Watching TCR with my son, Colbert made a reference to his interview about this: Why there's something rather than nothing? I know Aggie has made this comment before and we had discussed it to a degree but the reference left me thinking: why is this argument The Argument? Am I particularly dense because I don't see what is the big deal about the argument, I mean, there is something and we don't really know if at some point there was nothing or if something has always been there, but unless I'm missing something, the main metaphysical question basically implies that at some point there was nothing, to which I reply How do you know?
My son was saying that the argument was empty on principle: does it matter? The point is based on a metaphysical conjecture therefore as valid as asking, do aliens like strawberry ice cream?, and going further could basically say that metaphysics in itself are as valid as futurology, in that they are nice as conjecture goes but fundamentally don't add much to our understanding.
Obviously a demiurge can have profound consequences on various belief systems and for those who believe in them so an answer to the question isn't a trivial matter, at least for believers, still my question remains, why is the question significant?
Aggie, I'm looking at you buddie, ;)
If there were only nothing, then there'd be nobody around to ask.
So for the question to even exist, there must be something. The question answers itself.
::)
IMHO, both exist. However, it seems to me that the history of all Cosmology has been an increasingly desperate attempt to prove that nothing is nothing (e.g. string theory).
I view that as strongly akin to the religious yearning.
I think the question is significant because at some point in their lives people ask it, or at least some form of it, whether religious or not.
I don't see how the question can be answered, unlike Bob. It's like where is the edge of the Universe? Personally I always think there is a limit to our consciousness and also our intelligence which means we can't know these things.
Quote from: The Meromorph on September 27, 2012, 06:14:37 PM
IMHO, both exist.
Certainly this accords with quantum theory, yes I like this answer. :-)
Quote from: Griffin NoName on September 27, 2012, 06:14:47 PM
I think the question is significant because at some point in their lives people ask it, or at least some form of it, whether religious or not.
You can make the question both from the physical and metaphysical perspectives, but that in itself is not what I'm questioning, I'll rephrase, why is the question meaningful from a religious/metaphysical point of view?
I guess my point is that if there is no way to infer a prior state how can you derive meaningful conclusions from the question?
Our worldview is based on the idea of a chain of cause and effect with each effect having a cause and being a cause for the next effect. No problem following it into the future (some models even define the direction of time by this chain). But in the other direction the chain hangs in the air. Either there is a first cause/effect that was not the effect of an earlier one which breaks the rule of 'no effect without a cause' or we have a regressum ad infinitum, i.e. no foundation or firm base from where the chain could start. So our understanding of the chain must have a serious flaw somewhere. God is no solution since the deity would be subject to the same discussion ('where did the deity come from?').
Modern cosmology evades the question by looking for an origin of time itself but the question 'what precedes time?' is a pradox in itself.
Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on September 27, 2012, 09:11:23 PM
............. why is the question meaningful from a religious/metaphysical point of view?
I guess my point is that if there is no way to infer a prior state how can you derive meaningful conclusions from the question?
Maybe it is not meaningful from a religious point of view as a religion just always takes the view "there was this" or "there was no this" and tells people to believe it, whichever it is. So not a lot meaningful there.
I don't know.
According to the current model of Quantum theory, there are sometimes events who's cause is in the future, that is something happens, which affects something else in the past/prior.
Or so I've read.
If this is true, then that effect is all you need to bootstrap the universe into existence: some future effect, caused backwards in time, the initial starting event(s).
Do I understand this? Not even.
I read somewhere or other, if you think you have a grasp of quantum theory-- then you really don't understand it at all... ::)
Relativity is no easy case either.
Iirc Eddington got asked by a reporter whether it was true that there were only three people in the world who fully understood it.
He fell silent for a while and then answered: 'I wonder who could be the third one'
:giggle:
Because of the way we're wired, I think it is very hard to imagine that all stuff didn't come from somewhere. Science tells us to look backward through time for the source. Religion tells us that the source is The Creator.
I try to imagine eternity as being always there, a mobius strip. The surface of the mobius strip is space, and time is the measure of the universe traveling along it. Whatever is here was always here, but it changes. It's just our conscious minds that have a problem trying to figure out the start of it all.
Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on September 27, 2012, 09:11:23 PM
You can make the question both from the physical and metaphysical perspectives, but that in itself is not what I'm questioning, I'll rephrase, why is the question meaningful from a religious/metaphysical point of view?
I guess my point is that if there is no way to infer a prior state how can you derive meaningful conclusions from the question?
It's most fittingly The Question when taken in the context of apophatic theology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology). However, it's not the answer that's important, it's the process of wrestling with it that matters. Lawrence Krauss missed the point of this in his lecture/book
A Universe From Nothing, by thinking that a mathematical grasp of how something is created from nothing voids pondering this question as a metaphysical technique. He got the how, but it's not quite the why.
The process of the technique classically has been to attempt to reach a wordless and unexplainable understanding of God by stating what God is
not, i.e.
