Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Steve3007]

By "grown up" I mean possessing an adult's ability to rise above base emotionalism - not an Übermensch, just a regular, flawed adult who has learned a little self discipline. I gather that she probably had an argument with an animal rights person, was thoroughly pwned, and is now neurotically perseverating.

Yes, I see. I think in the context of this place, that would mean the ability to argue rationally and to fairly assess the validity, or otherwise, of another person's point of view, but not to the extent of acting like a robot who is simply logically processing information. It's difficult to judge the correct balance between the two, or whether there is such a thing as a correct balance. I think (at least more recently) I tend to err on the robot side, but with probably an irritating number of things that I regard as satire or jokes thrown in.

It's interesting to consider how to approach a discussion with a character like Daschund (or similar characters that have come here over the years). On the face of, the act of "thinking the unthinkable" (i.e. attempting to create a rational argument to support a position that the vast majority of people wouldn't support, as a way of questioning/re-assessing assumptions) is exactly the sort of exercise that should be carried out in a place like this. If the argument is rational, then the clear, cold unemotional analysis approach is useful. It allows us to ask for the underlying reasons why we hold the views that we hold. But unfortunately these people rarely seem to make rational arguments. They just assert things, express personal tastes and throw a few insults around. It's difficult to decide whether it's a worthwhile exercise to attempt to lead them towards a rational argument, or simply ignore them or just enjoy them as cartoon characters.

I have a memory in a high chair where I felt just like her. The nasty babysitter was trying to get me to eat and I was refusing; I was upset about something. Then she shouted and banged the bowl with the spoon, and the bowl broke. My favourite teddy bear bowl broken! I screamed! Then I noticed that she was panicking, so I refused her attempts to comfort me. The feeling was pure vengeance, within my great limitations, I did what I could to hurt her as much as I could by refusing to settle.

That's an amazingly coherent early memory. My early memories are more vague. General feelings of profound injustice at things that I perceived at the time to be unfair. I think kids generally tend to have a naturally very strong emotional sense of what's "fair" and what isn't.

I would also parse those who are "believers" and those who are "religious", the former tending to lean towards pantheistic or panenthistic ideas while the latter being more likely to be literalists. Note that the OP's claim about God being impossible cannot logically apply to pantheism and panentheism. One may disagree with those interpretations, but to say these things are "impossible" is to falsely lump those more sophisticated conceptions with the simplistic anthropomorphic Santa-like God. Thus, many believers see organised religion as misguided and corrupt while many theists question the sincerity of the unaffiliated.

It seems that the "religious", as opposed to the "believers", are probably more interested in the comforts of culture, tradition and solidarity and of being part of a tribe with shared life experiences and rituals. I think those are the things which religion often provides which the more abstract, less culturally specific concept of belief does not. Belief is perhaps the philosophy that is left when the religion is distilled and the tradition and culture boils away.

Which came first? Did the abstract philosophical concepts develop and then the religion grow around them, like an exo-skeleton, to give them structure? Or did the tribal traditions and rituals, born out of the need to survive, come first and the abstractions got created as a generalization, just as the general laws of physics came from specific observations? Abstraction or instantiation first?

The sad fact is, people have always killed people and have used every imaginable excuse to do it. To blame man's murderous nature on religion is a just one more way to foment more bloodshed.

I agree.

[Eduk]

I think the thing which can be exploited must come before the exploiting of that thing. So I'd say tradition came before religion.

I also agree with dark matter that man murderous nature cannot be blamed in religion. If that wasn't obvious from what I've already written.

[Steve3007]

I think the thing which can be exploited must come before the exploiting of that thing. So I'd say tradition came before religion.

I think you're probably right. I think specific instances generally come before abstractions. I think it's reasonable to suppose that we created the abstract concept of God as a result of a lot of pondering specific observations of the world, using the capacity for abstraction that we'd evolved.

[Eduk]

You know the more I read about people's definitions of God the less clearly I can myself define god.

[Steve3007]

I suppose there are probably as many definitions of the word "God" as there are people. But this isn't surprising, given that things with consistent, invariant definitions tend to be things which generate similar perceptions in different people. A chair, for example, is a well defined and agreed concept because all of the individual perceptions that result in different people believing in the objective existence of the chair are very similar. Whereas there are a wide variety of perceptions and feelings that lead people to believe in the objective existence of a thing they call God. Different people have widely varying life experiences and feelings which they attribute to the existence of God.

Maybe there should be 7 billion different words for it, instead of the few that there are!

