concepts called categories that it imposes upon them. Kant’s transcendentalism is set in contrast to those of two of his predecessors—the problematic idealism of René Descartes, who claimed that the existence of matter can be doubted, and the dogmatic idealism of George Berkeley, who flatly denied the existence of matter. Kant believed that ideas, the raw matter of knowledge, must somehow be due to realities existing independently of human minds; but he held that such things-in-themselves must remain forever unknown. Human knowledge cannot reach to them because knowledge can only arise in the course of synthesizing the ideas of sense.

My bold. You are arguing from one philosophical position. I am using another. Think of it as 2 different forms of mathematics. Now forget your form and check the other.