God is not a man with a white beard in the sky. God is not physically present. God is not kind. God is not cruel. God is not a tree. God is not good. I've heard that in some cases, one is supposed to double-negative each of these statements to contradict them.
God is not not cruel. The function of it is to beat into the practitioner's head that God can't be understood in terms of human language and logical constructs, and to put one's mind in a state that perceives beyond the easily-described physical world. It's intended to provoke doubt and open the mind to the fact that trying to understand God logically is utterly pointless. As for meaningful conclusions, they can apparently be drawn both metaphysically (although they are meaningless in terms of verbal communication) and mathematically, as per Dr. Krauss. Even the mathematics have great possibilities for some profound metaphysical conclusions.
While the current religious bent is to use The Question as an argument which allows one to assign attributes to God (God exists because He
must have been here to make Something from Nothing) to support literalist descriptions of Creation, that's IMHO missing the point. I doubt that your average fundamentalist has the theological background and intellectual flexibility to derive any meaningful insight about God from The Question. I personally am comfortable with shorthanding things by declaring God is Nothing, but that still leaves one to ponder on what exactly Nothing is.
For the record, The Answer that I've personally come to in response to The Question is "Time is F*cking With Us". I understand it as more of a koan than a factual answer. The meaning to me is that our perspectives are bound to space-time and our approach to The Question is shaped and limited by that. I agree with Mero that both Something and Nothing
are and IMHO there's no room for 'rather than' in the argument. If one approaches the big picture as a whole, outside of the framework of time, the concept of eternity (non-time as opposed to infinite time) becomes a little clearer, and looking at Something in terms of an event that occupies time and space but may be bounded by and pervaded with not-Something becomes a little more comfortable.
I do tend to quibble with the word 'exist' when applied to Nothing. IMHO, Nothing doesn't exist as the word 'exist' is neither correct nor applicable; since God is Nothing, God doesn't exist.
God Is works better for my way of thinking. Once you work through all the permutations of
God Isn't _______, you are left with
God Is, but nothing to follow those two words with.
I do think time is a big issue. At the end of the day, (:giggle: ) , it is just a construct. Isn't it?
Naturally, humans believe in cause and effect, because for several million years, those who did so believe survived. It was a huge selection pressure in the course of human evolution.
Then, during the time of the almost universal Bicameral Mind, a fifteen thousand year stage in human evolution, when gods were real (just not what the 'conscious' 'modern' almost universal human mind [another stage in human evolution] thinks they were [itself a side effect of the invention of the external semiotic field]) there emerged the concept of an 'ineffable' underlying cause for all things.
This concept so justifies, or is so copacetic with, the natural human belief in 'cause and effect', that it is accepted by virtually all humans without question.
This is what poisons all attempts to 'understand' both sub nuclear physics (Microcosmos) and Cosmology (Macrocosmos). The human mind is not equipped with mechanisms to handle either of these.
This is, perhaps, what Godel, Escher, Bach is all about... :P
Quote from: Aggie on September 28, 2012, 06:46:56 PM
It's most fittingly The Question when taken in the context of apophatic theology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology). However, it's not the answer that's important, it's the process of wrestling with it that matters.
Mmm... Apophatic theology sounds like fancy conjecture but conjecture nonetheless.
I'm finding a problem in your reasoning, your starting point seems to be the abstract concept of a deity,
and then you use the question to sustain/pickle the concept. From a strict philosophical and scientific perspective it is quite awkward to take the gnostic approach and say "I internally know X is and my job is to start from that point to it's proof".
Worse of all we start from nothing, but not as a certainty of nothing in an abstract "beginning" or "outside of time", etc, but nothing in the sense of information, we have absolutely no knowledge prior to the Big Bang, that is, something or nothing are equally plausible as prior points, so if I go by the process of elimination (it can't be an elephant in the box because it is too small for an elephant) I can't make any meaningful conclusions because I don't know the box, much less if there was actually one.
I'm not trying to criticize gnosticism, only the pretense that you can mix it with logic and get meaningful answers from it, much less that those conclusions are supposed to convince anyone but you.
Aristotle could define space only by its boundaries and came to the conclusion that 'nothing' cannot exist since it needs 'something' to define it (or at least its extent). He consequently refused the idea of a vacuum (and thus had also to reject the atomic idea in favor of the continuum).
To me, the very notion of defining "god" as "that which we [humans] are incapable of comprehending" is simply a word-dodge.
If we are unable to contemplate or understand this "god-thing", then it becomes pointless to even acknowledge such a construct, doesn't it? For since it is a given that this "god-thing" is completely outside our abilities, then it is completely futile to even bother with it at all. A complete waste of neural activity.
Thus, the conclusion is that such a thing, being so far removed from our limited understanding, may as well not exist. Just as algebra does not exist for your average cockroach. The cockroach's entire existence begins and ends, without algebra affecting it in the slightest-- so the cockroach is "atheist" with respect to algebra.