[Londoner]

I suppose there are probably as many definitions of the word "God" as there are people. But this isn't surprising, given that things with consistent, invariant definitions tend to be things which generate similar perceptions in different people. A chair, for example, is a well defined and agreed concept because all of the individual perceptions that result in different people believing in the objective existence of the chair are very similar. Whereas there are a wide variety of perceptions and feelings that lead people to believe in the objective existence of a thing they call God. Different people have widely varying life experiences and feelings which they attribute to the existence of God.

Maybe there should be 7 billion different words for it, instead of the few that there are!

But we do not think the concept of a chair objectively exists, not in the sense that all our perceptions of it are very similar. On the contrary, the concept of a chair is free of any particular perception i.e. my concept of a chair can be any colour, any size and so on. In fact the concept of a chair is very fuzzy round the edges; e.g. is any object used as a chair a chair, can something be both a table and a chair, etc.?

I would say the same is true of the concept of God. I do not think it is argued that God objectively exists in the sense of being a finite bundle of perceptions, that everyone will share.

I tend to be more sympathetic to God as a concept because I do not feel that it is stranger than any of the other concepts we are obliged to use to make sense of the world.

[Belindi]

You know the more I read about people's definitions of God the less clearly I can myself define god.

Yes, and that's why the common ontological definitions involving Cartesian 'substance' is so useful. This usage allows easy criticism of very large categories of what people mean by 'God'. The main categories of what people mean by 'God' fit with theories of existence.

[Eduk]

Yeah but if I say we need six chairs because we are having a dinner party then you can go get four clearly chairs and then two other things which can be used as chairs.
Whereas if I say I need you to go get god where would you even start?

[Steve3007]

IKEA?

[Scribbler60]

You know the more I read about people's definitions of God the less clearly I can myself define god.

This is intentional. The character of a divine superintelligence is intentionally made amorphous so adherents can shape the character of their entity of choice to fit their own social characteristics. And that also helps describe how gods change over time. Just look at the vengeful, wrathful Yaweh in the OT, combined with gentle Jesus meek and mild, the embodiment of god, in the New Testament. Same god, different day.

Ever notice how people's gods tend to reflect the exact same social, cultural, military and financial mores that they do? How social justice types pray to a socialist god/Jesus, while Roy Moore types pray to the OT type and the "prosperity gospel" Joel Osteen types have another god entirely?

One would think that a divine superintelligence would be able to make him/her/itself clear, considering the stakes. Peculiar how that does not happen.

[Belindi]

Spectrum wrote:

That is my point which I have been arguing strongly, i.e. all ideas of God will ultimately, naturally, necessarily and logically gravitate towards an ontological Being, i.e. a God [Being not person] than which no greater exists. Note St. Anselm, Descartes, Islam's Allah, and others.

But Spinoza's idea of God-or-Nature doesn't gravitate towards any unique ontological being other than nature.True Spinoza's God-or-Nature fits 'than whom nothing is greater '. However Spinoza's God-or-Nature is not a supernatural being who intervenes in history by means of miracles.

[Dark Matter]

I do not think it is argued that God objectively exists in the sense of being a finite bundle of perceptions, that everyone will share.

This is exactly the case.

Both theologians and philosophers tend to shy away from any mention of religious experience being a major contributor to religion all over the globe because of its subjective nature. Yet, in spite of Spectrum's neverending tirade, there is a large body of empirical scientific studies demonstrating the validity of religious experience as an actual experience of something, and the effects of having such experiences are indicative of something actually experienced.

There are two basic types of sensation: (1) the sense of the numinous: the understanding that there is something transcendent and “sacred” afoot in the universe. This is usually communicated through a sense of the totality of love embodied in a sense of an all-pervasive presence. (2) Undifferentiated unity: the sense that all differentiation of being is illusory and all things are actually one. The former is predominant in the West and the latter in the East. As a panentheist, I suggest that both are right.

[Eduk]

there is a large body of empirical scientific studies demonstrating the validity of religious experience as an actual experience of something

Please link one study.

[Chili]

Please link one study demonstrating existence of actual experience ( as opposed to the behavior of reporting ) ... ?

[Sy Borg]

I think in the context of this place, that would mean the ability to argue rationally and to fairly assess the validity, or otherwise, of another person's point of view, but not to the extent of acting like a robot who is simply logically processing information. It's difficult to judge the correct balance between the two, or whether there is such a thing as a correct balance. I think (at least more recently) I tend to err on the robot side, but with probably an irritating number of things that I regard as satire or jokes thrown in.

