RoR: Forum

God resided between Praxgirl's thighs.
Have faith tis true!
However following reason and logic one would have to take another leap of faith and get to know her in the "biblical sense" to worship at that altar!

All kidding aside, great thread!

Post 21

Monday, March 11, 2013 - 5:03am

Steve:

You -should- be happy with your athiesm. Hell, I'm happy with your athiesm.

"Black-box meta-god emitter" is my attempt to categorize an answer to my own question; where do all these concepts of God (that we are asked by others to believe or not believe in) come from?

It is of course the boundless imaginations, plural, of our past, present, and future human peers. Those boundless imaginations, on a good day, are the source of brand new knowledge in the world, which is limited only by what -can- be, in terms of what can actually be instanced in the universe.

On a bad day, or possibly, a drunk day, those same boundless imaginations can dream up shit to scare the kids and keep the offering plates full. It beats toiling, and you get to wear robes and funny hats and send different colored smoke up chimneys and so on.

You're not comfortable referring to the process that brought us about as an act of creation, I suspect, because of its connotations with an intelligent creator, an entity, a supernatural being. I don't mean it in that way, and so, I'm comfortable with using the term to describe that process. I mean it more in the context of Wolfram's NKS, complexity being created from simple rules-- something that I assess the universe being capable of without a magic technician in a lab coat. Is that an 'intelligent' process, or by definition, do humans reserve that appellation only for themselves...after having been created by it? Is not human intelligence -- as you and I understand it -- just not a continuation of that same process, 'complexity from simple rules?'

To me, the human battle over 'intelligence' is the same battle as over 'God.' To me, it is all just the universe, as it is. No separate God that implies a singularity, and no sudden intelligence that implies a singularity, either. Cling to either singularity, and the other appears, two singularities for the price of one.

We use the words 'evolve' but then retire it when intelligence arrives, and say 'thanks, we'll take over from here' having found the words. And I assess it as a continuum, not a singularity(the emission of intelligence from the process.)

Look how difficult it is for two guys who basically agree with each other to come to agreement on what they both don't believe in. Imagine how hard it should be to come to agreement on a belief in something that doesn't exist. And yet, look at the results, take a poll. We enjoy some very fringe beliefs.

I'm comfortable with that fact, but I think it provides insight into life in the Tribe. Humans for whatever reason(this is for sure your field of expertise, I'm just a tourist passing through)seem pre-wired to not only believe, but to collectively believe. More of the herd instinct coming out and manifesting itself. Or as some have claimed, the God gene.

Like my son and his ding on his Elastin gene, maybe some of us just didn't get that bit of DNA?

That's not a problem; it's not all good.

One bit of strawman,and then I'm done. In response to the fact that I have a son with a syndromic genetic deletion, there are some(not here)who might say that was God punishing me for not believing in him. And to me, that would be my proof not only of the non-existence of their God, but of the bottomless nature of the pit of hopelessness, desperation and depravity that some such True Believers have fallen into. My son is not my punishment,he is my reward from a benevolent universe, and I'm grateful for that gift, even if to nothing or no being. (That goes for both of my sons.)

regards,
Fred

Post 22

Monday, March 11, 2013 - 7:22am

Fred,

To pick nits, I would like to reiterate that there cannot be such a thing as a concept of God. That's because concepts are very special things with very special uses. A while back, you advised me to think twice about continuing to say "The Market" or "The Economy" -- because economies are very special things with very special uses. My advice, which is free (and there is probably a very good reason for that) is to say:

The notion of God.

Or something like that, in order to preserve the functioning of our minds while we attempt to speak about God.

:-)

Ed

Post 23

Monday, March 11, 2013 - 7:38am

SW in 7: Michael,

I agree with most of your post above, but the passing away of religion isn't all good news.

While it is true that organized religion and belief in their defined God is diminishing ... there are new "religions" - Progressive politics, environmentalism, abused science, political correctness, the sacred tribe, etc. The rituals, the trappings, the church... have all changed but the tribal worship and sacrifice continue. ...

Our hope is that the secular nature of such wrong ideas allows them to be addressed with reason and facts. The best exposure of the "fashionable nonsense" of post-modernism came from the physicist Alan Sokol who is a Marxist. Ayn Rand's criticism of Marxism and the left in general were one notch below her condemnation of the political (religionist) conservatives. The theory is that we can reason with Marxists but that faith rests on unarguable authority. Marxism knows "objective conditions" as a standard of political action. Lenin's monograph, "Imperialism" is dense with tables and data. He had a point to prove and he marshalled facts in support of it -- facts from outside his own context. Marx lived at the British Museum library. His theories did not come from inner voices or revelations.