So it becomes with a "god-thing" which is beyond us mere mortal humans.
But I think that is 100% bunkum, myself-- the human mind has shown excellent flexibility in having at the very least, a glimmering of this "ultimate algebra", if only on a limited scale. For the analogy breaks down: the lowly cockroach cannot abstract anything, it has no "mental horsepower" for such thinking.
But humans? They are demonstrably capable of thinking beyond the ordinary, beyond simple cause-effect. The very fact we can discuss this, using a medium that is devoid of facial/bodily expression, proves we are capable of understanding anything-- even god-like things, if there is sufficient data/information/facts about the subject at hand.
The very fact that humans have built quantum theory up from such observations [of facts], and that quantum theory is so contrary to our basic instincts of cause-->effect, proves this well enough.
Thus, I reject the argument as just sophistry, that god is beyond human comprehension-- give me some facts, and we'll see.
What's that? No facts of any sort, concerning this phenomena? Hmmm..... that's not even as useful as the now discredited phlogiston theory of heat... that outmoded concept at least had some facts/observations to support it-- and so long as you don't take quantitative measurements, actually worked rather well.
In direct contrast to the "god-thing" of which is seemingly so complicated, we cannot possibly measure (not even a little portion) it at all....
... may as well not exist, either.
For all the usefulness it gives us.
:)
My 22 cents worth. :D
Hmm, good and interesting cross-post, Bob. I've touched on the usefulness of this muckety-muck later in the post.
Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on September 28, 2012, 11:10:41 PM
I'm not trying to criticize gnosticism, only the pretense that you can mix it with logic and get meaningful answers from it, much less that those conclusions are supposed to convince anyone but you.
For the latter, I've conceded long since that the perception of the divine is functionally subjective (as it's processed by the brain, there should be plenty of objective information about the physiological / neurological processes involved in the perception). I take the stance that it's useless to ask to be convinced via logical argument or try to convince anyone else. It seems to me that the only way to get any convincing information on the divine is to go looking for the subjective experience yourself, and to be aware that subjective experience isn't 'proof' in any sense of the term.
I will defend mixing logic with gnosticism; the brain needs to lean back on well-honed systems to help process experience and epiphanies that defy easy translations into language. For some people, stories of miracles and magical thinking serve well enough, but I've been logically programmed since I was a young'un, so it's the most efficient way for me to process things I can't directly process. Logic is by all means flexible enough to explore worlds of pure conjecture, and feeding a few unsupportable assumptions into the process can still produce valuable results
provided one remains aware that one is working with metaphorical analogies. I dislike the crude way in which the ever-flexible logical process has been slap-dashed into silly and transparent alternate 'theories' of how the world came to be. Logic's just a tool, and used without discretion it produces pure garbage conclusions that sound like they are supportable.
Metaphysical logic, IMHO, is best used in creating personalized frameworks of fantasy which allow one to better understand what's really happening in one's physical reality. It's similar to creating a computer model that is not based on real-world data, but can be used to model or support systems that occur in the real world... 'blind watchmaker' programs allowing the evolution of sub-programs are an example of this. I can't completely explain it, but really getting an understanding of something is separate from the logical argument or rational explanation. There are many things I've been told and 'understand' logically, but don't really grok until later. The grokking is at a deeper and non-verbal level of consciousness. Exploring multiple aspects of the same concept repeatedly seems to help with the process. It's perhaps functionally similar to seeing the same ad during every commercial break, several times per night for weeks. Suddenly you just want a cheeseburger or that new iPhone.
Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on September 28, 2012, 11:10:41 PMI'm finding a problem in your reasoning, your starting point seems to be the abstract concept of a deity, and then you use the question to sustain/pickle the concept. From a strict philosophical and scientific perspective it is quite awkward to take the gnostic approach and say "I internally know X is and my job is to start from that point to it's proof".
What I take as a starting point is the subjective experience of the divine, which from what I can tell has a reasonable amount of support over the ages and across cultures. It's all anecdotal evidence, but unless one takes the stance that all people who describe experiencing the divine are liars, I don't see that as necessarily discrediting the fact that many people have had broadly similar experiences. Some of the methods used to achieve the experience are reasonably repeatable, and have been highly developed in some cultures. I will note that some methods are certainly physiologically based and most are designed to manipulate the brain into creating or allowing the experience.
I don't particularly care about whether these experiences relate to the factual existence of X, or are simply some quirk of our physiology. Both possibilities imply some incredibly interesting things about humans. The admittedly abstract concept of the divine that I subscribe to makes such a factual existence more or less irrelevant; I don't expect anything beyond death, and have no reason to attempt to please any imaginary authority figures. I feel that it's difficult to make an informed decision on one's stance towards the divine without taking a run at experiencing it directly (whatever that experience is).
