The End of WAR

<<Thursday, December 21, 2006 - 3:18pm Reply
John Dailey

Phil:
Re your 1st post, the biggest prob re 'attacking' is that few, very, very few, distinguish this from mere 'criticism.' To these, the two terms are synonymous, regardless whether the criticism is clearly personal (as re the criticized one's character) or not.>>

This is a problem. The Japanese, according to an article long ago in "Reason," did not have a term for an argument that was not an attack. Thus, in order to have a discussion over, for example, scientific issues in contention, without everyone taking it as a fight, they had to invent a new term.

I don't know if any other Asian cultures have followed suit, but I do know that one of the scariest things about China is the definite lack of any concept of objectivity, much less objectivism. In Chinese culture, information is almost always systematically distorted by the need to present the right "face" to someone else, usually a superior, who may "kill the messenger," or an inferior, who must be kept in the dark, lest they use information against ones self.

People, whether from a deeply objective oriented West or a subjective East, clearly enjoy the thrill of combat, whether as a participant or audience. Unfortunately, if you judge people by what ideas they hold, then you must inevitably hold yourself - as a member of the class "people" - to the same standard. This means essentially an emotional investment in whatever ideas you happen to hold.

Then, when someone on "your side" behaves obnoxiously toward a speaker or panelist at a conference, for example, you repress your recognition of the inappropriateness of the behavior and cheer them on as a fellow warrior in the good cause. Never mind that it ensures that anyone you might have hoped to convince of your position has now been pushed into a similar confrontational stance, and will likely no longer be listening to any actual ideas.

Yet this is exactly the core message that Ayn presented when she focussed on the fact that people would do just about anything to avoid challenging their own values.

If we are to hope to convince others of the value of objectivity and Objectivism, then we must apply it first to ourselves.

I prefer a kind of Zen approach. I try to consider all the things that I naturally would shy away from. I don't have a systematic approach to this yet, but I regularly consider whether, for example, I should kill myself. What does life offer me? Is it worth it to continue? I try not to attach an emotional load to the issues, but rather to simply examine them like any other factual question.

Post 21

Saturday, January 6, 2007 - 3:01pm

<<Dean Michael Gores
In what ways do you see life as meaningful and enjoyable?>>

Enjoyable: movies, music, great novels, learning new things, having an impact on the world, using myself completely up, girl's bodies (can 4 billion years of evolution be wrong?) ;)

Meaningful: participating in the universe's awakening*, understanding a little more each day, having occasionaly intellectual breakthroughs, being able to bring more and more of experience into clear mental focus, being able to change the world, challenging myself.

(What I'm missing, however, at present: close personal relationships, especially romantic, and enough time to devote to research and abstract thought issues... Wait. Are these values mutually compatible?) ;)

*Great scene in the sf classic "Red Mars," by Kim Stanley Robinson in which a leading scientist of the upcoming Mars expedition is challenged by an econut who argues that we should leave Mars alone, that we have no right to "rape" yet another planet in our insane quest to dominate the universe. The scientist replies that without us, the universe is blind, deaf and dumb. We are the eyes, ears, and mind of this universe. It is up to us to ensure that we live and spread. We are the evolutionary force by which the universe itself evolves intelligence and meaning.

Post 22

Saturday, January 6, 2007 - 3:01pm

<<Thursday, December 21, 2006 - 3:18pm Reply
John Dailey>>

I've thought about the possibility of such a "church" (for lack of a better term).

It might work. However, one of the key elements in the religious experience is the element of an ideal. For those who believe in God(s) Who answer to prayers, this often gets very practical results. Having called upon the Final Authority, they can rest in relative piece regarding some issue or dilemna. Perhaps more important, they get answers.

"Star Trek" creator and Ayn Rand fan, Gene Roddenbury gave a talk once in which he described how he created the characters of the series, particularly Spock. He would go upstairs to an empty room, containing just a desk and chair. He would lay a legal pad on the desk and draw a vertical line down the middle. At the top, on one side, he would write "Spock." On the other, "Me." Then he would hold a conversation with Spock, writing the questions and answers.

The interesting thing was that he got real answers, not just to what Spock looked like, his personal history, his personality, but also regarding abstract issues, sometimes yielding replies that he himself had never thought of. On one occasion, he said that he asked Spock ~ "So what is the purpose of the universe, anyway." And Spock replied, "Well, obviously the universe is a hothouse for evolving intelligence."