In my sociology and criminology classes, I was always able to knock down post-modernist nonsense for my socialist classmates just by pointing to facts. I could tell stories all day long. We were reading about the subjectivity of morality, how it is all based on culture and our culture is evil anyway... And so I asked if it was all right for Bernie Madoff to cheat other fund managers since it was in their culture to behave that way... Well, of course not! So, right and wrong do exist objectively. Oh....

You can't do that with religionists. They get some recent translation of an old Book and tell you what they think Paul meant when Matthew said that Jesus did what Isaiah prophesized. And if you doubt any of that, well, God said it and they believe it, and that settles it.

So, I am happy to see the metaphysical aspect of religion pass away. Nathaniel Branden made the point in the Basic Principles about the importance of basic philosophy. I think that he started with a painting. You and another person are discussing some work of art and the discussion goes from aesthetics, to politics, to ethics, to epistemology, to metaphysics all rather quickly. I trust that you have had the experience.

That is why Ed's attempt at detente only works with one side of the discussion, ours. You literally cannot reason with the other side on religion.

Honest and intelligent Marxists know good things about capitalism. I have learned from them. Conversely, I had a Marxist econ professor - we were both members of the Ann Arbor Peoples Food Coop, by the way but for different reasons - and he lived in a housing co-operative. He said that he wished that the heat was separately metered because his neighbors leave their front doors open when they go out to start their cars on cold mornings. He knew the downside of socialism quite well. You don't find the downside of religion among religionists.

Just sayin'... don't give up hope.

... crawling out of the corpse and taking up a parasitic residence inside ...

That was poetic.

Post 24

Monday, March 11, 2013 - 8:38am

(Applauds) :)

I love this. I think I am a reason junkie. Sometimes I just love to sit back and listen to reasonable thought. And sometimes, it is a sad rarity. Even though you guys are 99.9% in agreement, it still makes for an interesting debate. I've lately been fascinated by the atheist/agnostic/deist "delta" if you will. Great thoughts all around!

Post 25

Monday, March 11, 2013 - 10:07am

Ed:

I think I understand the intent of your nit; we'd like concepts to be human models of classes of that which actually exists, whereas I think you'd like a notion to be less reality bound. I'm not sure that is what distinguishes concept from notion; in fact, a notion(about a particular concrete or imagined thing) might be an instance of a concept(a more abstract model for a class of such instances.)

A concept is described as:

In metaphysics, and especially ontology, a concept is a fundamental category of existence. In contemporary philosophy, there are at least three prevailing ways to understand what a concept is:[1]

Concepts as mental representations, where concepts are entities that exist in the brain.
Concepts as abilities, where concepts are abilities peculiar to cognitive agents.
Concepts as abstract objects, where objects are the constituents of propositions that mediate between thought, language, and referents.

"entities that exist ... in the brain." Not just 'exist.'

A notion is described as:

Noun

A conception of or belief about something.
A vague awareness or understanding of the nature of something.

Synonyms
idea - concept - conception - thought - mind - opinion

Also as "a reflection in the mind of real objects and phenomena in their essential features and relations"

There doesn't seem to be a restriction on the nature of 'something.'

i�mag�i�na�tion (-mj-nshn)
n.
1.
a. The formation of a mental image of something that is neither perceived as real nor present to the senses.
b. The mental image so formed.
c. The ability or tendency to form such images.
2. The ability to confront and deal with reality by using the creative power of the mind; resourcefulness: handled the problems with great imagination.
3. A traditional or widely held belief or opinion.
4. Archaic
a. An unrealistic idea or notion; a fancy.
b. A plan or scheme.

I think you mean, the archaic qualified notion: a fancy.

Since notion and concept are synonyms, let me answer with how I think you mean notion to mean here. (Subsitute 'fancy.') and let me reflect how I think you mean it to apply here.)

A notion is an unrealistic idea about something that may or may not exist now, might never exist, or cannot exist, or something that existed in the past, something that might exist in the future, but does not exist. A model in the brain less concrete bound than concept, which I think you mean to be restricted to only things that exist.

So we would like to say, when someone says they have a concept of God, they only really have a notion(fancy) of God, even though in their mind, they believe they are modeling a concept of God, who they believe actually exists.