With a nod to Bob, my concept of the divine is completely impotent and uncaring, and at the very most has the ability to inspire humanity at an individual level. The idea of god is much more potent than any god-reality that I can conceive of. I'm certainly interested in what I can do with the idea itself, and see many of the currently-popular ideas of god as crude and unhelpful in achieving personal excellence and understanding. From this perspective, creating a mental structure that supports the idea of god but allows total flexibility in how it's personally applied is a powerful tool in self-programming and intentional brainscaping. I don't feel that my logical training and scientific background have given me these kind of tools and are also woefully inadequate in social contexts, because people are irrational and ridiculous. Irrational and ridiculous tools come in handy in the real world. ;)
Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on September 28, 2012, 11:10:41 PMWorse of all we start from nothing, but not as a certainty of nothing in an abstract "beginning" or "outside of time", etc, but nothing in the sense of information, we have absolutely no knowledge prior to the Big Bang, that is, something or nothing are equally plausible as prior points, so if I go by the process of elimination (it can't be an elephant in the box because it is too small for an elephant) I can't make any meaningful conclusions because I don't know the box, much less if there was actually one.
Although Dr. Krauss hasn't (to my knowledge) explicitly stated it or considered it likely, his argument that space is expanding and that nothing is constantly creating something suggests to me that there may not be any meaningful 'before' the Big Bang. If space is forever expanding, it implies to me that space-time remains in place and will occasionally throw up a Big Bang type event sooner or later. There might have been an original event that truly started something from nothing, but the chances that
our Big Bang was the first should be incredibly low. There might have been effectively nothing there (in our usual sense of the word), but strictly speaking it would consist of at least the infinitely expanded and diluted remains of the last something that happened.
I'll repost this, it's good.
[youtube=425,350]7ImvlS8PLIo[/youtube]
Or try this (http://www.stanford.edu/dept/relstud/faculty/sheehan/pdf/01-hd-wm.pdf)
Interesting link Griff.
To me, the existence of a repeatable and testable engine that can stimulate your typical human brain into experiencing a profound "out of body" or "otherness/presence" is more than sufficient evidence to dismiss any and all personal ancedotes with regards to the divine.
I'm not calling these people liars.
I'm saying what they experienced was merely an artifact of how the human brain is wired, and nothing more profound than that.
In a socially cooperative species that has a very strong individual will to survive, evolving a mental ability to abstract one's self from one's own person, permits individual sacrifice for the betterment of the whole community. And thus, the genes get passed on to the next generation with a somewhat higher reliability.
Statistics show that even as little as 1% advantage of some trait or another in any given species, if the environment is more or less static, within a few generations that 1% advantage will spread throughout the population.
And don't forget: genes are blind to individuals-- they operate at the species' survival level only, and "care" not at all about individuals' survival.
In short, a mental mechanism that encourages group cooperation, and individual sacrifice (be it mortal or simply a loss of some personal liberty) for the betterment of the group helps ensure the group's long-term survival.
Thus, the ability to feel "other" or to abstract one's self into the group, for the betterment of the group's survival would be selected for rather fiercely.
And that's what I think all that people's "experiences" with regards to the supernatural are-- simply a function of a social species' brain's inner workings.
For more, look at the so-called "god helmet".
Descartes would of course argue that there is a physical link between mind/soul (res cogitans) and body (res extensa) and that this link is situated in the brain. The correct physical stimulation of the physical brain could therefore affect the mind/soul that is not material/tangible itself. The same transmitter would likely serve as the connection to the divine. Any illusions caused by stimulation could thus be interpreted either as false data flowing from body to mind or as imperfect but right data going the other way. Lovecraft's From Beyond uses this idea as plot device (referencing Descartes's idea).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Beyond_%28short_story%29
http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/frombeyond.htm
Descartes can argue all he likes.
Until he manages to produce evidence for this nebulous "soul" thingy? He's just blowing more hot-wind.
God: incognito ergo sum ;)
Quote from: Griffin NoName on September 29, 2012, 12:29:39 AM
Or try this (http://www.stanford.edu/dept/relstud/faculty/sheehan/pdf/01-hd-wm.pdf)
Interesting one, fundamentally Heidegger confirms the gnostic approach is the only one available dealing with such questions, I don't agree with his conclusions but it is an interesting way to describe the problem.
Quote from: Aggie on September 29, 2012, 12:21:38 AM
I will defend mixing logic with gnosticism; the brain needs to lean back on well-honed systems to help process experience and epiphanies that defy easy translations into language.
The thing with gnosticism is that it is only valid
to you because no one else can experience what you experience, plus the risk that in trying to explain said experience to others you reveal that what you take as a metaphysical experience might be taken by others like a rational physical experience.
My main point is that The Question is meaningless if you try to sustain it to somebody else, as it comes from your personal experience which cannot be replicated, therefore it cannot be rationally used for proselytism. IOW if someone tries to mix gnosticism with logic with the intention to proselytize (s)he is mistakenly assuming that his/her experiences can be related to others who may not have experienced them or that read them in a completely different way.
In that context The Question may be important to you and you alone, but not used as an proselytizing argument for the existence of the absolute.
Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on September 30, 2012, 03:33:21 PM
[...................no one else can experience what you experience, plus the risk that in trying to explain said experience to others you reveal that what you take as a metaphysical experience might be taken by others like a rational physical experience.
mmmmm and relevant also to
Authors of Our Own Misfortune (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Authors-Our-Misfortune-Angela-Kennedy/dp/1479253952/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349036027&sr=1-1) considering physical illness which is "medically unexplained" as "psychogenic, where the psychiatric lobby persuades the NHS to actually treat people with physical disease as mentally disturbed, without a shred of evidence for such a claim. There is also confusion between mind and brain. Not sure of the poin I am making, but I'm sure there is one!
Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on September 30, 2012, 03:33:21 PM
Quote from: Aggie on September 29, 2012, 12:21:38 AM
I will defend mixing logic with gnosticism; the brain needs to lean back on well-honed systems to help process experience and epiphanies that defy easy translations into language.
The thing with gnosticism is that it is only valid to you because no one else can experience what you experience, plus the risk that in trying to explain said experience to others you reveal that what you take as a metaphysical experience might be taken by others like a rational physical experience.
My main point is that The Question is meaningless if you try to sustain it to somebody else, as it comes from your personal experience which cannot be replicated, therefore it cannot be rationally used for proselytism. IOW if someone tries to mix gnosticism with logic with the intention to proselytize (s)he is mistakenly assuming that his/her experiences can be related to others who may not have experienced them or that read them in a completely different way.
In that context The Question may be important to you and you alone, but not used as an proselytizing argument for the existence of the absolute.
I agree completely. There's no rational use for proselytism, IMHO. ;) I do, however, feel free to speak about my own personal take on the matter, especially when explicitly asked in the OP. ::)
Unless perhaps you were trolling? ;)
As stated
ad nauseum, I see little reason to distinguish between 'real' and 'just in the brain' when it comes to the divine, provided one is careful to not let one's flights of fancy contradict objective reality. 'Just in the brain' is based in real, physiological processes, i.e. it's realer than 'real'.
Scientific, objective rationalism has done a piss-poor job (IMHO) of being able to predict and mitigate irrational human behaviour. When the stock market becomes predictable, we elect the most intelligent and honest politicians to be our leaders, and preventable disease has disappeared completely,
then I'll get on board with the rationalism-only approach. Until that time, I'm going to go mucking about in my monkey-brain for any available alternative modes of understanding a messy, irrational and apparently meaningless world.
Sterile rationalism has repeatedly made a dog's breakfast of the world every bit as much as organized religion has, so why fetishize it? Atheist proselytism doesn't even have the decency to offer anything better than supposed freedom from a constraining and thought-limiting cultural construct, and also neglects to mention that one will be held to a new constraining and thought-limiting cultural construct (albeit a much more functional and results-oriented one). Why the hell should I sign up for
only that when I can keep that functionality
as a foundation and add on parallel processes to more completely interface with the world? ??? If a process doesn't work, I'll jettison it. There aren't any sacred cows here.
Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on September 29, 2012, 02:43:28 PM
Interesting link Griff.
To me, the existence of a repeatable and testable engine that can stimulate your typical human brain into experiencing a profound "out of body" or "otherness/presence" is more than sufficient evidence to dismiss any and all personal ancedotes with regards to the divine.
I'm not calling these people liars.
I'm saying what they experienced was merely an artifact of how the human brain is wired, and nothing more profound than that.
I agree with this (and the rest of the post), except the three words I've bolded. Evidence of the divine aside, if having an experience of any type, however induced, has a profound impact on your mental state and induces positive change, I say roll with it. I'm a pragmatist, so writing off a profound mental event simply because it can be explained in terms of biochemistry seems to be counterproductive. Hey, we can largely explain the neurochemistry behind love.... should we therefore conclude that love does not exist?
for the record, AFAIK we apparently cannot yet fully and accurately explain how cats purr, but that doesn't mean you should become a Meyahoo (http://www.meyahoo.org/)Oh, and just to be a troll.... what if the structures in the human brain that produce experiences of the divine when stimulated, damaged or diseased are actually vestigal organs meant to perceive gods that are no longer present? ;) ;) ;)
That's just leftovers from beta testing ;)
Quote from: Aggie on October 03, 2012, 05:37:11 PM
Oh, and just to be a troll.... what if the structures in the human brain that produce experiences of the divine when stimulated, damaged or diseased are actually vestigal organs meant to perceive gods that are no longer present? ;) ;) ;)
Never mind 'what if' !
The gods, when they existed, were
always triggered by stress. It's a leftover from the Bicameral Mind stage in human development... :)
:-*
I still find them handy to fall back on in times of stress. I don't 'hear' them, but they do listen, and convey silent meaning to many aspects of my life. All courtesy of my fantastic human brain. :)
From that perspective, it's a more natural system of processing than logic, which makes it neither better nor worse. A car is obviously better for transportation via paved highways than a mule, but if you're crossing a backcountry mountain pass by following deer trails? The mule comes in handy.