When a devout Christian kneels at his bedside and asks "Jesus" for guidance in choosing the right thing to do, he is creating in his own mind a "Jesus" object, with attributes, methods, ect., just like a JavaScript object for a website. Having defined the "Jesus" object as having certain attributes, such as infinite wisdom, a kind of objectivity, absolute truthfulness and benevolence, the answers the believing Christian gets from prayer may very well be of better quality than what he would personally decide via a non-prayer cognitive path. They will almost certainly at least be consistent with the Christian morality, and may well get him past personal emotional blocks or fears related to "doing the right thing."

The worst thing about the Rand/Branden breakup was that, for a great many Objectivists, the two of them were virtually Gods. At minimum, they were seen as champions and heros, and they, plus the pure abstraction "John Galt," of course, substituted in many people's minds for God, Jesus, Allah, whatever, not in the sense of having any supernatural powers, of course, but simply in that one could ask, in ones own mind, "what would John Galt, or Ayn, or Nathaniel do." And I suspect that it also worked to get people past personal hurdles involved in the problem of thinking objectively about things one has an emotional investment in.

This is natural, and there is nothing inherently wrong with the practice, although there are clearly dangers and potential downsides. We need heros as well as art to serve as cognitive/emotional reference objects, to help clarify complex issues and keep us focussed.

The problem, then, with such a universalist church of reason, is that one man's God is another man's heresy. I don't know if you could make such a thing work on any scale without heros or Gods to concretize the abstractions, and taking that step automatically puts you at odds with the very people you would hope to bring in.

That said, it might be useful to have such a church for those of us who are already convinced, as a social gathering or organizing center. I know that when I attend meetings put on locally by the Ayn Rand Institute, it's not usually in the hopes of learning anything new, but rather as a way of forcing myself to focus in depth on the set of ideas being presented, as well as a place to meet other like-minded people.

The examples for that sort of thing are fairly numerous, from the old EST groups, to the Unitarian/Universalists. The U/U has no categorical beliefs and many atheists attend their services or participate in their various discussion groups. The only common principle appears to be a kind of intellectual awareness missing from most random personal associations. You may not agree with anyone there, but at least you will be able to intelligently argue with them.

Anyway, I think that the idea has merit. Just not sure how to go about it, or if it could actually bring in anyone who isn't already on board.

I've also noticed, BTW, that the organizations to which I already belong or participate in, such as science fiction clubs, or various humanist/atheist groups, are seriously greying. Very few youth attend, and then typically because their parents are. At the same time, within the youth, there is a apparently a growing movement to create "infoshops," which are typically a combination of bookstore, coffee-shop, meeting place, internet cafe and crash house. There are kids, often on their own, who move around the country, staying at these infoshops, working enough to pay the rent and survive. The support they get is as much psychological and "spiritual" as physical.

Many of them are seriously intellectual as well and have read extensively. Unfortunately, the intellectual schools of thought into which they have typically bought are of the left "progressive" variety. It might be possible, however, to have a real influence within that subculture. These are kids who have had it with the seriously negative public school systems and traditional political ideas. They have energy and a desire to do something important with their lives, which is a good starting point, at minimum.

Post 23

Sunday, January 7, 2007 - 10:32am

Phil,

You said, �For those who believe in God(s) Who answer to prayers, this often gets very practical results. Having called upon the Final Authority, they can rest in relative piece regarding some issue or dilemma. Perhaps more important, they get answers.� And you mentioned how it allowed some individuals to give up stress or worry, having passed their problems on.

Asking a supernatural being for help is something that a Church of Reason wouldn�t help with � and that is a good thing. If the individual were able to gain more inner resources from what the Church of Reason did supply they would be in better condition to deal with the problem or issue on their own.

I agree that we need heroes. And I agree with your statement that �one man�s God is another�s heresy.� Also, there are some who �worship� a God or give allegiance to a hero in an unhealthy way � a way that unnecessarily limits them from reaching their own full powers and capabilities � like a return to childhood. For those reasons, a Church of Reason might not offer heroes, but rather examples of those who had behaved heroically. The focus being more on the virtue of the act. More like doses of Chicken Soup (perhaps you�ve seen copies of that series of books.) People would still be choosing their heroes on their own.