But whatever it is they have in their mind, they and their mind exist in the world, and so for you and me, how do we refer to our (concept/notion) of that model which they have in their mind?

We don't know it, in the sense of being inside their mind. But we have a model of it, and it exists in the world, and so, that model of what we perceive in someone else's mind is a concept, even if what it is a model of is not itself a concept...

But when your nit is applied to my notion of a black-box emitter, I think you are right; it is more correct to think of it as emitting an unbounded set of notions/fancies of God. Then, if we were to track any actual instance of what was emitted and how it was dealt with by any individual(dealt with-- literally accepted or discarded), it might be accepted and believed to be a concept of God by some individual for whatever reasons they accept.

Thank you for your nit; it was a good nit, I learned something.

regards,
Fred

Post 26

Monday, March 11, 2013 - 1:11pm

Michael, you wrote:

The theory is that we can reason with Marxists but that faith rests on unarguable authority.

Yes, but that fails to tell the whole story. There are a percentage of those who are religious yet who will listen to argument in the political arena, and will give up their drive to mix their religion into politics. And there are a percentage of Marxists who hold Marxism as if it were a religion and won't listen to reason in those areas.

And there are progressives that are secretly Marxists, more likely Fabian Socialists, and they will never listen to our arguments in an honest way, because they have committed to pursuing a transformation of Capitalism into Socialism while pretending to only be a liberal - it is the secretiveness of their agenda that has them closing their mind to hearing any truth. They pursue their agenda like a jihad.

And there is the way that many modern social sciences are becoming like a religion, where Political Correctness is the newly enforced anti-blasphemy code. Where peer-pressure is a tribal reinforcer.

And you have pseudo-science molded in the shape of modern sciences which generates false theories and trash studies to 'prove' that man has no free will, that morality is relative to the culture, that altruism is built into the genes, etc.

You have the teaching of modern debate techniques, where demonizing the opponent and his view, using ripping sarcasm, treating emotions as if they were the primary determiner of debate outcomes, purposely dividing everyone into factions, twisting language inside out (they say government revenue but mean your tax dollars, they say government infrastructure and mean spending tax dollars, they say social justice and mean regulations based upon gender or race or socioeconomic class), and they place the scoring of points via twisted facts or even outright lies as of more value than honest debate.

I usually don't argue religion with religious people... but I do find my self arguing for a libertarian view point with a religious person and showing them how it is better for all. Many of them can understand that keeping religion out of politics, explicitly, will protect their right to keep their religion and all they have to do is give up any chance to force their views on others to ensure others won't oppress them. But that isn't nearly as easy an argument to have with a Marxist. You aren't discussing religion with the Marxist, but you are asking them to give up centralized control, or redistribution, 'social justice' and those arguments are less likely to succeed. They don't want the liberty you offer, and they are willing to endure market inefficiencies to get that control that they think is the key to utopia.

The loss of old time faith-based sacrifice and mysticism is certainly a good thing. But it is being replaced by a new religion made of organized lies that have been smuggled into the social sciences. Organized, church-based religion is waning, but there is still a strong, and perhaps growing base of born-again Christians who meet, interact and have their own structures and their own world and are often politically involved.... all without using a church. And we see the massive increase in influence and intensity of the fundamentalists in the Muslim world - Faith based idiocy isn't really disappearing rapidly.

Post 27

Monday, March 11, 2013 - 3:08pm

Steve:

You nailed it.

When I was younger, I used to wonder at the process in pre-Hitler Germany, or Stalinist Russia; how did people live in that environment? How did they let their state get so 'unfettered?'

I no longer wonder. It seems like we're living it.

regards,
Fred

Post 28

Monday, March 11, 2013 - 7:46pm

First of all, I appreciate the kudos from Jules and Dan (but Jules, when you work so many hours, you get punch-drunk/slap-happy and your responses get wild & crazy sometimes).

:-)

Fred,

Though it looks like you took the 'shotgun approach' and examined all the mainstream dictionary meanings -- something I wouldn't have expected to be fruitful here -- you did hit on something (def'n of imagination) which helps me explain myself better. Imagination is a perceptual power utilizing remembered or invented particularities (e.g., a horse-with-a-horn, a dental fairy, a generous Inuit, an all-powerful deity, etc.). These all become proper nouns -- something which can only be witnessed or envisioned, and then remembered. Memory is also a perceptual power.