I'm with Aggie and Mero, but you knew that anyway.
That we are here is a miracle. It's not always a wonderful miracle, but it is a fact, as far as our brain chemistry allows us to recognize it. This miracle, or accident, or what-have-you, is Something. The question then becomes- is there a Nothing?
Quote from: Aggie on October 03, 2012, 05:37:11 PM
I agree with this (and the rest of the post), except the three words I've bolded. Evidence of the divine aside, if having an experience of any type, however induced, has a profound impact on your mental state and induces positive change, I say roll with it. I'm a pragmatist, so writing off a profound mental event simply because it can be explained in terms of biochemistry seems to be counterproductive. Hey, we can largely explain the neurochemistry behind love.... should we therefore conclude that love does not exist?
for the record, AFAIK we apparently cannot yet fully and accurately explain how cats purr, but that doesn't mean you should become a Meyahoo (http://www.meyahoo.org/)
Oh, and just to be a troll.... what if the structures in the human brain that produce experiences of the divine when stimulated, damaged or diseased are actually vestigal organs meant to perceive gods that are no longer present? ;) ;) ;)
I have nothing against profound mental experiences-- just so long as you don't try to make a religion out of yours, that
I have to participate in.
::) :D
Quote from: Aggie on October 03, 2012, 05:37:11 PM
Unless perhaps you were trolling? ;)
I started the thread, remember? :P
---
Don't take me wrong, I'm not attacking your beliefs, your methods or your experiences, what I'm attacking is the idea that Something rather than Nothing is that good of an argument in favor of a deity or the absolute. More to the point, it bothers me in the way it tries to go for a fundamental truth, which at the same time is unknowable by the rational mind, it is almost the same kind of unassailable circular argument that theists frequently use to justify their beliefs, and going further it bothers me that it deals with an absolute which starts from an abstraction, it is almost as if I made a temple to honor the number zero and proceeded with religious zeal to preach the Cult of Zero, the One and Only Absolute!
I've said this before regarding my own beliefs, I'm agnostic in many aspects, I don't discard the possibility of higher powers, different planes or levels of existence, but, also as I have said before, I abhor the absolute as such thing cannot be perceived in nature, and Something instead of Nothing is a huge arrow pointing to the absolute, an absolute from a nice mental exercise, an abstraction for which there is no evidence, and while it may be useful to some (like the zero or the square root of -1)* it is an abstraction and nothing more.
Yes, some atheists use the same religious zeal that theists use, and yes, rationality alone hasn't solved our issues yet (although I do believe that it has the potential to do so as we understand more), but the apparent failure of rationality** doesn't excuse what to me is the clear failure of religiosity over all our history.
*and those have a clear and testable use BTW.
**some have claimed to use rationality as a tool of governance but the same pressures of power seem to have more effect, yet isn't nice to know that rationality tells us that we are all the same making prejudice obsolete, or that gay parents aren't harming their children, etc, etc? Isn't reason a better moral compass than religion at this point?
Quote from: Aggie on October 03, 2012, 05:37:11 PM
Oh, and just to be a troll.... what if the structures in the human brain that produce experiences of the divine when stimulated, damaged or diseased are actually vestigal organs meant to perceive gods that are no longer present? ;) ;) ;)
I have the hypothesis that our brains have the ability to tap into the virtual particle continuum that permeates the universe and that many supernatural experiences are really natural experiences that we still don't understand. That could be perceived as 'divine' but it may be simply another (natural) plane of existence.
Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on October 04, 2012, 12:06:22 AM
I have the hypothesis that our brains have the ability to tap into the virtual particle continuum that permeates the universe and that many supernatural experiences are really natural experiences that we still don't understand. That could be perceived as 'divine' but it may be simply another (natural) plane of existence.
To paraphrase an old saying?
"You can't fool me: It's natural[ism] all the way down."
:)
Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on October 04, 2012, 12:06:22 AM
I have the hypothesis that our brains have the ability to tap into the virtual particle continuum that permeates the universe and that many supernatural experiences are really natural experiences that we still don't understand.
I have that hypothesis too. I've also had some interesting group experiences.
Quote from: Griffin NoName on October 04, 2012, 01:47:28 AM
Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on October 04, 2012, 12:06:22 AM
I have the hypothesis that our brains have the ability to tap into the virtual particle continuum that permeates the universe and that many supernatural experiences are really natural experiences that we still don't understand.
I have that hypothesis too. I've also had some interesting group experiences.
I wonder how big a role human pheromones play in such things? We know these chemicals exist. What we don't know, is how big a role they play in our subconscious minds.
Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on October 04, 2012, 02:32:34 AM
Quote from: Griffin NoName on October 04, 2012, 01:47:28 AM
Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on October 04, 2012, 12:06:22 AM
I have the hypothesis that our brains have the ability to tap into the virtual particle continuum that permeates the universe and that many supernatural experiences are really natural experiences that we still don't understand.