If the idea caught on and churches like this began appearing, people could choose the one whose style best fit their personality and orientation. I would be looking for the The Church of Reason for Happy Objectivists :-)

Religion was the dominate force in ethics for centuries. Being a rather static philosophy by nature, it didn�t need a cadre of intellectuals, academic scholars and religions philosophers to handle its evolution and distribution. It has a very simple distribution system. Priests speak from the pulpit and what mixture of ethical understanding the populace in an area acquire they pass on to their kids � kids who become columnists, the next set of teachers, and so forth.

Religion has lost much of its previously unquestioned authority in our modern, technical world. This has left a vacuum that should be picked up by a rational ethical code. I see a Church of Reason stepping into the existing distribution system � as a competitor.

Having been an atheist since age 14 and abhorring mysticism, I still cringe a little at choosing the term �church� but why let the mystics act as if that word belongs to them. And why not compete head-on � �Here is a better church.�

In a culture that continues to depreciate intelligence more and more each year, it becomes harder and harder to emotionally reaffirm our value of intelligence by seeing it in others. And it becomes harder to experience that psychological visibility where we see our value of intelligence reflected in the responses of others. There are very good reasons for an organized structure that fulfills some of an intelligent person�s social and psychological needs (and it doesn�t hurt that it does so while teaching a rational system of ethics).

Post 24

Monday, January 22, 2007 - 8:27pm

Some semi-random thoughts on the thread:

One of the key elements to the success of Christianity in becoming the dominent religion of the planet is and was its insistance on the brotherhood of man. Not that it has consistently lived up to its own ideals, of course, but the idea of joining a brotherhood of people pledged to a moral/philosophical ideal, which promised to wipe the slate clean as to ones prior misdeeds, and provided a social organization by which disputes could be peacefully resolved, thus ending endemic cycles of feuds, had to have been extremely attractive.

I think that it may be possible to achieve something of the sort on a rational, objectively selfish basis. Human beings do need personal contact with people who know them, to whom they are visible as a distinct individual. This implies long term relationships, ideally involving mutual striving for worthwhile goals. It is, after all, only when we are being challenged and tested that our strengths - and weaknesses - come to the fore.

This is one of the chief attractants of many human institutions, I'm sure. Even an overtly hostile workplace or toxic family situation can become valued for the fact that the very people who drive one up the wall are only able to do so by first having some level of insight into your character. We experience ourselves by bumping into the world. When we withdraw from such situations without providing an alternative, we may find in time that we are losing motivation and drifting, as the feedback that kept us aware of who we really are is missing.

The left/left-anarchist kids who tend to create and frequent places like the infoshops are taking the positive steps to build relationships and create personal visibility. That they also hold deeply mistaken beliefs about ethics, politics, metaphysics, etc., no doubt has a negative impact both in their life goals and behaviors, and also in their interpersonal relationships. However, they are forging ahead, nonetheless, with their communities.

Partially - perhaps largely - because of all the nonsense altruistic garbage that we have all been inculcated with from birth, we humans generally find it difficult to forge close relationships. Even a one-to-one love affair is fraught with conflicts arising from the ingrained idea that we are supposed to surrender our own goals and values to the "relationship." I'm reminded of a romantic comedy of long ago, in which the two lovers, to prove how in love they are, take turns tossing every valuable thing they own over Niagra Falls ... to the point that suddenly they find themselves HATING each other!

It's quite funny in the movie. Not so much in real life. There's a group locally that bases its philosophy on the writings of Robert Heinlein, specifically his "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," generally considered his best work. The "Live the Dream" group has put together "intentional families," consisting of people who want a family life, not just a one-on-one thing, but a full, extended family in which the adults are typically all married to each other - for several decades now. I'm interested in observing how they make that work.

http://www.geocities.com/live_the_dream2000/about.html

Post 25

Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 6:13pm

Failing to find any happiness in attempting to be consistent and rational - within the bounds of their erroneous beliefs - they find peace in accepting some irrational fantasy such as a religious cult, usually at the recommendation of some friend who has gone the same route before them and is eager to "help" them. Naturally, this peace is fragile and often short-lived, as it not only accomplishes little or nothing in improving their lives, but also carries with it certain implicit evaluations.

To wit: that reality itself is somehow malevolent and that they are incapable of dealing successfully with it.