In contrast, conceptualization is a conceptual power utilizing the mental integration of units that were first mentally isolated by mental abstraction, and then united by a concrete (i.e., a "perceptual") definition. Concepts are used by man in order to treat like things alike, as differentiated from some or from all other things. For instance, once you have the concept of a pencil, you will know how to use pencils which you may find -- even if they are brand new pencils and you've never seen them before. Because each pencil is an instantiation (a unit) of the concept "pencil" -- we can economize thought and deal with the world. Pens are a different story, and need to be treated somewhat differently than pencils.

The alternative to that would be to not form concepts and to go ahead and try to remember every particularity that we ever encounter. On this view, every existent is a proper noun. If you were doing this experiment (refraining from conceptualizing) and then I came along and broke your pencil, you would be helpless and would not know what to do -- even if a box of new pencils was on the table in front of you. According to your memory alone, the only pencil that works is the one you were using. The best you could do is to use your perceptual powers to their utter limits by forming a crude association and hoping beyond hope that it works out for you. Here is your thought:

Well, this thing I was scribbling with -- before Ed came along and broke it -- looks an awful lot like those things in the box in front of me. There is an off-chance that -- if I sharpen the edges at the end of one of these other sticks in the box -- there is an off-chance that it might behave the same way as the first 'scribbling-stick' I was using.

:-)

It's actually impossible to write down your thoughts here because I have to use concepts -- e.g., "scribbling", "box", "chance", "sharpen", "edge", "end", etc. -- but you wouldn't be using them at all in your own thoughts. That's what I meant when I said concepts are very special and provide a special use. They economize thought so that details no longer have to all be first experienced, and then remembered. When people form a mental image of God, they imagine Him (as a proper noun), and they do so solely by using their perceptual powers (and they remember Him thereafter), but they do not conceptualize Him.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 3/11, 8:01pm)

Post 29

Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - 8:47pm

I know, I Knowwwww! However I did make you laugh! As far as the god concept is concerned I am for the most part an adherent to Julian Jaynes theory in that it is nothing more than a vestige of the bicameral mind. His theories to me explained a LOT in a rational way. When scientists were doing early open brain surgery in order to map out "what does what" when stimulated. Subjects that had the corresponding right brain side of the wernike's area stimulated always heard voices. Those voices were always an authority figure. Be it god, the devil or a dead relative. Over time that area of the brain began to become dormant. Anyway I am sure you have probably read the book. (The Origins of Consciousness). So no need for me to go on and on.(lol I have to get back to work!)
(Edited by Jules Troy on 3/12, 8:48pm)

Post 30

Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - 9:26pm

Jules,

Actually, I haven't read it yet, but am very intrigued by what you said about it. Consider it at or very near the top of my reading wish-list (and thanks for telling me about it)!

:-)

Ed

p.s., As for PG, she has a man-pal already, but if she ever leaves him (or him her), and then she comes to this forum and discovers how it is that she has been described here -- well, I fear that she may be made to feel just a little uncomfortable. Let me be clear: I'm not asking you to stop talking about her (like fine art, I am pleased when reminded of her existence). I only ask you to tone it down a notch in the future. If she digs up the past and discovers that she was talked about like an ostensive sex object, I could apologize and probably get back on her good graces. But, if I continue to say nothing and refrain from at least asking you to tone it down a little, well, then I'm in the dog-house for sure. No PG for me.

:-)

Post 31

Wednesday, March 13, 2013 - 6:24am

Ed:

I think we are saying enough of the same thing, but I'm probably encumbered by toiling in the digital domain; I conceptualize 'concept' as akin to a class or even baseclass, something more abstract even than a definition of an instance of something; a definition of the behavior of the class of somethings.

There is a baseconcept 'tools of transportation' and 'tools of writing' ... and the concepts 'cars trains boats planes' fit neatly into one baseconcept and 'pencils pens' fit neatly into the other, and skywriters using airplanes are thumbing their nose at our orderly taxonomy.

Humans are good at managing that taxonomy; when we come across a skywriter, we recognize that the tool is only nominally usable for transportation but is being used to write in a novel way, which is what delighted fans of skywriting fifty years ago or more.

When we come across an instance of something, we categorize it as "_isa" and the something we say it is an _isa of is a concept. The class of pencils, as opposed to an instance of a pencil. 'This pencil' _isa 'pencil.' 'This pencil' is an instance; 'pencil' is the concept for pencils.

Instances of pencil are unique, but are all members of the class pencil.

We can ... and do ... dream up concepts that have never been instanced(an instance of the concept has been realized, made real), might never be realized by themselves, or even can never be realized by themselves.