That's my approach too - aim for maximal rationality, but aware that we are metaphorically spitting into a breeze. There's a lot of po-faced seriosity on philosophy forums, just asking for a Harbal or Albert Tatlock type to poke holes in some of the more inflated notions.

It's interesting to consider how to approach a discussion with a character like Daschund (or similar characters that have come here over the years). On the face of, the act of "thinking the unthinkable" (i.e. attempting to create a rational argument to support a position that the vast majority of people wouldn't support, as a way of questioning/re-assessing assumptions) is exactly the sort of exercise that should be carried out in a place like this. If the argument is rational, then the clear, cold unemotional analysis approach is useful. It allows us to ask for the underlying reasons why we hold the views that we hold. But unfortunately these people rarely seem to make rational arguments. They just assert things, express personal tastes and throw a few insults around. It's difficult to decide whether it's a worthwhile exercise to attempt to lead them towards a rational argument, or simply ignore them or just enjoy them as cartoon characters.

Philosophy forums attract legacy-leavers - most of us like to pass on our best ideas rather than have them waste away inside our heads. People sit there in their rooms, ruminating like crazy until they come up with something brilliant that is almost completely, but not entirely, wrong. Then they present the soliloquy as a long essay OP and have so much invested in the idea that any opposition to the idea drives them spare . As you say, you try to get them to provide the reasoning but it won't come.

I think it's a pre-internet hangover. In those times the person with the most apparent confidence and best front tended to win debates because fact checking was difficult. So Boomers came up with better rhetorical than reasoning skills but have been gazumped by the internet and ready access to information. So they do what was always done when challenged back in the old days - increase the bluster to intimidate opponents.

We certainly get a lot of people trying to prove that God exists or doesn't exist. The attempt to deeply consider the nature of reality is great but the God concept itself is a distraction. Once it may not have been but today, with the multifarious meanings and forment around the issue, clarity would seem simpler if we simply skipped the concept. Rather, it would seem more fruitful IMO to consider the levels of awareness within different natural systems since we have so grossly underestimated the awareness of animals, and plants too. Are large systems more aware than we realise but, as per Liebniz's mill, all we can see are non-sentient components?

I have a memory in a high chair where I felt just like her. The nasty babysitter was trying to get me to eat and I was refusing; I was upset about something. Then she shouted and banged the bowl with the spoon, and the bowl broke. My favourite teddy bear bowl broken! I screamed! Then I noticed that she was panicking, so I refused her attempts to comfort me. The feeling was pure vengeance, within my great limitations, I did what I could to hurt her as much as I could by refusing to settle.

That's an amazingly coherent early memory. My early memories are more vague. General feelings of profound injustice at things that I perceived at the time to be unfair. I think kids generally tend to have a naturally very strong emotional sense of what's "fair" and what isn't.

No doubt. The viral Capuchin monkey food throwing video made clear that understanding fairness is basic to more social animals than just humans, dogs and cats.

I can still muddily visualise the high chair scenario, especially my teddy bear bowl - very old school illustrations, an AA Milne vibe. Oh, that moment when the spoon came down on to the bowl - it was like a movie where the action slows down and someone yells "Nooooooooo!"

I would also parse those who are "believers" and those who are "religious", the former tending to lean towards pantheistic or panenthistic ideas while the latter being more likely to be literalists. Note that the OP's claim about God being impossible cannot logically apply to pantheism and panentheism. One may disagree with those interpretations, but to say these things are "impossible" is to falsely lump those more sophisticated conceptions with the simplistic anthropomorphic Santa-like God. Thus, many believers see organised religion as misguided and corrupt while many theists question the sincerity of the unaffiliated.

Belief is perhaps the philosophy that is left when the religion is distilled and the tradition and culture boils away.

Which came first? Did the abstract philosophical concepts develop and then the religion grow around them, like an exo-skeleton, to give them structure? Or did the tribal traditions and rituals, born out of the need to survive, come first and the abstractions got created as a generalization, just as the general laws of physics came from specific observations? Abstraction or instantiation first?

It probably started with peak experiences, and then the edifice was built around it. Consider how Google or other companies build. First Sergey and Brin had an idea - there is always the initial idea acting as memetic DNA, creating the initial conditions from which the usual chaos and nonsense will ensue In time, these roots grow a trunk in the form of committed "disciples", insiders who intimately understand the original idea.

Gradually an ever larger edifice builds up around them - clerks, guards, cleaners and contractors, all part of this new edifice but personally more in touch with clock off time than the root ideas. They are much like the literalist laity of religions - the original idea is lost on them but the edifice becomes a practical means to an end for them.