There are plenty of historical examples of persons who found life-long meaning through their respective religious affiliation and involvement. (As for myself, my experience in the Church has been both spiritually and intellectually fulfilling.) And though many have found peace through relationship with God, this peace has often served to support lives of incredible activity, and lives dedicated to virtue, charity, and intellectual pursuit. "God provides the wind, but we must raise the sail," as St. Augustine says.

A large portion of today's humanity is caught up to one degree or another in this potential death spiral. Many of them manage to compartmentalize their lives so that they only turn to irrationalism when serious metaphysical issues confront them. The idea, for example, that "God has a plan" allows them to deal with death and injustice without falling into despair. The irrationalism becomes the automatic escape door from metaphysical angst, with formulas to cover all contingencies. This is very likely the major underpinning of religion in general, to stave off despair at not having a real understanding of life or how to properly deal with it.

One could just as easily say that the real underpinning of atheism is essentially individual self-assertion coupled with incredulity towards any and all metaphysical worldviews which challenge such self-assertion. Atheists like Nietzsche, Sartre, and Foucault, for instance, all saw Christianity as an ethical interference- in that it prohibited human will-to-power. What were the practical implications? Well, it appears Nietzsche fell into insanity by teaching a philosophy with which he was unable to comply. Sartre, as we know, managed to bed numerous women, and gloat over such encounters in his journal. (In one instance, he writes with glee about how far he shoved his tongue down some girl's throat.) And Foucault spent the last years of his life frequenting S/M clubs in San Francisco before dying of AIDS, apparently as a practical exploration of his ideas.

Yet their faith, just like Christianity or Judaism or any other irrationalist crutch, may betray and undercut all those good works and strengths of character.

It's not the faith that does this, it's the person, for a person who acts in accordance with the precepts of his faith's moral teachings will not "stumble into destruction".

If a person is religious, then they accept ideas by faith and popularity instead of science and reason.

Reason and faith are, from the Catholic perspective, mutually complementary. If you'd like to have a discussion about this topic, I'd be happy to oblige.

Post 26

Saturday, January 27, 2007 - 3:27pm

<Reason and faith are, from the Catholic perspective, mutually complementary. If you'd like to have a discussion about this topic, I'd be happy to oblige. >

Maybe someday, when I'm feeling particularly self-assertive....

Post 27

Saturday, January 27, 2007 - 4:49pm

Maybe someday, when I'm feeling particularly self-assertive....

A perfect example of self-assertion, under the guise of humility, seeking to protect itself from those forces which might threaten its self-assurance of its self-assertion. ;)

Post 28

Saturday, January 27, 2007 - 5:47pm

Gottfried,

I don't think an objectivist would argue that Catholic theologians cannot produce amazing feats of thoroughly self consistent logical reasoning. Just that they have the wrong set of premises. Ayn Rand taught that anything can be proved given the wrong premises. Sort of like the wheels spin beautifully, they're just not connected to the road (reality).

Post 29

Sunday, January 28, 2007 - 3:26pm

Mike:
The universe is written in the book of mathematics, as Galileo once said. Our world is amenable to human reason; there is a plurality of substance, kind, and number; there are material and immaterial substances which interact with one another. Propositions formed by language are truly non-spatiotemporal, and truly descriptive of material phenomena. Reality is thus a unity of plurality, in which distinctions are preserved but relationships are made intelligible. The wheels do hit the road, and the result is an incredible metaphysical harmony, which the human mind is most blessedly capable of perceiving.

To quote Leibniz:

Every portion of matter can be thought of as a garden full of plants, or as a pond full of fish. But every branch of the plant, every part of the animal, and every drop of its vital fluids, is another such garden, or another such pool. [...] Thus there is no uncultivated ground in the universe; nothing barren, nothing dead. (Monadology, ��67 and 69)

Post 30

Sunday, January 28, 2007 - 4:34pm

Gottfried,

You do have a poetic way with words that I sincerely appreciate. And the Leibniz quote is sublime. And if you are talking about man's search for knowledge about the natural world and of its wonders I have no complaint whatsoever about what you have said. The incredible complexity and your well put "metaphysical harmony" of nature "which the human mind is most blessedly capable of perceiving" are enough to preserve the wonder of and motivate the search for understanding of nature for countless more years.