Sometimes, by combining such abstract concepts with other concepts into a super concept, the super concept -can- be realized. Not every such, but there are examples of this. (There are certainly examples of this in the digital domain.)

Here is the once purely abstract concept 'human being working in outer space.'

Jules Verne conceptualized that, even though nobody was able to instance that concept at the time.

Add to the concept 'human being' the future concepts 'space shuttle' and 'EVA Suit' and so on, and before you know it, whacky horndog astronaut Wolfowitz is the butt of jokes on nighttime comedy hits.

The movie "Loopers" aside, we are fairly certain we can't effectively travel back in time as an actor; maybe a passive observer. (We do that now, using telescopes.) So, for now, we can easily dream up concepts that, for instance, require that, and so, are purely abstract. An example of that would be a description of a God that created us that had arbitrary characteristics defined by us, after the fact. How could the merely created ever possibly go back in time and put constraints on that which created them?

At most, they will only ever be able to look back in time as an observer and discover that which created them; if it is cold process, it is cold process, and no amount of rolling the eyes into the back of our heads will change the past.

Because it is largely imaginative, and toils in a generally computable medium, the digital domain is largely abstract and black box, and beyond "_isa" also uses "_hasa" to categorize concepts. (A concept might encapsulate one or more other concepts without also being one of them; _isa implies, shares the characteristics of...)

To explain why s/w is always broken, it is often implemented using instances of things purely imagined, substituting a good enuf mostly hollow black box that only appears to be the imagined thing. It is a kind of faith in the future-- that you or someone will actually create the something in the future. And then... you plow ahead anyway, not really knowing for certain how the thing is going to actually behave until it actually exists, only knowing how you imagined it behaving.

To explain why mankind is sometimes broken, let's you and I start a new religion based on supernatural beings, the Antis, living in an unseen universe based on anti-matter. We will pray for our fellow mankind, and when something good happens, we will show up and say "See! The power of prayer to the Antis!" When something bad happens, we will show up and say "The Antis are a mystery, and work in mysterious ways. We can't question the Antis, we can only question ourselves. We must search ourselves for the answers; maybe our faith in the Antis was not strong enough..."

We can promise unbounded reward-- a life after this life in the anti-matter universe-- "The Anti-Life..." in exchange for signing up with our religion. We will offer a full money-back guarantee to anyone who comes back with a complaint.

We can't lose; if you want to succeed at something in the tribe, look around at what works, and emulate it.

We can scare the kids and sell our philosophy about life and keep the offering plates overflowing and put on a show complete with funny hats and throw parties complete with different colored smoke when we elect our CEO(Chief Ecumenical Officer).

If we burn the toast, it means we will be throwing another party tomorrow. If it is white smoke coming up the chimney at Party Central, then it means we've had enough and it is time to dry out with a new Head Anti Priest.

If it is grey smoke, then we are ambivalent about who we are considering, but the party will continue.

Have I missed much? We ready to roll?

regards,
Fred

Post 32

Wednesday, March 13, 2013 - 9:22pm

Fred,

What I want to know is how many beers you had before that last rant!

:-)

Okay, more seriously, while I do like the Antis idea -- especially that part about the "anti-life" (which has an Objectivist ring to it) -- I fear that you are using the 7-letter world "concept" in a very broad sense, something interchangeable with something so broad as "thought" or "notion" or "image." What Jules Verne did was imagine a human being working in outer space (before there were any humans in outer space, or even any possibility of having any humans out there), but human-working-in-outer-space is not necessarily a concept.

Concepts can be formed legitimately when there is an epistemological need for them. When concepts are formed without the need, then thought gets less clear. A very young child might point to a cat and say "Doggie!" and, in a sense, they would be correct in that they correctly identified a furry, 4-legged beast. At this point in their learning curve, there are: toys, nummies, no-no's, Mommy's, Daddy's, and Doggies. However, at some point -- probably around age 2 or 3 -- you want the kid to be able to differentiate cats from dogs. However, you don't want the kid to over-differentiate (form too many concepts) but only calling dogs dogs if they are black -- as when every dog ever seen before was black.

Calling God a concept is an instance of this black dog phenomenon. Just like we don't need a new concept for white dogs (we can just call them dogs), we don't need a concept for God. If you insist on having a concept you don't need, then you are forming an anti-concept.

Ed

Post 33

Monday, March 18, 2013 - 2:23pm