I have that hypothesis too. I've also had some interesting group experiences.
I wonder how big a role human pheromones play in such things? We know these chemicals exist. What we don't know, is how big a role they play in our subconscious minds.
My initial reaction is 'Zero', because we appear to have lost our nasovomeral organ, in the course of our evolution... :dontknow:
There have been studies indicating that women living at close quarters start to synchronise their menstrual cycles and that this can be stimulated by exposition to (odorless) substances won from the genitalia of female primates.
Also sympathy and antipathy between persons of different sex can be influenced (not controlled) by masking/substituting certain components of 'body odor' (not all of them consciously smellable). The reception of body odor also varies with the menstrual cycle, i.e. a smell considered pleasant at one point may not be so at another and iirc some smells even cross the perception border.
What seems clear is that there is no 'magic essence' that will make one person attractive and the other receptive (as a 'primitive' pheromone would). But gaseous emissions from the body give, it seems, certain infos and signals that influence on the subliminal level and give subtle hints, whether two persons would be a good fit (from a genetical point of view) or not.This would have at least two components. One would signal genetic relationship and have influence on non-sexual attraction (we are of the same root and should support each other but not have sex), the other would be the opposite (we are not of the same root, so let's have sex to enrich the gene pool).
No serious scholar will claim though that human behaviour is primarily driven by that and that we are mere slaves to the gases we emit. Alcohol is far more potent there, I think (maybe not on a strictly chemical level since hormones/pheromones work at far lower doses than ethanol ;)).
Another disproof [that we are robot-like slaves to this], is rampant and sometimes flagrant incest among certain populations down through the ages, clearly an example of individuals who would either ignore, or actually find alluring those persons who's chemical "signature" registers as taboo.
Or simply that the barrier between those two functions of bonding can be rather weak.
It's definitely more complicated than simple chemical on/off switches
Besides chemical signals don't need to be sensed in an olfactory way exclusively, a simple touch may transmit enough of a chemical signal and that in itself can create push in a particular direction, it may not be determinant but with an statistical advantage to the particular behavior in question.
Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on October 04, 2012, 12:06:22 AM
Quote from: Aggie on October 03, 2012, 05:37:11 PM
Oh, and just to be a troll.... what if the structures in the human brain that produce experiences of the divine when stimulated, damaged or diseased are actually vestigal organs meant to perceive gods that are no longer present? ;) ;) ;)
I have the hypothesis that our brains have the ability to tap into the virtual particle continuum that permeates the universe and that many supernatural experiences are really natural experiences that we still don't understand. That could be perceived as 'divine' but it may be simply another (natural) plane of existence.
Hmmm.... I think we may be on exactly the same page here, although I'm very reluctant to phrase it that way. To me, that virtual particle continuum is the rubber-to-the-road physical expression of what I refer to as 'God'.
(unsupported pseudoscientific hypotheses get my back up much more than subjective fantasizing about the divine ;)) Watch from about 17:30 - 20:00 in that Lawrence Krauss video; it implies that Nothing is Something and indeed is inherently creative. Take that however you will...
I actually don't really understand why it's so necessary to draw a firm dividing line between 'natural' and 'supernatural'. Given the current state of scientific knowledge, it's more a matter of sorting out what we know correctly, what we know incorrectly, what we know we don't know, what we don't know we don't know, and what is fantasy. Science can largely take care of the first three and make inroads on the fourth, given time, but drawing a firm line between what we don't know we don't know and pure fantasy is another matter.
If there can be concrete knowledge of what we currently consider to be the 'divine', then it's a natural phenomenon and only regarded as supernatural because we lack explanation at this point. I fully expect
everything to have a natural explanation; I also consider it likely that the scope of what we consider 'natural' will continue to expand greatly as our species continues to seek natural explanations.
Supernatural - anything that cannot be included in a continuous cause-and-effect-chain
This definition is based on the assumption that the principle of cause and effect rules supreme in nature and thus has to be seen as an if not the essential part of it.
A divine being cannot be totally bound by this, otherwise it cannot be considered divine. This does not mean it has necessarily to be fully free and not constrained at all but that it has the ability to violate it at least in parts (and in the open).
Yes but causality breaks down at the quantum level. In the end all we can do is make statistical analysis of large numbers of quantum events but in a very real sense we cannot predict exactly what will happen at the most basic level. Combine that with the non linear response of most real world systems and long term prediction of even macro systems becomes somewhat problematic. Give enough iterations of the system and it's behavior is un predictable. Cause and effect is in a very real sense an illusion.
That was the reason I included the 'in the open'. The fact that we cannot always reconstruct the chain of events does not affect the definition.
As for the quantum level, iirc there is consent that causality cannot be violated in the open even there. To be precise: violations cannot occur where they can be observed and they cannot affect the macro level, i.e. the 'censor'* has to hide all violations and has to take care that they even each other out in a way that above the quantum level the system acts in strict accordance with cause and effect.