Perhaps the question of "God" need never have arisen to confuse the minds of men and turn their thoughts away from understanding the details of nature.

Post 31

Monday, January 29, 2007 - 7:35am

You do have a poetic way with words that I sincerely appreciate. And the Leibniz quote is sublime. And if you are talking about man's search for knowledge about the natural world and of its wonders I have no complaint whatsoever about what you have said. The incredible complexity and your well put "metaphysical harmony" of nature "which the human mind is most blessedly capable of perceiving" are enough to preserve the wonder of and motivate the search for understanding of nature for countless more years.

Perhaps the question of "God" need never have arisen to confuse the minds of men and turn their thoughts away from understanding the details of nature.

Though the temptation to pantheism is often strong, there are a number of past and present Christian philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, writers, and poets who found (find) reason to reject it. We know that Leibniz, for instance-- possibly the greatest polymath who ever lived-- flirted with Spinozism in his youth. He eventually rejected it, not only because he found it inconsistent with Christian orthodoxy, but also because it entailed a loss of human individuality, freedom, and morality. Still more, Leibniz realized that Spinozism had the effect of degradating the rational sciences, since it confused the distinction between metaphysical possibility and necessity.

The use of God to fill in the gaps of science is often attributed to (Christian) theists. A frequently used historical example is Isaac Newton's theory that God was needed to intermittently adjust the planetary orbits. A contemporary example would be young-earth creationism or ID. Scientists hostile to religion would have it that this unnecessary intrusion of God's activity into the realm of science is typical of Christian thinkers. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. Indeed, many prominent Christian thinkers have noticed this tendency to invoke God to explain the unexplainable, and have gone out of their way to explicitly condemn it-- even deride it as un-Christian. Among such persons are St. Thomas Aquinas and the contemporary English physicist Sir John Polkinghorne.

Leibniz is another. He writes to the philosopher Samuel Clarke in reaction to the theories of Isaac Newton and his followers:

Sir Isaac Newton, and his followers, have also a very odd opinion concerning the work of God. According to their doctrine, God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion. Nay, the machine of God's making, is so imperfect, according to these gentlement; that he is obliged to clean it now and then by an extraordinary concourse, and even to mend it, as a clockmaker mends his work; who must consequently be so much the more unskillful a workman, as he is oftener obliged to mend his work and set it right. According to my opinion, the same force and vigor remains always in the world, and only passes from one part of nature to another, agreeable to the laws of nature, and the beautiful pre-established order. And I hold, that when God works miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the wants of nature, but those of grace. Whoever thinks otherwise must needs have a very mean notion of the wisdom and power of God. -Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (emphasis mine)

Post 32

Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 12:05am

If you do not believe that God is the prime mover of nature then why does God have to exist? If nature needs a creator then why does God not also need a creator?

Post 33

Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 8:18pm

"If you do not believe that God is the prime mover of nature then why does God have to exist?"

I do believe that God is the prime mover of nature, not in the deistic sense in which God sets the machine in motion and steps aside, but rather in the truly Christian sense in which God, who is eternal, continues to sustain and create the universe, whose existence depends wholly upon God's continual preservative activity and will.

"If nature needs a creator then why does God not also need a creator?"

Because God's being is absolutely infinite, and his existence properly necessary, whereas the universe consists of a plurality of finitudes composed of infinitesimal and contingent material simples (quarks, leptons, and the like). Indeed, it is this very apparent privation in our universe-- its imperfection and limitation-- that gives creation the power to point beyond itself to its Maker, who is eternal, infinite, perfect, immutable, incorruptible, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. That we find creation to be nevertheless intelligible and beautiful is owing to God, whose Mind possesses necessary mathematical truths, and who creates according to them. There is, after all, no reason to be found in nature itself as to why creation is amenable to reason, as to why mathematics reveals the essence and behavior of things.

But it's not just the universe's organization, but its very existence that summons our minds to God. We are amazed that anything should be at all.

