Something rather than Nothing

[Swatopluk]

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).

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

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. 

[Aggie]

Hmm, good and interesting cross-post, Bob. I've touched on the usefulness of this muckety-muck later in the post.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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]

[Griffin NoName]

Or try this

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

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".

[Swatopluk]

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

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Descartes can argue all he likes.

Until he manages to produce evidence for this nebulous "soul" thingy?  He's just blowing more hot-wind.

[Swatopluk]

God: incognito ergo sum

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

God: incognito ergo sum

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Or try this

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.

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.

[Griffin NoName]

[...................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 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!

[Aggie]

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.

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}


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?  

[Swatopluk]

That's just leftovers from beta testing

[The Meromorph]

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... 

[Aggie]

 

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.