So a being that wants to lay claim to the title of divine must be able to observably meddle. G#d may cheat by doing all action behind the quantum curtain but that is an unprovable hypothesis by definition.
*the same one that hides all singularities and bans white holes for that very reason.
Quote from: Swatopluk on March 10, 2013, 12:26:20 AM*the same one that hides all singularities and bans white holes for that very reason.
Imagine having to spend large amounts of time doing that. Such a tedious job. Worse than running an internet forum.
Probably it's the auditors. Fortunately Death is on our side... :mrgreen:
Quote from: Swatopluk on March 09, 2013, 05:59:33 PM
A divine being cannot be totally bound by this, otherwise it cannot be considered divine. This does not mean it has necessarily to be fully free and not constrained at all but that it has the ability to violate it at least in parts (and in the open).
I don't have any truck with the divine by this definition.
My ideas regarding TGW run more to 'supernatural' as being larger than or beyond the natural. Trans-natural? I dunno, I'm a panentheist so there's no need for an interventionist God. 'Something' itself is the intervention, and proceeds naturally. It's nothing like us; while I understand the need for many people to see God as 'a being', it's not something I find helpful.
Conveniently, this approach doesn't expect miracles nor any other non-natural phenomenon, and as Swato points out, is an unprovable hypothesis by definition if one insists on sticking to objective assessment. ;)
I think that mostly we have a problem with our own internal definitions but not so much on our views, I don't like the 'god' moniker and it would seem that to you it's easier to use it as a focal point (trying to commune with the universe in it's entirety sounds drastically harder than to commune with the channel itself, if you allow me the simile, like loving your ISP for the ability to reach the Internet as opposed to loving the Internet directly ;) :P).
I rather dislike my ISP... ;)
I'm not sure if I actually do use the 'god' term as a focal point on a regular basis. I do heartily enjoy using it in discussions to provoke cognitive dissonance in others who have a firm image or set of associations tied to that word; depending on the situation and audience it can draw in those who have positive associations with it or induce those with negative associations to try to pounce on it.
I suppose it depends on which function I need the concept to serve for me at a particular moment. Roughly speaking, I think I lean towards The Great Whatever (completely apersonal 'nothing' from which something emanates) when I meditate and contemplate being and the universe at large on a philosophical basis. On the other hand, I do sometimes work with a more personal and personlike God concept to appeal to when I feel like I've strayed from my path and need to ask for guidance. I look for this guidance from within and without simultaneously as it's the same thing to me.
Maybe the best description I can come up with is that there is a focal continuum from me-the-human-individual to TGW (to use an optical analogy). Most of the time, we are focusing close-up on ourselves, so even if we are aware of TGW in the background, it's out of focus and doesn't seem present. Sometimes, our focus shifts and we seem less in focus compared to the world around us (this can be in completely secular context such as seeing a spectacular sunrise, being in a crowd at a concert, etc.). At the most extreme levels of deep-focus, such as the transcendent states that experienced meditators can reach, the 'me' is so out of focus that it essentially disappears. However, at mid-points on the continuum and/or with an expanded depth of field, I feel that there can be overlap points between 'me' and TGW that serve to provide the illusion of a personal God, or at least a point where 'me' connects to TGW in a meaningful way.
Of course, these are just mental modules that I play around with developing. ;) It helps me feel connected to the universe at large, with otherwise can seem rather unfathomable.
---------
On a related note, I'm of the opinion that the popularity and success of Christianity is largely due to the ability to put a human face on God. Jesus as a religious icon is someone that believers can relate to on a human-to-human basis and look at as a brother, friend, companion, mentor or whatever else is most comfortable to them. One may feel a little more hesitant to approach Angry and Vengeful God the Father with one's failings and daily struggles, whereas it may be a little easier to talk about your 'sins' to the man-god who reputedly died to atone for them. I don't really understand the concept of sin, so Jesus (and Christianity) doesn't really make sense to me in this context.
Quote from: Aggie on March 12, 2013, 06:22:41 PM
On a related note, I'm of the opinion that the popularity and success of Christianity is largely due to the ability to put a human face on God. Jesus as a religious icon is someone that believers can relate to on a human-to-human basis and look at as a brother, friend, companion, mentor or whatever else is most comfortable to them. One may feel a little more hesitant to approach Angry and Vengeful God the Father with one's failings and daily struggles, whereas it may be a little easier to talk about your 'sins' to the man-god who reputedly died to atone for them. I don't really understand the concept of sin, so Jesus (and Christianity) doesn't really make sense to me in this context.
That is an interesting argument, the man-god is certainly approachable, and the idea of someone giving his/her life for you would come close to a very good father/mother/friend. Much easier than follow an abstract concept/deity, easier to put words on his mouth, and easier to build a legend around.
I still believe that the key element of Xtianity is the piece on the sermon on the mount where the poor are directly enfranchised (as opposed to the religions available at the time in the region) and which I consider the more insidious element of that religion.