Permit me to again quote Leibniz:

"God does nothing out of order. Therefore, that which passes for extraordinary is so only with regard to a particular order established among the created things, for as regards the universal order, everything conforms to it. This is so true that not only does nothing occur in this world which is absolutely irregular, but it is even impossible to conceive of such an occurrence. Because, let us suppose for example that some one jots down a quantity of points upon a sheet of paper helter skelter, as do those who exercise the ridiculous art of Geomancy; now I say that it is possible to find a geometrical line whose concept shall be uniform and constant, that is, in accordance with a certain formula, and which line at the same time shall pass through all of those points, and in the same order in which the hand jotted them down; also if a continuous line be traced, which is now straight, now circular, and now of any other description, it is possible to find a mental equivalent, a formula or an equation common to all the points of this line by virtue of which formula the changes in the direction of the line must occur. There is no instance of a face whose contour does not form part of a geometric line and which can not be traced entire by a certain mathematical motion. But when the formula is very complex, that which conforms to it passes for irregular. Thus we may say that in whatever manner God might have created the world, it would always have been regular and in a certain order."

Post 34

Friday, February 2, 2007 - 8:31am

GWL wrote:

Permit me to again quote Leibniz:

Do you enjoy quoting yourself? ;-)

What motivates you to use a pseudonym?

Post 35

Friday, February 2, 2007 - 11:22am

Do you enjoy quoting yourself? ;-)

It's a mixed bag, really. ;)

What motivates you to use a pseudonym?

The pseudonymity of it.

Post 36

Friday, February 2, 2007 - 4:56pm

Don't worry Herr Leibniz, pseudonymity is the height of fashion. Guten tag.

AS

Post 37

Saturday, February 3, 2007 - 12:36pm

Gottfried,

From this:

"I do believe that God is the prime mover of nature, not in the deistic sense..."

and this:

"God's being is absolutely infinite,"

I take this to mean that God is not a deity, that you have more the sense of God that Einstein may have been meant when using the word "God". Except for this:

"..apparent privation in our universe-- its imperfection and limitation--"

It seems that you must apply imperfection to the universe to make room for a perfect God. I believe the imperfection is in man's knowledge of the universe not in the universe itself. I think Einstein was referring to the so far unknowable perfection of the universe rather than a God separate from the universe.

I have never heard the Christian concept of God described as you describe it. I admit my illiteracy in this regard.

Post 38

Saturday, February 3, 2007 - 12:52pm

"If nature needs a creator then why does God not also need a creator?"
Because God's being is absolutely infinite, and his existence properly necessary, whereas the universe consists of a plurality of finitudes composed of infinitesimal and contingent material simples (quarks, leptons, and the like).

Nothing is or can be infinite, because infinity violates the axiom of identity. To be is to be finite -- to be this rather than that -- to be one thing rather than another. If god were infinite, then he would not exist. But to be finite does not mean to be metaphysically contingent on something else. In order for something to exist, it must be finite, in which case, not EVERYTHING (finite) can be contingent; otherwise, there'd be nothing ON WHICH it is contingent. There must be certain necessary constituents of existence in order for there to be anything that's contingent. Contingency presupposes necessity. In other words, you BEGIN with finite existence, on which all explanations rest; you don't try to explain finite existence by reference to something outside itself -- i.e., by reference to an infinite (i.e. non-existent) cause. Non-existence cannot serve as an explanation for anything. Nor, by the same token, does it make sense to try to explain the natural world by reference to the supernatural.

Indeed, it is this very apparent privation in our universe-- its imperfection and limitation-- that gives creation the power to point beyond itself to its Maker, who is eternal, infinite, perfect, immutable, incorruptible, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.

There is no "privation" in the universe; the universe is not imperfect. The concept of perfection doesn't apply to it. Perfection refers to a standard for judging the achievement of an end or goal. The universe is not, in any sense, teleological. Omnipotence is also an anti-concept. Power refers to a specific, finite capacity.

That we find creation to be nevertheless intelligible and beautiful is owing to God, whose Mind possesses necessary mathematical truths, and who creates according to them.

Oh, brother! Come back to earth, Liebniz!

There is, after all, no reason to be found in nature itself as to why creation is amenable to reason, as to why mathematics reveals the essence and behavior of things.

Existence is amenable to reason, because it possesses identity.

But it's not just the universe's organization, but its very existence that summons our minds to God. We are amazed that anything should be at all.

We are not "amazed" that anything should be at all. The concept of amazement pertains to the unexpected, which arises in the context of an already existing world as something out of the ordinary. Existence exists; it is the norm; there is no reason to "expect" non-existence.

- Bill

Post 39

Saturday, February 3, 2007 - 3:06pm